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Dear Friends,
I entirely and cordially agree with Ferenczi's suggestion that the Committee be re-established, and hereby transfer the Presidency of the Committee to Abraham, personal reference to myself, I may assume that there is now a general appreciation of the impossible situation in which I was placed at San Cristoforo. Finding opposition and condemnation, I saw how hopeless it would be for me to take a firm stand that would be tantamount to denunciation of Rank; this was the chief, though of course not the only, reason for my state of inhibition then.
I should like to make a few comments on the present proposal. In the first place, I would suggest that the most suitable times for the correspondence would be the first and fifteenth of each month. The question will naturally arise whether we wish to adopt any fresh members. I have myself no definite opinion about this, but suppose that the persons most under consideration are Fräulein Anna Freud (both for her own sake and because she would be useful in her father's correspondence), Radó, Alexander, James Glover and Mrs. Rivière.
More important is the reconsideration of our general aims. To me it was always clear that our central aim was the safe-guarding of psycho-analytic doctrine that, before publishing anything concerning which there might be any doubt as to its diverging from psycho-analysis, he should first submit such views to a discussion among ourselves; afterwards he would of course be free to publish what he liked. It is obvious that the decision of which views came under this category cannot rest if the Committee might entertain any doubt on the point. This condition to which we all bound ourselves seems a simple and straightforward one, and yet two members of the old Committee have already broken it. In my opinion, this was because some deflection had occurred from our central aim on to another aim which I judge to be subsidiary though also important. The other aim, particularly championed by Ferenczi,