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first term very nearly flunked out. He got a 42 in physics and a 54 in government (with 60 as a passing grade)—and his highest grade was a 68 (in English). His father, for once, handled the situation with some tact. While pontificating in his usual way about “the need to complete whatever one starts,” and while managing parenthetically to deplore Junior’s sloppy handwriting in his letters, Foster Sr. was nonetheless able to emphasize the positive: It was now clear, he wrote his son, that Junior’s bent lay in liberal arts, not in engineering or scientific subjects—however much father and son might have hoped otherwise—and he urged Junior to be grateful that he had learned in the nick of time what his strengths were, and could therefore play to them in planning his future professional life. 2
    But Junior’s unhappiness in fact encompassed more than a few uncongenial courses. He confessed to his father that he had been in “a constant state of depression” since arriving at the school. He found “every phase” of life at Haverford disagreeable: The food wasn’t to his taste; the boys—mostly Quakers—had a set of ideals he did not share and could not fathom; there was no high-powered sports program; and, perhaps worst of all, he had discovered that his roommate “exhibited several glaring tendencies toward Communism.” Foster felt wretched, lost fifteen pounds, and had “a constant tired feeling.” Realizing that his father might ascribe those ailments to malingering, to a lack of “stick-to-it-iveness,” he shrewdly played to a set of complaints Foster Sr. might find more congenial: He needed a school, he wrote his father, that was closer to home and that placed more emphasis on “college spirit” and on fraternities; and he confessed to a special hankering to be on a campus that had a chapter of Beta Theta Pi (the family fraternity for several generations).
    Foster Sr. took the bait. Misreading his son as usual, he announced that he had hit upon exactly what was needed to pull Junior out of the doldrums: a coeducational college. It would give Junior “a brighter life,” and that in turn would stimulate success in his studies. But Senior refused to consider a transfer until his son had satisfactorily demonstrated that he could “conquer all your problems at Haverford—even though you are unhappy.” With the promise of release in the wind, Junior studied around the clock and in the second term of his freshman year achieved “a very creditable average.” Fulfilling his side of the bargain, Foster Sr. allowed his son to transfer to Columbia, which accepted him on condition that he repeat his freshman year.
    In the late forties, Columbia had one of the best football teams in its history, and Foster Jr. became a rabid fan, experiencing near delirium when Columbia pulled “the upset of upsets” in breaking Army’s long undefeated string of victories. With a new lease on life, and trying his best to fit the collegiate mold, he did join his father’s old fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, and in fact enjoyed the camaraderie—including the repeated trips he and a group of brothers took to Union City, New Jersey, or to the Globe in Boston to catch the burlesque shows. It was the comedy Foster liked, not the sex.
    Indeed by now, aged twenty, Foster was well aware—though he had done only a little adolescent experimenting with friends—that his orientation was homosexual. At Columbia he sometimes dated to keep up with his peers, but fled in alarm at the occasional discreetsignal from a fraternity brother that some kind of sexual advance might be welcome. When one of them (a man later well known in publishing) directly propositioned Foster, he was so shocked and self-protectively “incensed,” that he grabbed a dry mop and chased him out of the room. Indeed, Foster’s uncertain footing