From: "Fred Heutte" <phred@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 94 22:07:47 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Sudaplatov book, McNeil-Lehrer TONIGHT (Monday)
In-Reply-To: <199404190212.TAA07370@mail.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9404182207.ZM15362@well.sf.ca.us>
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I suggest you take Sudaplatov with a LARGE grain of salt.  The memoirs
of ex-spies are replete with self-serving truths, important omissions
and deliberate misinterpretations to meet political goals.  

Don't forget the 'security' establishments on both sides of the Former
Cold War have scores to settle, clients to stroke and budgets to fill.

Ask yourself this: why should he tell the truth *now*, and how much is
he likely to tell?  

In regard to Oppenheimer and the like, I suggest treating all observations
with care.  Remember that the national security state apparatus starting
growing in earnest after World War II but suspicion of foreign influence
goes back to the labor movement of the 1870s, and the art of the smear
was perfected certainly by the time of the Palmer Raids about 1920.

My very limited knowledge of Oppenheimer and others of that era is that
it is highly unlikely they provided much of strategic value to the
Russians.  Otherwise incidental contact at the political or scientific
levels was used effectively after World War II to destroy careers on
both sides of the Iron Curtain (re-read Darkness At Noon for the mirror
image).  

If I may summarize: the one thing we must learn from the last 100 years
is that the least trustworthy in our society are those we have deeded the
most trust (knowingly or not).  But then, it's hardly a new thing after 
all.  The Latin phrase says it most clearly:  Quis custodiet custodies?