Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Even Yevgraf Would Have Approved

Evidence has come to light that the CIA had a hand in the publication of the Russian-language version of Doctor Zhivago in order to qualify Boris Paternak for the Nobel Prize. The Swedish Academy requires publication of an author's work in the original language, and since the Soviets refused to print it, the work was produced in Italy involving some interesting cloak-and-dagger capers.

Here's the transcript of a chat with the author of a forthcoming book on the subject. (Subscription may be required for access to both links.)

7 comments:

jjv said...

The CIA of this period was useful. Today's is not. I also recall the CIA's funding of "Encounter" magazine which argued for a Free Europe against the intellectual pull of Marxist-Leninism. What I have never understood, as no editorial control of that magazine (or Pasternak)is why any American should be embarrassed that the CIA funds something in America's interest. Locals may become distraught, but academias disdain for this sort of thing repulses me as they eagerly suck up federal dollars from every other agency to run America down.

LAM said...

Academia is running America down? Simply laughable, given the disgraceful damage your Republican regime has inflicted upon this country, the Constitution and our moral authority in the world.

jjv said...

LAM,first, the use of the word "regime" for "Administration" is a trope of the Left which bespeaks its discomfort and unwillingness to conform to American civil norms. Second, if I may quote a "realist" European, the Jim Baker of his age, "It is better to be feared than loved." Did France ever follow us because of "moral authority?" Even if I granted we had somehow been "immoral" which I don't it should not bother those liberals now clamoring for a "realist" foreign policy. Finally, the liberal's version of what the Constitution is or requires changes more often than the seasons. What you decry today will be gospel tomorrow. It has no relation to the Constitution as written or interpreted for 200 years.

Let us look at academia and the Constitution. Did the Duke faculty uphold "innocent until proven guilty" as liberals have interpreted it ad nauseum? Is the treatment of Berger over Libby some kind of equal justice I'm not familiar with? I guess all of those ROTC classes at Harvard and Yale demonstrate those institution's commitment to defending the country. And the defenestration of Harvard's President for intimating men and women might be different certainly showed a commitment to academic freedom.

Anonymous said...

JJV, I deplore it when politically correct yahoos shout down debates at academic institutions (although it was hard not to be amused when psychotic ranter Ann Coulter got a pie in the face). Point taken - but then again I tend to be a First Amendment fundamentalist.

On the second (fear vs. love) point, if you're going to practice a foreign policy that my Republican Air Force Officer brother referred to as "universal alienation", then you'd better deal from a position of strength. From the size of the military to the Rumsfeldian troop allocation to the "guns and butter" "we're at war, let's have a nice tax cut and spend spend spend" philosophy, the current administration is nimbly managing to land on the worst of both worlds.

And to close, implying that inconsistency in interpreting the Constitution is uniquely a vice of the left is simply unsustainable. Notice the dust cloud that formed as those who were confirmed "States Rights" Federalists stampeded away from their principles when the issues shifted from those where they LIKED what the holdouts were doing (desegregation, etc) to those they didn't (gay marriage, end of life issues, how to elect a President, etc.).

JCC

jjv said...

JCC, I'd note that "state's rights" is a popular term for the idea that universal federal solutions are 1) unconstitutional in many instances and 2) often ordered by Courts with no Constitutional mandate. The 13th and 14th amendments were explicitly ignored for 100 years. There is no "gay marriage" or abortion amendments. There are many sections explictily written to determine Presidential elections and stop state discrimination by race or servitude. It makes no sense to lump all of these issues together and then complain that "state's rights" depends on what the state's are doing.

I love the term "universal alienation" and never heard it before, but major rising powers such as India and Japan and most of Southeast Asia approve of the U.S. The Arab world and fearful Europe are the ones who don't like it.

In any event, I am not much of a Machivellian but I don't fear the unarmed, useless European's bad opinion of us. We defend them and pay for the defense of the world as they shirk. Any one of them stepping up and paying 3.0% of GDP on national defense can complain. The rest can shut up and be glad we don't let them get overrun, or forcibly remove their nice historical treasures to an amusement park in Vegas for safe keeping when the Moslems start in on iconoclasim.

LAM said...

JJV, first, you've never know me to be either civil or norm, so please don't be surprised if I still am troubled by how the incompetent jester-in-chief stole his crown. Second, the plan to be feared seems to have gone a bit awry in Iran and N. Korea. Third, given the inevitability of change, to pine for uniform interpretation of an intended living document over the course of 200+ years bespeaks of a foolish consistency.

Anonymous said...

The 13th Amendment was ignored? Circumvented, sometimes ingeniously, yes. But not ignored, unless the peculiar institution survived someplace that I'm not aware of.

As I'm sure you're aware, the "states vs. Feds" argument over who gets supremacy has gone back to the Founding Fathers (Mr. Jefferson, meet Mr. Hamilton). The fact that differing people have different interpretations of a Constitution that was jury-rigged between the two is no more surprising than the fact that back in the day the Constitution was seen in differing ways depending on the viewpoint of the reader. The Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers make interesting reading in that regard. My observation is that no "side" of the political debate is a model of consistency in how they see the State role versus the Federal role.

My Bro does occasionally have a way with a phrase. :) Sadly, I'm less convinced that we have that many friends left. I'm not sure who in SE Asia you are referring to (the Phillipines?). The Governments of Vietnam, Indonesia and Burma may have uses for us, but that's not making them popular at home. There are a variety of oligarchies and other closed governments that we get along fine with, but that's not winning us any points in the "spread of Democracy" world, and as Condi Rice noted, the support of anti-democratic forces in the past has turned out to hurt the U.S. in the long run.

JCC