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Merton writes to Lillian Marks in response to her criticism of his article "Blessed are the Meek" from the edition of «Fellowship» (published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation) from May of 1967. Merton took an ironic tone in the article. Marks thought that Merton crossed the line and hampered ecumenical dialogue in employing the term "international Jewry", even if the tone was that of irony. Merton apologizes and pledges to be more careful in the future.

Reginald Marsh was a artist and friend of Owen Merton, Thomas' father and another artist. Unlike Owen, who tended toward watercolor landscapes, Marsh is often considered of the Social Realist school, reporting in detail urban life in the 1930's through his paintings and drawings. Merton writes to Marsh in April of 1932 while on Easter holiday from Oakham in Germany and writes again from Oakham. He would spend most of the summer of 1933 at Marsh's studio in Greenwich Village in New York. (Source: The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton by Michael Mott, pp. 61 and 73.)

Herbert Mason is a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies in the history and religion departments of Boston University in Massachusetts. He first became interested in his field through contact with Louis Massignon. Mason later introduced Merton to Massignon. Mason has written and translated many middle eastern texts from a narrative on the Gilgamesh epic to a translation of Massignon's most famous work, «The Passion of al-Hallaj». (Sources: «Witness to Freedom», p. 259; and "Herbert Mason" Boston University (website). Accessed 5 Dec. 2005. ‹http://www.bu.edu/uni/faculty/profiles/mason.html›.)

Fr. Francis J. Matthews writes on behalf of the National Association for Pastoral Renewal. He was also the Director of the Catholic Radio and Television Apostolate for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri, and was the Executive Secretary of the National Carta Foundation (NCF).

Thomas P. McDonnell was a staff writer for «The Pilot», a publication of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts. He often wrote book reviews about Merton's books, edited «A Thomas Merton Reader», and interviewed Merton for «Motive», a magazine affiliated with the Methodist Student Movement. McDonnell often sent Merton other reviews and articles he had written for «The Pilot» and other publications.

Chris McNair was the father of Carole Denise McNair, one of the children killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. He took a picture of his daughter that was included in «Look», which Merton saved and wrote a poem about called "Picture of a Black Child with a White Doll." He captioned the photo, "Carole Denise McNair, one of the four bomb-murdered Negro children, never learned to hate." (Source: «The Road to Joy», p. 332.)

Dr. Joost A.M. Meerloo was a Dutch-born psychoanalyst specializing in the area of thought control techniques used by totalitarian regimes. Most of his family were killed by the Nazis, but he escaped to England in 1942 from a Nazi prison in the Netherlands. In 1946, he emigrated to the United States and took residence in New York where he continued to writes books and continue his practice as a psychoanalyst. He coined the term "mentacide", the killing of the mind as employed in brain-washing techniques. After writing to each other for since 1962, Meerloo visits Gethsemani in November of 1967 (see Merton's journal entry from November 7, 1967). His books include «Homo Militans», «The Psychology of War and Peace in Man», «Delusion and Mass Delusion», and «The Rape of the Mind». (Source: "Meerloo, Joost A. M." Current Biography. 1962. Wilson Biographies Plus. Online. H.W. Wilson. Bellarmine University Library, Louisville, KY. 13 Dec. 2005. ‹http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com›.)

A Cypriot by birth, Costas Papademas first writes after meeting Merton at Gethsemani, In 1963, while he was a professor in the Journalism Department of Indiana University in Bloomington. He came with a delegation of journalist from around the world (see a letter to Merton from October, 21, 1963 signed by all the foreign journalists). When unrest broke out in Cyprus in 1964, he returned to his native country. Later, he served as Cyprian ambassador in London and in Washington, D.C.

Charles Stanley Thompson worked for the British National Heath Service. He converted to Catholicism in 1954. He became involved in a peace organization called the Pax Society, which later allied with the Pax Christi International movement. Thompson served as bulletin editor for the British society's «Pax Bulletin» from 1956-1963. He was also chairperson until 1971. (Source: «The Hidden Ground of Love», p. 571.)

According to James A. Ward, the author of a biography of Merton's friend W. H. Ferry, Robert McVeigh was as a young activist at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California, where Ferry was Vice-President during the 1960's. Ward states that he became "a chiropractor and teacher of earth sciences" who "shared with Ping [W. H. Ferry] a common affection and respect for Thomas Merton and his ideas." (Ward, James A. «Ferrytale: The Career of W. H. "Ping" Ferry». CA, Stanford University Press, 2001: pp. 189-190.)

Henry Miller was a highly controversial author, and some of his works were censored in the United States until the 1960's. The authors respected each others works despite their vastly different lifestyles. However, Miller, like Merton, had spent years in New York and in France and was an artist as well as author. Merton expresses a desire to read Miller's «Tropics» novels, but doubts they would get past censors at the monastery.

Br. Antoninus, who later went back to his birth name of William Everson, was a Californian poet associated with the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movements, publishing under both his secular and religious names. He joined the Dominican Order in 1951 after a second failed marriage and remained a religious brother through his correspondence with Merton. In 1969, he left the Dominicans to enter a third marriage. He founded Lime Kiln Press and taught at University of California, Santa Cruz, which not only allowed him to continue his poetry, but also made him known as a master printer. (Sources: Nelson, Cary [ed]. An Online Journal and Multimedia Companion to the «Anthology of Modern American Poetry». Oxford University Press, 2000. ‹http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/everson/about.htm›.)

Philip Berrigan was a social activist and writer whose acts of civil disobedience during the Vietnam War made him a household name in the peace movement. Younger brother of Daniel Berrigan, he became a priest like his brother, but with the Josephites instead of the Jesuits. He would later marry and would be excommunicated. Throughout his life, he continued to protest nuclear proliferation in the United States and was often imprisoned for his actions.

Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer of poetry, novels, prose, and essays. He writes to Merton from Port Royal, Kentucky. Themes in his writings include concern for the land, environmental conservation, the value of work, and the culture of agricultural communities.x000D
Merton began a correspondence with Berry as he began to come of his own as a poet and author. Berry had returned to a family farm in his native Kentucky and was a professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Merton could appreciate Berry's simple life of nature and solitude on a farm and employing traditional agricultural means, both critical of the effects of modern farm machinery on rural life. Though Berry claimed that his poems could only loosely be considered haiku, Merton referred to them as such and included some in his magazine «Monks Pond». Berry shared Merton's opposition to Vietnam and knew many of Merton's friends from Lexington.

John Biram was originally from England and moved to the United States around 1960. A couple of years later, he would quit his job as a scientist and focus on writing. He wrote poems and includes one called "A Cocktail Party" with this letter to Merton. He also writes about the negative effects of technology in a book called «Teknosis», which would be published until 11 years after this correspondence (1978).