Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2463

Exchange of letters between Heath, August 3, 1956, and Helene Cook Vetter, 12 Oakwood Drive, Harris Hill, Buffalo 21, New York, October 9, 1956. Attached to original is an article from the Baltimore Evening Sun, July 25, 1956, “Was Dr. Cook First to Scale McKinley? Climbers May Tell.”

 

Dear Mrs. Vetter:                      August 3, 1956

     I am pleased to note in the Baltimore Evening Sun of July 25th that something is being done to vindicate the reputation of your father anent the old controversy between him and Admiral Peary and his very influential supporters of years ago. Please let me congratulate you on the steps now being taken with reference to your father’s scaling of Mount McKinley in 1906. I trust this will be at least in some degree successful and per­haps have an influence on the final verdict of history with respect to the rival claims for discovery of the North Pole.

     I remember the controversy very, very well, and my own verdict at the time, to wit: there may be some question as to who was the first to reach the Pole, but there can never be any question as to who has been the better gentleman.

     With best wishes, I am

Sincerely yours,

SH/m

 

_______________________________  

 

Dear Mr. Heath:                       October 9, 1956

     Your kind note of August 3rd, received on October 1st, was most gratifying.

     Since then, there has been the LIFE blast of August 20th which was inevitable because they had contracted one year previously with Mr. Washburn. I was able to stop them for that period with facts and the new information was a repeat of forty-six years.

     My encounter this Summer in Tulkeetna, Alaska with Washburn and the two LIFE reporters revealed to me that there is still a barrier against publishing the truth about Cook. I believe that my courage to co-sponsor and launch an expedition to follow Cook’s footsteps helped break this barrier to a small extent. Even though the weather was uncooperative, the expedition proved that Dr. Cook’s route was feasible and climbable.

     I hope that you read Sports Illustrated, August 20th, pp. 15-16, “Tale of a Wayside Inn” and my rebuttal in LIFE, September 10th, p. 15.

     Your concluding thought in your letter, “…but there can never be any question as to who has been the better gentleman” is indeed a fitting tribute to a man who devoted his life to the service of man.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Helene Cook Vetter

L.