[[1]]

[[MS 2750/255/105]]

Brailsford I-[1 character illeg]-[19]26

Dear Wolff ­[sic],

These are the worst of a bundle that arrived this morning. They seem to me to transform the situation and I ask your advice on it not merely because your reputation is also involved but because I much want to know what you really think.

First thoughts on the Daily Express cutting force me to the view that it is my duty to sue the paper. I can only see one good reason for refraining, the loathing with which my wife would regard the proceeding. If I dont [sic], on the other hand, my evidence, past and future, everything I have written and anything I may ever write is publicly discredited. I can think of no other way of escape from the position of a man [one illeg. word crossed out] who is proved on official evidence to be a liar. It would not be enough, for example to make the 'Express' give me a whole column in answer. People in future would simply allude to me and, what matters far more, to what I have written, as a person and a book of notorious falsity. That is quite clearly my first view and I cannot imagine anything to make it different after a month's reflection.

Is there any friend in the great world to whom you could venture to submit the point? I enclose a draft of what I proposed to write to the press, a procedure that now seems to me to inadequate.

yours | Norman Leys [signature]

[*P.S.*] [the postscript is handwritten]

[*On second thoughts I dont [sic] see why I should trouble you with the statement.*]

[*I could go to London on Friday. Is there any lawyer of special experience you think I might*]

[[2]]

[*consult on that day?*]

[*The white paper does not say that anything I alleged was "cruel & malicious" or "the precise opposite of the truth" - see p.6 of the cmd.2629.*]