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Mimi Gaither was a long-time supporter of Gethsemani Abbey and frequently sent donations for Mass intentions. The Merton Center has letters between Merton and Gaither from 1952 to 1968. In this telegram sent to friends of Merton, Dom Flavian Burns informs Gaither that Merton has died in Bangkok, Thailand.
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Robert D. Crane was a Research Associate with the Center for Strategic Studies and was later with the Hudson Institute for National Security and International Order in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. He was involved in Republican Party functions and conservative-leaning think-tanks on national and international security and outer space security. He was a chief advisor to Richard Nixon from 1962-1967. In 1980, he converted to Islam and took the name Farooq Abdul Haq.
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An unknown sender writes to Merton, "I'm glad you exist".
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Thomas Merton asked Gordon Zahn if he had a photograph of the grave of Franz Jägerstätter. Zahn sent Merton a photograph with the grave marked in pen. Blessed Franz Jägerstätter was an Austrian, Catholic lay person, and conscientious objector during the Second World War. The Nazi regime denied him an alternative to armed combat. He was imprisoned and executed in 1943.
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Thomas Merton writes his condolences and sends his poem "Picture of a Black Child with a White Doll" to the father of Carol Denise McNair, one of the girls killed in the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Merton references, in the letter and his poem, the photographs by Chris McNair of his daughter published in LOOK magazine, March 24, 1964, pages 23-25.