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9 October 1927
Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19
Dear Jones,
I am naturally very happy that you replied so calmly and extensively instead of declaring yourself to be highly offended; and I would like to select from your communications what is useful for resolving and placating the situation. Just a few points will then remain, which your letter did not deal with. Then we will leave the whole thing to the test of time.
On the American question I have hardly anything to add, particularly as your own opinion condemns the behavior of New York, and I am relying on Brill to send you my letter to him. I agree with your wish that the training committees should have a uniform procedure and impose strict requirements. The whole organization is after all still young and untested.
I can assure you that it never occurrred to me or Anna herself to ask that her book and opinions should be exempt from criticism. If anyone barred Mrs. Klein from expressing her views—it is not my fault that she is so unpopular in Berlin—I will personally see to it that she is given free access. I also knew that the attitude of the English to child analysis was already fixed, even before Anna's appearance. On the other hand, it is unjust to give prominence to the nature of the attack on Mrs. Klein in her book. She has simply, on the basis of her own very extensive experience, developed her views and very reluctantly brought forward some polemical points. In the behavior of the English toward Anna, two points remain inexcusable: the reproach, which is not customary among us and offends against all good practice, that she was not analyzed sufficiently—put forward by you publicly and in private—and Mrs. Klein's remark that she believed Anna is avoiding the Oedipus complex on principle. With more good will, this misunderstanding could easily have been avoided.
More disconcerting to me than these tempests in a teapot are the theoretical statements of Riviere, especially because I have always had such a high opinion of