Sir, - Your feature, "The Casement conundrum" (October 14th), contained a misconception which I should like to correct. It is stated that the Putumayo Journal (Casement's "White Diary") had been ignored or overlooked by Casement's biographers. Prof Reid, author of The Lives of Roger Casement (1976), is one historian no longer in a position to defend himself, so perhaps I may be allowed to point out that he made extensive use of the manuscript material.
Peter Singleton-Gates, the journalist who was first to publish two of the "Black Diaries" (and a "Black" ledger), died some years ago. He too took good care to consult the Putumayo Journal in the 1950s, and he included extracts from it in his The Black Diaries, 1959.
In 1966 I went though the contents of those "two large tin boxes" time and time again, until I became fully acquainted with the Putumayo MSS. Apart from any other consideration, another biographer, Rene MacColl (also deceased), had advised me to do so. Contrary to what is stated in your feature, when I embarked on my most recent commission, I "was very sure exactly what form those Dublin diaries took".
Historians have no option but to follow the evidence, wherever it leads them. Nevertheless, speaking personally, it would give me great pleasure if Angus Mitchell, against all the odds, were to prove that the Black Diaries were forged. - Yours, etc.,
From Roger Sawyer
Bembridge, Isle of Wight, England.