Eric Sams Letters to Andrew Porter

8.

19^th June 1966

Dear Andrew,

now that the total silence following the May cipher article has had time to die away, I seem to recall something you incautiously said about taking a further piece in due course. Perhaps you meant taking a further piece out; and in any case I quite see that there's no great hurry. However, that mutilated area is beginning to bud slightly, like a wounded newt; and I wondered if you'd be interested in a quite short article beginning on the lines of the enclosed draft? As an inducement I would try very hard not to be such a nuisance; and – better still – it would seem to be the last word, in every sense, on the cipher for the foreseeable future.

   I also have on offer a short but rather convincing account of why Schumann chose the actual names Florestan and Eusebius – in answer to your question. The reasons are quite simple and entertaining, and as far as I know have either been unnoticed or misunderstood up to now – unless Peter has spotted them? I could lot you see this in draft too if you like.

   yours ever

   Eric