Capitol Ideas / Espionage in Outer Georgetown
Bethell, Tom
"Capitol Ideas / Espionage in Outer Georgetown" simultaneously needs and is repelled by the narcissistic drivel she plays, by "five hours a night, ego-tripping in this toy store." The brilliant Martin Mull, playing an extension of his Barth...
...The Theory of Moral Sentiments By Adam Smith Adam Smith's first book will startle those who think capitalists are purely selfish, for Smith fully understood that liberty must be based in a moral order...
...So were one or two well-known Investigative Journalists, who I fear have this covert operation under sur- veillance and are about to blow a rude whistle...
...I feel much at home in the place...
...But most should go to The Band and their all-star guests—particularly Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan—for making some fine music...
...With that, and a copy of the World Almanac, I believe I am as well qualified as most in Washington who pontificate on foreign affairs...
...Now he's after the CIA," my informant confided...
...Anyone could go on the tour—the price was $7...
...The Soviet Embassy was only about four blocks away...
...she came into a great deal of money...
...What precisely the Maestro did to annoy the Kremlin must remain a matter for surmise...
...Mary Meyer had been a frequent visitor to the White House during Kennedy's presidency...
...The Justice Department's new strategy in the Kearney case is to let Kearney off the hook, but to substitute as defendants so-called "higher-ups," headed by former FBI Acting Director L. Patrick Gray, who were "really" responsible for the alleged wrongdoing involvifig the Weathermen...
...0 CAPITOL IDEAS by Tom Bethel/ Espionage in Outer Georgetown Walking across downtown Washing- ton the otherday, I soon realized that I was being followed by a dog...
...Now I knew why he was following me...
...The Maestro makes the big time socially in Washington...
...But their response was egregious indeed...
...His first wife, Mary Pichot, was murdered one sunny morning in 1964, on the towpath bordering Georgetown...
...Cord Meyer, Jr...
...I nodded surreptitiously in Peter- son's direction...
...and Mrs...
...The real virtue of CIP films is that by stressing the texture of day-to-day life, they can avoid the bugbear of American cinema—melodramatic, contrived plots...
...I turned left at the light, instead of the customary right...
...The idea that the .very rich are always fair and sensible is hackneyed and wrong enough to begin with...
...The sad fact remains that magic, whether you believe in it or not, can't last forever...
...The Theory of Moral Sentiments wasgreeted with rapturous praise in its own day...
...It is possible to find a quiet corner and stay out of reach of stray electronic bombardment for a few hours at a stretch...
...Don't they know that the art-loving, symphony-going, culture-worshipping, Kennedy Center-attending Washington mutual admiration society also includes every single practicing Soviet apologist in the business...
...I checked with my sources when I got home and found out that this "Les Asp in" 26 The American Spectator June/ July 1978 is a one-time Rhodes Scholar, currently a congressman from Wisconsin, who has over the years made a name for himself by criticizing the military...
...Granted, the point of contention—whether Dugan should be forced to play ads for the Army—is a legitimate problem...
...The other part has to do with the pressures put on QSKY by its parent corporation and the station's resistance (a very popular kind of theme among CIP films, which is interesting when you consider the economics of the movie business...
...He seemed at first a little disconcerted by the new direction we were taking...
...I turned smartly into Sholls' Colonial Cafeteria on Connecticut Torn Bethel/ is Washington editor of Harper's and contributing editor of the Washington Monthly...
...Clayton Fritchey's house, further tothe west but still in Georgetown...
...Harriman's father owned the Union Pacific Railroad, leaving his son an estimated $100 million fortune...
...Admiral Stansfield Turner, the director of the CIA, had recently testified, and at the conclusion of his testimony he had remarked rather casually that when this legislation was passed, "it would be legal for a free-lancer to work for the KGB, but not the CIA...
...the Adams chairs complete with original upholstery...
...On to Mr...
...Finally despairing, I signed up for the Georgetown house tour which this year included the Harriman house (the "Riggs-Riley" house on N Street, built 1800-1815) for the first time...
...The clincher is the ending, in which the czar of the corporation (the heavies are middle managers, one in pinstripes and the other in plaid-on-plaid) finds out about the dispute, admires QSKY's spunk, and gives it freedom...
