Volume 35, Number 15 · October 13, 1988
Valentine Lawford's Views
By Hugh Thomas
In response to From World War to Cold War
(June 11, 1987)
To the Editors:
In my recent book Armed Truce published by Atheneum (New York) and Hamish Hamilton (London)—and reviewed in the June 11, 1987 issue—I gave the impression inadvertently on page 319 that I considered Mr. Valentine Lawford, an official in the Foreign Office, in London, to have approved the Soviet Union's absorption in 1944–1945 of the once free nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Mr. Lawford had assured me that he never entertained such views and I recognize that my judgement was based on a misreading of the Foreign Office papers concerned. I wish to apologize to Mr. Lawford for the irritation that I caused him.
Hugh Thomas
London, England