While most of the people who know me are not the least surprised that I might go to Iran, some of my family and my doctor are up in arms about it.

The United States Government warns people not to go to Iran beacause some have been kidnapped by outlaws over there. But if I did not go where outlaws might have killed me, my travels would have been very limited indeed. In Europe in 1959 the Germans I was with insisted that we only speak English in the Netherlands because of violent anti-German feeling there.

They may have a wonderful chance to say, “I WARNED him” if they see me being held as a kidnapee over there or having my head cut off.

This is a very painful business unless an expert does it, and they don’t assign experts to it when you are kidnapped. I know about that.

The United States still does nothave diplomatic relations with Iran since the American Embassy was invaded and its employees held there for a year at the end of the Carter Administration. As anaside, I know exactly where the Iranian Embassy was and probably still is. It is directly beside the South African Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington. Back then the South African Embassy was forbidden territory which I visited regularly. Now it is loved by Washigton and the Iranian Embassy is forbidden territory.

I seem to have a habit being in places the United States Government does not like.

When I first went to Russia legally, it was famous for the violence that followed the overthrow of the Soviet Empire. People told me not to go there. What they didn’t know or couldn’t understand was that it was a LOT safer for me then than it had been before.

The chances are less than fifty-fifty they’ll invite me, but I plan to go if they do. Maybe this time my luck will run out. But it’s a little late for me to change my lifetime habits.

I have been silent because I spent yesterday writing and rewriting over 5000 words for an academic paper I may present in Teheran. They are having another conference on the Holocaust there starting on December 11, and I was indirectly asked to participate. I sent a summary of what I would have to say to them to see if they were interested.

The whole world raised hell about the last Holocaust conference they held there. It is the only place outside the United States where facts about the official version of how many Jews died under the Nazis that can be held outside of the United States. National Review has given it as an example in its ongoing campaign to promote war with Iran.

I sent an abstract of my paper earlier and got a request yesterday for the entire presentation. Since Iran is on a much later time schedule than we are, I got it about four in the morning and started to write the whole presentation then.

IPIS, the academic organization in Iran which sponsors the conference, is understandably concerned about the topic of my paper. I want to talk about how the suppression of any questions about Israel and the Holocaust are part and parcel of our established religion of Political Correctness. But they are not about to let a foreigner hold forth on the general subject of theocracy.

As a Southerner who has spent a lifetime listening to outsiders tell us all about our own problems, I understand that perfectly. They do not need another American lecturing them about theocracy.

I wrote a 2500-word piece and submitted it to knowledgeable comrades for comment. Only James Kelso, as usual came through. His advice was invaluable and I rewrote the whole thing according to his recommendations.

Writing 5,000 words on an academic level would have been hard for me when I was younger and writing feverishly for debates that suddenly came up in Congress. Today it is even harder on me. I was up at midnight still talking it over with Kelso.

Kelso, bless him, is going to do staff for me. He liked the first draft but he likes this one better and he had some useful suggestions about what to take out and what to add. I pointed out that HE can add what should be added and remove what he objects to, and then I can decide on the final.

Then I went to bed and passed out. I am going to call Kelso back tomorrow if he hasn’t done the job. He is a busy man with plenty of things to do, but I have spent my entire career working with busy people who had other things to do, and making a pest of myself, a.k.a., following up, is part of my work habits.