The controversy over who first stepped on to the summit of Mount Everest is taking a very unhappy turn.
We also deeply regret the controversy over the nationality of Tensing, one of the two who conquered the Everest.
We have stressed constantly that in an effort of the kind undertaken by the expedition, credit should go, if there is any need to apportion credit, not to one single individual or nation, but to scores of individuals and to all the expeditions which, in the past, have made unsuccessful assaults on the different Himalayan peaks.
Every expedition in the past has added to the sum total of knowledge on assault techniques and terrain.
It would be wrong to minimise the importance of data gathered in the course of the last thirty years, by a dozen expeditions not all belonging to the same nation.
The amount of organisation and the co-operation of a large number of people alone has borne results; the weather, besides, was kind—a factor that cannot altogether be minimised.
Credit should go to all and we must not, in this connection, the significant factor, that in all this controversy, Hillary has maintained a happy silence.
(EDIT, June 23, 1953.)
