“Graham Greene
Forgives Kim Philby, But I Hold a Grudge”
Leonard’s reaction to Graham Greene’s announcement in 1990
after meeting with Philby in Moscow that he forgave him because “He was
fighting for a cause he believed in. he wasn’t doing it for the money.”
[Philby, of course is the cold war British double agent that betrayed he
colleagues to the Soviets]. Leonard is
quick to point out what is obvious to even his children and, for that matter,
would be obvious to an idiot, “It’s amazing how much damage can be done by
people that aren’t doing it for the money.”
Leonard goes on to name many, many examples from Gandhi’s
assassin to an abortion clinic bomber. How about those people that burned
witches in the 18th century? You can easily add to the list, could be kind of a parlor game. Leonard quotes a Wallace Stevens line about a Soviet
ideologue, “He would be the lunatic of one idea.” He close with the line, “If
we don’t believe behavior counts, we are indecent.”
New word: Torquemada
= 15th century Dominican friar and the first Grand Inquisitor of the
Spanish Inquisition.
Excuse to link to Monty Python:
New
learning: Kim Philby defected to the
Soviet Union in 1963 and died there in May of 1988. Interestingly, he died just
as the USSR was staring to crumble, just nine months before Andrei Sakharov was
elected to the Peoples Congress, and 19 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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