Twenty-Four Hours with the KGB

...Copyright 1946...

...I reached the Consular Duty Officer, Larry Napper...

...He was sympathetic, but told me that Soviet officials were totally arbitrary, made their own rules from day to day, and considered the Helsinki' accords a joke...

...it was far more sophisticated than his old East Room style...

...E n t i t l e d The Mirage of Social Justice, it is Volume 2 of "a new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy," the full title of which is Law, Legislation and Liberty...

...We were told we would be taken to the airport for breakfast at 10:00: At ten, an Intourist woman of exemplary rudeness arrived with a soldier to escort us to the airport...

...I complimented Spiro on his playing and told him I'd been away from my table too long and had to return to my guests...

...But the rest of us may be forgiven for caring a great deal less about the definition of "law" than about the kinds of laws that have actually been passed...

...When the books and religious articles were returned, we tried, despite the incessant screaming and badgering, to see whether anything was missing...

...We were, of course, never allowed to eat, to use the bathroom, or to get our unused vouchers endorsed for refund...

...O Q 4 g W O O O ~ a O O ~ g U Q I 6 6 4 1 1 ~ O Q Q O ~ I O Q O . . . . 4 6 1 o l ~ Q I 9 9 4 1 s 6 1 0 ~ O O ~ m ~ O O I O . . . . . . . . . O O ~ o 4 0 Q Q ~ g W O O m ~ 4 1 0 0 0 ~ m O ~ I O . . . . ~4 . . . . . t ~ 8 . . . . ~ ~ . . . . ~* Edward Alexander Twenty-Four Hours with the KGB A holiday in the Soviet Union becomes an ordeal of harassment for two Jewish visitors...

...Instead, a man in civilian clothing arrived and ordered me to accompany him for "discussion of some problems...

...He replied (and repeated often during the night) that it was his job "to protect Soviet citizens from being endangered by anti-Soviet propaganda...

...Volume 3 is scheduled to appear as The Political Order of a Free Society, a title which, had I not read the present work, would have aroused expectations of a masterpiece, a true summa of this Nobel laureate's maturest thought...

...Remarkable," I said to my guests when I rejoined them, "the man's a real individual...

...We slept until 5:30 a.m...

...He refused to identify himself at any point...

...No, there will be time at the airport...

...After two hours of searching, we were told, at 11:30, to repack and proceed to the Intourist area of the airport, where a car would come to take us to our hotel in Moscow...

...last December 16 for a long-planned holiday...

...As I tipped the waiter, I remembered that I had forgotten Spiro's brandy snifter...

...Humanly speaking, there was no glimmer of light in all this darkness...

...Take care, pal," said Spiro...

...When I asked for a translation, he said the form merely acknowledged that we were s u r r e n d e r i n g a piece of " a n t i - S o v i e t propaganda...

...Everything had in fact been returned except one book and Hadassah magazine...

...The customs official who searched our bags became irate on seeing an issue of Hadassah magazine and summoned two otl~er officials, apparently experts on "the Jewish question...

...She now surprised us by supplying the phone numbers of the American Embassy and (suddenly recovering her English) told us we could phone from the "transit hotel...

...She would answer no questions at all, claiming not to understand English...

...Without missing a note, he managed to shake my hand and remind me that his group had cut an album for Capitol Records...

...Three border police arrived to help him with yet another search of our belongings...

...Although we had a great deal of luggage with us, and had slept and eaten hardly at all since leaving Seattle, we were made to carry everything out of the building by ourselves--doors slamming on us all the while - - a n d then over the ice 200 yards back to the airport...

...We sat there until midnight, but no car ever came...

...You've heard this expression...

...He slammed the suitcases shut, and said the Embassy would be indifferent, but did take me back to the interrogation room to phone...

...Perhaps Hayek was at all times clear in his own mind as to when he was being normative and when descriptive...

...There we sat for ninety minutes, having been denied permission to call the American Embassy or even to move about...

...We were brought to the British Airways desk at about 5:20 p.m...

...All I heard him say in English was that " i t ' s my job to protect Soviet citizens from anti-Soviet propaganda...