...I heaved my package over a wall, and heard it land with a portentous thud...
...There was a picture of him bussing Katharine Graham of the Washington Post the other day, so you know this isn't going to turn out to be good PR for the Russians...
...If you overlook some weighty remarks abort "changes" and "celebration" in the filmed talks with group members, and Scorsese's inept interviewing technique (which consists of either turning immediately to the metaphysical or repeating the answer he has just received as another question), The Last Waltz is probably the best rock-concert movie ever...
...making it the conclusion of a "now" film is laughable...
...he isperhaps the most strenuously egalitarian of the Washington Post op-ed writers...
...Theirs is a music that worships energy and spontaneity, and neither quality is notorious for longevity...
...The Weathermen, as most readers will recall, formed a radical-leftist terrorist group which reached its bomb-throwing and occasionally murderous zenith in the late 1960s and early 1970s, riding the wave of vindictive Peter J. Rusthoven is an Indianapolis attorney...
...I stood, therefore, in great wonderment be- fore the "inherited treasures, memorabilia and collected antiques," which (in the words of the brochure that came with the price of the ticket) "echo the owners' tastes and experiences...
...This was not a good sign...
...My final stop-off was at the nearby home of Mr...
...For those still in the dark, Maestro Rostropovich is currently the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra...
...Not too far for Junket to walk...
...Meyer is an arts activist who ran the Gres Gallery on Connecticut Avenue and assisted Nancy Hanks at the National Endowment for the Arts...
...Hardcover $7.95, Paperback $1.95...
...Stein and Wood the slip, I walked out quickly, adjusting the package under my arm...
...Their tight music was a unique amalgam of the sounds of America...
...At bottom, the decision reflects a somewhat transparent effort by the Carter administration to placate the myriad of FBI agents who vociferously rallied to Kearney's defense, while at the same time preserving the impression that the "excesses" which supposedly characterized the FBI and CIA during the Nixon years will be exposed and 28 The American Spectator June/ July 1978...
...and Mrs...
...But now he's been stripped...
...Together, the two developments further illustrate the curious and potentially dangerous evolution of that peculiar phenomenon, post-Watergate morality...
...O000000hh, those naughty Russians," they are saying to one another...
...Meyer recently retired as Assistant Deputy Director of Plans for the CIA...
...Compiled by British scriptwriter andplaywright John Haggarty, edited and with an introduction by Benjamin A. Rogge...
...To order these books, or for a copy of our catalog write: , LibertyPress/Liberty0assics 7440 North Shadeland, Dept...
...I checked with another source, to inquire about the progress of these hearings...
...Hardcover $6.95, Paperback $1.45...
...As you can imagine, that came as a pretty unpleasant shock...
...The brilliant Martin Mull, playing an extension of his Barth Gimble on the TV series "America 2Night," is strangely subdued, as if he mistakenly thought Ezra Sacks' script was meaty enough to eliminate the need for comic exaggeration...
...A9 Indianapolis Indiana 46250 , The American Spectator June/ July 1978 27 armament...
...the busts of FDR, Walt Whitman, and Harriman himself, executed by Jo Davidson, a socialist sculptor...
...Giving Messrs...
...a set of Ruskin sat demurely behind this ornamentation...
...I know a "tail" when I see one...
...These people have now received a terrible jolt and don't know which way to turn...
...With my newfound interest in foreign affairs, I was prompted the other day to purchase a Rand-McNally World Atlas...
...Boris, Peterson, and the Mafia Mother were at their stations...
...A subtle one—that much is certain...
...Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Boris withdrawing behind his "Street cover"—a copy of the Wall S ournal he has been carrying around forweeks...
...Rusthoven G-Men in the Dock—An Encore Not too long ago, this column cast a somewhat baleful eye on the decision of Attorney General Griffin Bell and the Justice Department to prosecute former FBI agent John J. Kearney for allegedly illegal surveillance activities directed at members of the Weather Underground...
...the main FM station in New York does so, and the spots are glaringly out of place...
...And though they release an occasional uninspired album, they don't perform live, and are no longer a musical force of any consequence...
...Junket picked me up on schedule at Dupont Circle and trotted along faithfully behind...
