Fedin - No, the order is not the same. The first public speech should be yours. Having received so many approving remarks to your talent and style, you will find the form, you will be able to. First we, and then you - such a remark has no solid foundation.

Tvardovsky: And the letter itself will be published at the same time?

Fedin - No, the letter should have been published then, on time. Now foreign countries have overtaken us, why now?

Solzhenitsyn - Better late than never. And nothing will change from my eight points?

Fedin - We'll see later.

Solzhenitsyn - Well, I have already answered, and everything, I hope, is accurately transcribed.

Surkov: You have to say, do you dissociate yourself from the role of leader of the political opposition that is attributed to you in the West?

Solzhenitsyn - Alexei Alexandrovich, well, my ears are withering to hear this - and from you: an artist of words - and the leader of the political opposition? How does it fit in?

A few short speeches insisting that Solzhenitsyn accept what Fedin said.

Voices - He will think..

Solzhenitsyn once again says that such a speech is impossible for him first, the domestic reader will never know what he is talking about.

(The recording was made during the meeting by A. Solzhenitsyn.)

[5]

UNION OF WRITERS OF THE USSR BOARD

№ 3142

November 25, 1967

Comrade A.I. Solzhenitsyn.

Dear Alexander Isayevich!

During the meeting of the Secretariat of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR on September 22 of this year, at which your letters were discussed, along with sharp criticism of your action, the comrades expressed the benevolent idea that you should have a sufficient time to think carefully about everything that was discussed at the Secretariat, and only then speak publicly and determine your attitude to the anti-Soviet campaign. raised by unfriendly foreign propaganda around your name and your letters. Two months passed.

The Secretariat would like to know what decision you have reached.

Sincerely,