Buchman occasionally had black, despairing days. Lawson Wood has said that on one occasion when a promising situation fell apart because of unjust criticism, he turned his face to the wall and groaned, 'Will these people never understand me?' I was part cause of one of these despairing periods in late December 1937. I had gone to the United States to help to produce an American edition of a one-shot magazine called Rising Tide, which originated in Britain and was now being brought out in several countries.* Buchman had worked long and lovingly on every line of text, every picture and every lay-out. On arrival I found my American friends had not only inserted certain local pages, as it was agreed they should do, but were making a number of other changes which they felt would make the magazine go better in America. In particular, the original cover - a dramatic picture of young men marching with banners - was eliminated and in its place a picture of a packed mass of smiling young people had been substituted. I acquiesced in this decision, and was proud that the paper created a mild sensation in the New York publishing world - the magazine Life reproduced six pages from it and privately offered jobs to some of those working on it - and that a large part of its three-quarter-million printing was sold on the bookstalls.

(* It was printed in nine languages and 1,630,000 copies in Europe and America during I937-8.)

Buchman hated the changes. He felt that the new cover made the magazine look like a youth publication instead of a paper intending to challenge both Hitler and the leaders of the democracies at the same time. Just before Christmas my American colleagues and I received cables from him. Mine read: 'Keen disappointment failure judgement lack control guiding policy Rising Tide, making perfect instrument garish, wasting priceless opportunity secondary substitute. Once bitten twice shy. Guidance was "overreaching". Today's evidence floored me. Glad not present in America. Would be difficult. No excuse. You had perfect instrument. Frank.'18

Buchman, I heard later, shut himself up in his room for some days, would not eat and took no interest in the coming Christmas, for which he normally prepared with the greatest care and generosity. Finally, Barrett decided that he must try to lift the gloom. He went to Buchman's room, knelt down and prayed, 'Dear Father, please give Frank a glorious Christmas.' This broke the spell.

'Why am I letting that paper spoil everything?' Buchman said. He got up and hurried out to get a Christmas tree and presents for those with him.

The cable did me no harm, though I see I wrote Buchman that it had 'stunned' me on its arrival. Buchman wrote shortly afterwards, 'Forget the past,' and he never mentioned the matter to me again.

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