...I left...
...Good to see that our old friend, The New Class, is back in place here, plus a copy of The Penkovskiiy Papers and, not least, All I Know About Chess by Cord Meyer himself...
...Now, when I set off on my daily travels, Junket is nowhere to be seen...
...Some credit should go to Scorsese, who pulls no funny stuff during the concert, and who, with the assistance of no fewer than six directors of photography, has provided exquisite lighting and solid camerawork...
...The new Mrs...
...the 18th-century English wall sconces, the Queen Anne period secretary, the Sheraton chairs, the Chippendale two-tier table, Bessarabianrug, Crown Derby china, Worcester covered urns...
...It was not a smart move...
...The "mob of literati," Hume added, "are beginning to be very loud in its praise...
...E. G. West, who writes the introduction, asserts that "if The Wealth of Nations had never been written, thisprevious work would have earned for him aprominent place in intellectual history...
...THE NATION'S PULSE by Peter...
...Since my earlier column, the Carter administration has both changed course on the Kearney matter and found itself engaged in another prosecution, this one for espionage, in which the bulk of the government's evidence was obtained through methods quite similar to those employed by Kearney and his FBI colleagues...
...It is a veritable castle...
...When I stopped to admire a window display of summer fashions,the dog would stop too and affect interest in a fire hydrant...
...Junket was on my tail in no time...
...But the way the story is told is so full of cliches, bad jokes, and conventions that haven't been new since the thirties that any audience interest is quickly lost...
...He has been holding hearings on the Hill, with a view to preventing free-lance writers from working for the agency...
...The Wisdom of Adam Smith brings together his most incisive and eloquent observations on subjects ranging from political and economic history to morals, philosophy, art, education, war and the American colonies...
...It was so marvy to chat with him and think to oneself, 'Well, these Soviets are human after all, the Maestro is a jolly old soul and a Communist...
...LibertyhessLibertyClassics Wepay postage on prepaid orders...
...I turned to see if my "tail" was still with me...
...Station manager Jeff Dugan (Michael Brandon)—Alan Freed's squeaky-clean 1978 counterpart—is on screen longer than anyone else, but you'd never know it...
...Bold of Meyer, one feels, to open up his house to the hordes...
...Fritchey, formerly Mary Ellis Wisner, was married to a top man in the CIA who committed suicide...
...Clayton Fritchey writes a newspaper column which appears inthe Washington Post most Saturdays...
...the large Van Gogh at one end of the room, the Renoir at the other, the Picasso over the mantle, the Monet, the Pissarro, the portrait of Governor Harriman in the "Petit Salon," the 200-year-old boxwood, the information that there were four turtles in the garden...
...One was to get involved as deeply as they have in Africa...
...The next day I set off with my package—and a new plan...
...Delegate to the UN Special Session on DisNow Available: Adam Smith: The Man and His Works By E. G. West 1776 was ayear of momentous events, including publication of The Wealth of Nations—the book that launched the movement for economic liberty...
...I could see out of the corner of my eye that Peterson was startled...
...there were about a thousand of us gawkers, I would estimate, a docile flock of suburbanites who waited for an hour in the sun to be admitted briefly to the Grandee of Georgetown's abode...
...Those Soviets, they're nothing but a bunch of...philistines...
...and in the library the Kennedy-era books, hardcover with fading dust jackets, and the prominently displayed, tooled-leather edition of Why Not the Best...
...A man was brought to trial in the case, but acquitted...
...He has thus been in a position to entertain and yet advocate income redistribution...
...I blame this premature demise not on The Band itself, but on the form it chose: Rock-and-rollers, with only a handful of exceptions, have tended to burn out very quickly...
...Then I looked over and nodded at Boris...
...Nothing too obvious, like a bloodhound with ears hang- ing and tongue lolling, but a harmless- looking, shaggy sheepdog frisking along twenty yards in my wake...
...Hardcover $9.95, Softcover $2.95...
...Harriman, now a gaffer of 86, recently underwent a "security check" since he has been proposed for the position of U.S...
...I took my place at the end of a huge line of people practically encircling the block...
...The other mistake, no less grave, was to strip Maestro Mstislav Rostropovich of his Soviet citizenship...