...This included my old prayer book, a menorah, a scarf with Hebrew letters on it, a few paperback anthologies of short stories, and some Hebrew language texts...

...During this process, which lasted from 1:30 to 3:00 a.m., everything of Jewish content was confiscated and itemized...

...Napper, astonished to learn we were still at the airport, informed me that we were in "the lock-up" and promised to look into the case at once...

...Hayek...

...By the time we reached the door, Spiro and the group were well into To the Good Life...

...When, however, he began talking about a body search of my wife " t o find addresses," I insisted on calling the American Embassy...

...Napper then asked to speak to the Russian, who--very unwillingly--took the phone and soon began to shout at Napper in Russian...

...Look," began the interrogator, "we know who you are and why you've come here...

...You've come to attend this damned symposium on Jewish Culture, and that is why you've brought these Jewish and Zionist craps [sic] with you...

...At 2:00 he told me that the matter was more complicated than he had thought because the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs was involved and considered ours a "quasi-criminal" case...

...We stayed for Spiro's next set and we would have stayed even later, but it was almost 2 a.m...

...At 4:55, two Intourist women and two border guards came to the door of our room and told us we had "five minutes to pack and leave for London...

...At 1 a.m...

...Volume 1, into which I have only recently looked, is called Rules and Order, Karl O Zessker, professor of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University, is senior editor o f The Alternatiye...

...My optimism nov~, however, is best described as guarded...

...I was taken to a room at the opposite end of the airport for interrogation...

...This was a formidable task because she persisted in shouting to her cronies whenever I spoke, and the line itself was constantly crackling with noise...

...At 12:15 the chief of Passport Control collected us and turned us over to the Intourist woman and the guard...

...After 45 minutes of this, we returned to the waiting room, where my wife was, for a second search of the luggage...

...Spiro's playing had a touch of genuine elegance...

...No doubt he enjoys some satisfaction from scoring points off an old antagonist, Hans Kelsen, whose "positivist" theory of law he evidently loathes beyond measure...

...He had himself apparently violated this "law," for during the long night he made a great display of the Hebrew phrases he had learned...

...My wife asked, might she use the bathroom...

...We met no upsurge of humanity or even humor in any of the Russians who dealt with us...

...It is in the opening chapters particularly that Hayek gives himself over with a kind of passionate abandon to pursuit of Perfect Definitions, slipping in and out of reality as a post-operative patient slips in and out of consciousness...

...Or to put the matter rather differently, I am inclined to believe that while the House of Philosophy has ample room for the Is, the 0ught-to-be, and the Perhaps, it has none at all for the Wouldn't-it-be-nice-if parading around as the Higher Reality...

...Today we may or may not be standing on the threshold of a new Dark Age, but I count it as wholly justified when exasperation gets the best of us as we listen to the croaking of intelligent, highly educated frogs who ought instead be helping us to check the wiring and screw in new light bulbs...

...Contact was always difficult because nobody would give him or us the phone number of the lock-up, so that I had always to run a sort of gauntlet in order to phone him, which I did at hourly intervals through the afternoon...

...I made a mental note to pick up a copy because I wanted to reproduce the warm atmosphere of Dorley's in my own living room...

...May we eat...

...I asked for the bill...

...Why, after a lifetime of the most trenchant analysis of the clear and present dangers of collectivism, has this great man committed his precious remaining years to so arid and unprofitable an exercise...

...When I remarked that suppression of cultural exchange and symposia constitutes gross violation of the Helsinki accords, he replied: "Never mind Helsinki...

...The Alternative: An American Spectator May 1977 23...

...BOOK REVIEW The Mirage of Social Justice F.A...

...but he neglected to make the distinction clear to his readers...

...I asked him explicitly whether study of the Hebrew language was against Soviet law, and he replied: "Of course it is...

...My last call, at 4:45, was answered by Napper's secretary, who told me he had gone out to the airport...

...I refused to sign unless the form was translated...

...It was then we discovered that we were in fact locked onto the second floor and could leave neither it nor the building...

