March 26, 1968 
Mr. John Seago 
Mr. D. A. Parkinson 
c/o Barclay's Bank 
Box 309]1 
Nairobi Kenya 
Dear John and Tony: 
Joy, joy, joy! Happy. happy, happy! We got the money for the bongos. 
Now in my usual governmental double-talk. I have to qualify that state- 
ment. I have received information from Dr. Leonard Carmichael, Chair- 
man of the National Geographic Society's research committee, that they 
had sent to the Board of Directors of the National Geographic Scociety a 
favorable report on our request, and that he felt 'reasonbly assured" that 
the grant would be approved. Having known Dr. Carmichael as Secretary 
of the Smithsonian Institution for many years, a statement like this from 
him is money in the bank. I then received a telephone call from the 
Vice President of the NGS in which he said that he thought things would go 
well and he wanted to discuss a photographer. This leads me to believe 
that we are fairly well assured of the grant. I will send you a cable when 
I get the official word. 
Il am delirious with joy, overcome with happiness, and I am a big fat 
nut for thinking that I can leave all the administrative worries of this 
place and go out chasing bongos, but so mought it be; I am a nut and this 
is the sunshine of my life. eee | 
I am enclosing a copy of the grant application so that you can see how 
things were presented. I was invited to make the presentation personally 
to the field research committee. Fortunately, I knew a number of the 
members previously, and had done a little previous talking. In general, 
the questions were friendly. One of the members of the committee asked 
me rather pointedly about the risk involved, so I had the opportunity to 
make a full statement about the risk involved, including politics, personal 
danger, fever, outlaws, wild animals, turned-over trucks, helicopters 
crashing, disease, etc. Anyway, I did not give them a 100% guarantee; 
however, I did give them a five-minute lecture on the fact that if anybody 
could pull this off, it would be Seago and Parkinson. Then came the 
question as to whether you were trappers and 1 was able to give them a 
resume of the personal qualifications of both of you, and of past animal 
deliveries. One of the members of the committee made the comment that 
‘it does not sound like the animal trappers I have met" and 1 was able to 
explain that you were not trappers, but suppliers of animals on demand. 
