“I met Bob in Sweden in 1950 when we both attended a semi-serious course at Stockholm’s Hogskola. At first I thought him a brash, rah-rah, Joe College type… Bob was always a bit hyper, a leg shaker…and he struck me initially and even later as a bit manic. I remember him singing with exaggerated glee a Danish folk song on a train ride which the class took to Fargasta, a steel-making town….Also, my section of that class was a hotbed of angry people, me wounded from my labor union experience in the South and Midwest, Dave and Phyllis…unhappy with Dave’s job as a flack for the American Dental Assn. when he really wanted to write the great American novel, [another student] got fired from being critical of her job with the McArthur occupation of Japan [and another] had left UCal rather than sign [Gov. Earl] Warren’s loyalty oath. We were a highly politicized and frightened group—these were McCarthy and Korean War days—but Bob didn’t seem to share our anger. He was younger and maybe more innocent than we were…To our alarmed and disgruntled group, Bob just seemed too carefree… Read George Johnston Letters