...That burst of irritation was occasioned by the latest in a seemingly endless succession of fashionable semantic disputes in Imperial court circles in Constantinople--at a time when Western Civilization was crumbling and the Pope struggled almost alone to shore up its ruins against the enveloping darkness...

...After I hung up, he desisted in his earlier attempts to have me sign a "confession" and took me back to the waiting room, where my wife still was...

...We felt immersed in a sea of hatred and fear...

...Having eaten nothing since arriving in Moscow, we tried, at about 7:30, to get breakfast, for we were still under the illusion that we were in some sort of hotel...

...These unhappy reflections arise from reading the new book by one of our century's greatest political economists, P r o f e s s o r F.A...

...and appears to be even more tedious than its successor...

...For certainly the title of the work under review promises, but does not deliver, the kind of thinking we so badly need and which Hayek is so superbly equipped to offer us...

...The officer shrieked with indignation, but eventually left with the magazine and the unsigned form...

...We were, without benefit of any explanation, put into a room with two beds and an old wardrobe...

...We were, however, never to see him because--so we subsequently learned from him--he was detained for two hours at the airport and told lies regarding our whereabouts...

...I asked him why the mere suspicion that somebody might attend a cultural symposium should so agitate him...

...My wife and I arrived in Moscow at 9:30 p.m...

...t"Come Rain or Come Shine," music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Johnny Mercer...

...I usually pay cash, but this time I tossed my American Express card to the waiter because I wanted the receipt as a momento of that extraordinary evening...

...This reference to "Jewish Edward Alexander is Professor of English and Chairman of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Washington, in Seattle...

...When I got back on the phone, the Russian began waving his arms and shouting that "I can't waste any more time on this, you've had your last chance...

...And he speaks of the motives and intentions of "lawmakers" who, in their disinterested quest for justice, never have existed and almost certainly never will...

...we were taken from the airport about 200 yards across the road to a dilapidated, dirty building referred to as a "transit hotel...

...He told me that eventually I would have to surrender all Jewish materials, but that I should demand an itemized receipt...

...As we were led through the snow, my wife showed me that every single snowflake fallen on my dark coat was a perfect, six-pointed figure, the ubiquitous star of David...

...Yet we did see a sign from a realm not yet under Soviet control that the Jewish conspiracy may be more pervasive than even the KGB imagine...

...And if it is difficult to know what to make of a work of political philosophy that at almost no point has anything to do with politics, it is even more difficult to account for a discussion of economic philosophy-by a Nobel laureate in economics--that has only the faintest relevance to economics...

...My wife Leah was not allowed to accompany me...

...At 3:30 a.m...

...I returned to the piano and, not to be outdone by an Oklahoman, I dropped in a twenty of my own...

...When in Rome, do as the Romans do...

...But Hayek seems indifferent to the distinction...

...Hayek / University of Chicago Press / $10.00 Karl O'Lessker It was Gregory the Great or one of his early successors who likened philosophy to the croaking of frogs...

...At 11:30 we were permitted to buy breakfast (with dollars...

...and spent a full hour there until a group of five men appeared, forming a protective circle around two small plastic bags which contained--not explosives, but the items that had been confiscated the previous night...

...and Zionist craps" was repeated a dozen times during the ensuing hours...

...Instead, so infrequently does his analysis touch the teeming earth of real men and women that one can only suppose he deliberately chose to round offhis distinguished career in this relentlessly academic fashion...

...Law " i s " this-or-that, he often says, when in fact he means that, ideally conceived, law would be such-andsuch...

...One took the magazine away and later returned with a form in Russian which he ordered me to sign...

...In the meantime the customs official had taken from our bags all books treating Jewish subjects and all items showing Hebrew lettering or the symbols of the menorah and star of David...

...When I told him about the threatened body search of my wife, the Russian screamed, "you're a liar...

...I told him that I had never been invited to the symposium but had certainly read about it in American newspapers...

...Chappell Publishing House, publishers...

...But why...

...At 6:20, we were taken by a border guard to the outermost boarding area of the airport and there made to wait, with him, in sub-freezing temperature, until 8:30, when we were put on the plane to London...

...22 The Alternative: An American Spectator May 1977 She put us in the custody of a group of border guards gathered near Passport Control...