Fellows travelling
Sir: The collapse of communism in Russia — where does that leave Burgess and Maclean and Blunt, who made such sacri- fices for it (if their expenses were paid)? Still more, Graham Greene's friend, Philby, who not only betrayed his country but mur- dered for the cause — and got a great send- off in Moscow, full honours, Hero of the Revolution, and all that.
Indeed, where does it leave Greene him- self, who wrote that, if he had to choose between living in Soviet Russia and the United States, he would choose Russia?
A cheap, if androgynous, reviewer attacked me for my strictures on the con- fused thinking of a 'great' writer. But a member of his family wrote to me that Gra- ham was 'a goose about politics'. This is precisely the phrase that the historian G M Trevelyan used to apply to that other leftist O.M. Bertrand Russell: 'a perfect goose about politics'.
But why were these clever men so silly?
`We're dying out now and we could be gone for some time.'
That is the problem. I suppose the simplest explanation is my old friend Clem Attlee's saying, peaceably: 'A lot of clever people have got everything except judgment'.
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