A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WHEN, on June 19th, two citizens of a democratically governed Republic to which we are bound by ties of friendship, debts of gratitude and community of interests were executed for treason, there was a storm of protest in this country, mostly but not exclusively coming from people with Left-wing views. When, after a secret trial, Lavrenti Beria was executed for treason, nobody seemed to mind in the least. Yet the Rosenbergs were trying to succour a police-state whose policies towards this country are full of overt or covert hostility, whereas Beria—according to the evidence against him, which was mostly published posthumously--had devoted his whole career to damaging the interests of a tyranny. He does not sound, he did not look, a very sympathetic character, and .I suppose it is fair to credit him with only the blackest motives. But at least he was killed for actively opposing, not for actively supporting, an autocracy whose actions both at home and abroad most liberal-minded men often find it hard to condone; and I detect—though I know it is pedantic to do so—a certain lack of logic in weeping for the Rosenbergs and grunting at Beria.
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