SPOCK, Benjamin.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph manuscript opposing the Vietnam War. Three-page autograph manuscript opposing the Vietnam War by the American paediatrician Benjamin Spock, sent for publication to Ray Gardner (1919-1997), journalist and editor at the Toronto Star Weekly, and himself a peace campaigner and sometime Chairman of the British Columbia Peace Council; together with an autograph and three typed letters signed from Spock. Spock (1903-1998) achieved a respected position for his 1946 book Baby and Child Care, widely popular for several decades and selling many tens of millions of copies by his death; in the 1960s Spock became a prominent activist in the anti-Vietnam War movements. Spock had written a short introduction for the photographic essay by William F. Pepper, "The Children of Vietnam", in Ramparts magazine in January 1967. Gardner evidently read the essay in Ramparts and contacted him requesting a longer introduction to include in his own paper else in his peace activism. Spock's first typed letter (20 January 1967) accepts the commission and makes an appointment, with the autograph letter (5 February 1967) enclosing the manuscript.Spock opens the manuscript "These pictures and descriptions by William Pepper of the burned and injured children of Vietnam have brought home to me, as nothing else has, the inhumanity of the war which the U.S. is waging there". Injuring and killing children is the inevitable consequence of bombing strategic targets against guerrilla fighters supported by v

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.