John D. Dingell. Letter to Daniel J. Miller, 17 January 1996
The ASE's had an enormous impact on many of the servicemen who read them. In his letter to the curator of this exhibition, Congressman John D. Dingell points out that the ASE's were a welcome diversion to the "huge amount of hard work and boredom" many servicemen faced.
Madison Marye. Letter to Daniel J. Miller. 2 January 1996
In contrast to that of Congressman Dingell, Virginia State Senator Madison Marye's recollections of ASE's are probably more typical of those who fought in the war. Many veterans simply do not remember these books, and Senator Marye's letter offers a simple explanation why this should be so.
Frederik Pohl. Letter to Daniel J. Miller, 27 December 1995
Frederik Pohl was influenced by the ASE's in a more subtle way than Michener. Pohl writes that Gray and Lieber's Education of T.C. Mits introduced him to "the wonderful world of logic." Note Pohl's interesting comment connecting ASE's with Ian Ballantine, founder of Bantam Books and one of the leading figures in the postwar paperback industry.
Hugh Gray and Lillian R. Lieber. The Education of T. C. Mits. Armed Services Edition [Q-4]. UVa
Mitchell Van Yahres. Letter to Daniel J. Miller, 3 January 1996
Servicemen like Mitchell Van Yahres (now a member of the House of Delegates in the Virginia Assembly), who served on the home front, were less likely to run into the ASE's than those who were sent abroad. The ASE's were primarily targeted at overseas GI's who were likely to have trouble obtaining reading material through regular channels.
Connie McCauley, Vice President, Jalem Productions, Inc. Letter to Daniel J. Miller, 12 January 1996
Like Mr. Van Yahres, actor Jack Lemmon did not encounter ASE's for geographical reasons: Mr. Lemmon's war was spent in the ROTC at Harvard.
Andrew Rooney. Letter to Daniel J. Miller, 21 February 1996
More troubling is the case of Andrew Rooney (now a CBS newsman) who suspects that the ASE's were not shipped to the part of Europe where he was stationed. The ASE's largely succeeded in the areas where the earlier Victory Book Campaign had failed, but both projects suffered from distribution problems. The mobility of troops, the difficulty in ascertaining accurate addresses overseas, and the understandable complications that arose from shipping millions of books to foreign parts of a world at war causes one to suspect that, at least in some cases, the ASE's simply never arrived.
Sharon Margulies-Palmer, Administrative Assistant to James Stewart. Letter to Daniel J. Miller, 12 February 1996
This letter from James Stewart's office reminds us that many of those who remembered the ASE's have died or are now in poor health. The average soldier in World War II was 26 year old; a person who was 26 at war's end would be 77 years old today.