...One strand of the storyQSKY's attempt to steal a Linda Ronstadt concert from its rival—while dull and confusing, is excusable on the grounds that it gives Miss Ronstadt the opportunity to do three numbers on camera...
...As Art Buchwald has pointed out, Harriman was a good friend of Josef Stalin...
...I confess I could not find a copy of The New Class on the bookshelves, which, the guide pointed out, were decorated prettily with "hand-tooled leather strips...
...I rap pled with its collar before it realized I was upon it...
...The nametag read " Junket," and directed finders to return same to one "Les Aspin" at a Georgetown address...
...Would I never be invited to the Harrimans ? I have been waiting for the dinner invitation for two years now...
...signed not by the author but by Robert Lipschutz...
...It was, and it was wagging...
...Harriman's wife Pamela was earlier married to Randolph Churchill and Hollywood producer Leland Hayward (she comes out badly in Brooke Hayward's book, Haywire...
...Since then, however, their output has been so limited that one number, "Up on Cripple Creek," has shown up on five of their albums...
...Books...
...The Last Waltz is Martin Scorsese's documentary account of the farewell concert given by the rock group The Band in November 1976...
...The Maestro is a perfectly wonderfully cultured gentleman...
...I had known all along that Junket was up to no good...
...The Wisdom of Adam Smith Adam Smith may have been the...
...Avenue, a haven for spies, mutterers, and lip-readers—assorted solitary sitters who communicate with ease at a distance...
...I sat in my usual corner and muttered irritably over my copy of the New York Times...
...The do g was still there, unwarily dozing on the sidewalk...
...Not so FM...
...I miss him...
...first great economist, but he was no dismal scientist...
...Let me observe, then, that in the past year the Soviets have made two serious mistakes, of roughly equal magnitude...
...this has put him on the side of the angels, allowed him to enjoy the best of both worlds, and no doubt alleviated the guilt that must come from inheriting so much money...
...I joined in the general muttering for a while and drank several cups of coffee...
...I have studied my atlas and consulted my almanac, and I pronounce Africa to be unwinnable...
...Into Sholls' once more...
...nonsense about this country's participation in the Vietnam war that has since become the conventional wisdom of the media and academe...
...He was instead a man ofgreat philosophical and historical learning, and his literary style was widely admired...
...Everyone was present and correct...
...There is no evidence, however, that Harriman has suffered personally as a result of any egalitarian schemes he may have supported: One admired the dining room walls covered with Chinese wallpaper made in 1780...
...The house looks, in part, like a modern "museum," with peculiar objects standing around called "sculpture" and strange daubings framed on the walls...
...Averell Harriman, who began life as an industri- alist heir-apparent and has ended up as a quintessential member of the new class, learned the lesson well, even if (as I sus- pect) he never bothered to open the Djilas book but merely sensed which way the wind was blowing—something he has ex- celled at all his life...
...Originally a rhythm-and-blues bar band in the early sixties, they first became known when they backed up Dylan in 1965-1966, and achieved wide recognition with the release of three excellent records in 1968-1970...
...I gather it was also on the tour in 1968, but at the last minute the tour was shut down due to unforeseen rioting...
...Here is a brisk look at the author of that epic, written for the layman and student...
...I wonder if the old stone faces of the Comintern realize that this has cost them more goodwill in Washington than almost anything since the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague...
...The Band is a peculiar case...
...and yes, high up by the ceiling, a first edition of The New Class by Milovan Djilas, the book by the renegade Yugoslavian Communist ex- plaining how the egalitarian philosophy, so noble-sounding in theory, in fact works to create anelite class of equalizers...
...What kind of a gambit is it, I wonder, to allow foreign agents to wander through one's own living room...
...I patted the dog on the head (which I realized was most likely "bugged") so as not to alarm him and thus betray my discovery to the chaps with headphones undoubtedly listen- ing in a few blocks away...
...apparently, he is also a tremendous cellist...
...Smith's friend David Hume wrote to him from London soon after thepublication, telling him that "thepublic seem disposed to applaud it extremely...
...their lyrics came from deep within the national consciousness (this was all the more remarkable, since four of the five Band members are Canadian...
Vol. 11 • June 1978 • No. 8
