The article entitled 'Philatelic echo of 1989 Bush-Gorbachev Malta Summit' (The Sunday Times, October 4) deserves amplification.

I was in some way responsible for the stamp's design and printing in record time.

Within a few hours of the White House contacting former President Eddie Fenech Adami, who was Prime Minister at the time, Richard Cachia Caruana, his personal assistant, called me with the news as I was then the Malta correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.

Knowing I was also a member of the stamp design board, Mr Cachia Caruana said the event called for a special commemorative stamp.

He contacted the post master general, Alfred Costa, who initiated proceedings to see if the stamp could be compiled, printed and delivered a few days before the conference that started on December 3, 1989. Normally, a single stamp took some two months from concept to delivery.

I went to the US embassy and was surprised that they did not have a good portrait of President George H. Bush, but we managed to find one in a small booklet on the US Constitution.

I tore this from the book and went to the Soviet embassy, which immediately produced a large portrait of USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev.

I pencilled a rough sketch with an outline of Malta. The printers sent a rough proof the next day showing the heads of the two leaders in black, set against a blue background.

The relevant names were added on, but we felt the birthmark on the Soviet president's forehead was too conspicuous, so it was eliminated - for this we were criticised by some philatelic magazines.

The final proof was approved by the Prime Minister and the printers delivered the stamps within 24 hours.

Although the post offices were only open until 12.45 p.m. on the day of issue, a record 303,000 stamps were sold. The Prime Minister sent a first day cover to every sailor on the two warships, Slava and Belknap.

I was also involved in the naval vessels set of 2006 with designer Francis Ancilleri. We could not find a photograph including both the Slava and Belknap, so I picked an over-head shot of the Slava at sea from the Wickman Collection and Ancilleri craftily tilted the bows of the Belknap in a separate photograph placed in the background.

A close scrutiny will reveal that the perspective is not quite correct.