RANSVESTIA

tour has been described in detail in TVias 80 and 81, I'll skip the details here except to say that we did Lebanon, Damascus, Egypt- including a trip down the Nile by boat where I was once again billeted in a small cabin with another lady.

From Cairo we went to Amman, Jordan, and by car to Petra and Aquaba on the Red Sea where I went swimming but didn't get red (or read). Back to Amman and across the Jordan River at the Allenby Bridge where we were put through the most complete search by the Israelis that I've ever been through. They dumped our suitcases up- side down on the table and then took them to be X-rayed for false bottoms and on their return we repacked them in front of the watchful eyes of the customs men. I don't blame them considering all the terrorist acts they have had to put up with. We had been in Jerusalem only two days when word came of the fighting in the Sinai and the Golan Heights and the 1973 war was on. We had some trouble getting to Haifa and then to Tel Aviv because all buses and trucks were commandeered to take troops to the front. Although sympa- thetic to the Israelis, especially after having been to all the Arabic countries, there was little Betty and I could do to help besides giving blood so we alone of our whole tour group got a taxi and went to the hospital to donate it. The technicians were young girls of about 17 and the guards and orderlies were boys even younger. Everybody worked in those critical days.

Eventually our tour leader inveigled El Italia which, with El Al, the Israeli airline, was the only line operating, to take us to Rome from which the next day we flew to Istanbul and continued our tour through Turkey and then Greece and home, by way of my favorite city-London and the Beaumont Society Dinner. Finally back to the U.S. and the well-remembered oil embargo. As I write this in April 1979 it seems something like a replay even though Egypt and Israel have signed the peace agreement.

In 1974 I made several trips giving lectures at medical schools, and radio and TV shows at various places around the country, seeing members of FPE in all the cities where there were chapters and with individuals in the rest. Got in a lot of good licks with the professionals and the general public on these excursions and made my contribution to the greater level of tolerance of individual behaviours that we see around us today. The country is much easier to be an FP

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