In the event, all our worries were misplaced. Bob and I got on famously, and Irving, perhaps remembering the trouble that he himself had experienced with interference from the Paris office of the Congress for Cultural Freedom during his Encounter editorship, performed immaculately as publisher: always interested and supportive, always respectful of editorial autonomy, ready with praise and tactful with advice and criticism, taking on himself the onerous but crucial responsibility of looking after the funding. On one thing Irving was firm: the National Interest would not be a “journal”, it would be a magazine. It would be concerned about reaching the educated general reader, not the specialist; it would give attention to ideas and arguments and policy, rather than emphasise scholarship; it would put a premium on decent writing.