Editorial/Michael Straight, the Quiet American/Rich and Wretched
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIAL MICHAEL STRAIGHT, THE QUIET AMERICAN by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Who is the greatest living Ameri-can? In these doldrum days of the Republic, when only quaint fellows like Ronald Reagan...
...His testimony suggests narcissism and intolerance...
...He could be loyal to causes," the New York Times sympathizes, "but not to nations...
...Straight and his kind have very strict moral codes that soar beyond matters of loyalty to government or conformity to its laws...
...Straight's friend Guy Burgess practiced espio-nage from the British embassy in Washington...
...Michael W. Straight, former deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, former publisher and editor of the New Republic, and an heir to one of the Whitney fortunes, who has written plays, novels, and one of the multitude of books condemning McCarthyism and red-baiting...
...Greatest living American...
...With no traces of remorse, and with broad, ornate patterns of self-righteousness, he reports that Anthony Blunt, the British spy, recruited him into the Communist Party when both were at Cambridge in the 1930s...
...They frequently seek to ban those of whom they disapprove...
...Did their allies hurt any Americans during the Korean War when Mr...
...Straight arrived at these standards long ago, when it was more dangerous...
...Many of my friends are highly educated adepts of political reform, and most are very rich...
...Straights now-adays, and because they are so narcissistic and intolerant I view them a menace to the Republic, its values, and its security...
...At some point, the Soviet Union, like America, failed to meet his high standards, and so, without being tasteless about it, he drifted from Mr...
...Those were years of senseless red-baiting by the pols and a populace hysterical over "Commies" merely because a few had shown up in government and because the Russians seemed trucu-lent, had developed the atomic bomb, and seemed reluctant to withdraw from Eastern Europe...
...Is that wrong...
...But Mr...
...Straight do not report on their friends...
...RICH AND WRETCHED What is it like to be rich in America...
...By this standard, my candidate for greatest living American at this hour is Mr...
...Sophisticates under-stand that life is more complex and that the authorities can be very crude...
...At any rate, there are a lot of Mr...
...Well, is it wrong not to report the agonized screams coming from a hotel room down the hall...
...Straight harshly wrote Safire's edi-tors at the New York Times that "it saddens me to see it published in the Times...
...In these doldrum days of the Republic, when only quaint fellows like Ronald Reagan speak of America as a grand tale, it is unusual to speak in such terms...
...He also mentioned a pos-sible libel suit, and the Times hurriedly sent the letter to all of Safire's newspaper clients...
...Yet, even the cognoscenti must hold that there are great Americans, for instance those whose precious moral compasses inform them of the Republic's squalidness...
...Was anyone hurt by this...
...The cognoscenti believe that America is a sad failure...
...How, after all, do you think the rich feel when they hear liberal Demo-crats—many of whom were born rich, most of whom if successful will die rich—grumbling about "the rich and the powerful" or "the massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich," as a high-toned liberal magazine recently bawled...
...Straight is a great American...
...Possibly this instinctive intolerance explains their impassive and at times admiring attitude toward that grim tyranny that keeps things so tidy behind the Iron Curtain...
...Green...
...Did the Soviets hurt anyone living under their suzerainty in the 1940s and 1950s...
...Today there are many more like him, all answering to a higher standard and lamenting the horrors committed by our ancestors...
...China had fallen to Communism, and we were at war in Korea...
...Many rich people actually live very whole-(continued on page 45)tinued on page 45...
...If transcending one's country, if recognizing it as unworthy of one's allegiance, are your standards, I believe Mr...
...It is very hurtful, I can testify to that...
...Straight tells us that in the 1930s and 1940s he was a Communist...
...Michael Green...
...So while his old friends kept sending intelligence to Moscow he maintained his liberal principles...
...I often see the pain in their eyes...
...What are the constituent elements of the higher morality, elevating Americans like Mr...
...Yet he did not report what he knew about Soviet agents working here and in Britain...
...Through nearly three decades of high life in American cultural and political circles he re-mained silent...
...America is not only a good country: it is also a good cause...
...What is it like to live in a country where the vast majority strain and heave to become rich without ever having a nice word for those who already are rich...
...Adapted from RET's weekly Wash-ington Post column syndicated by King Features...
...Straight...
...Straight used his august connections to arrange jobs in the State Department, the Interior Department, and the White House, where until 1942 he was a speechwriter for his friend President Roosevelt...
...He also sent his own intelligence reports to a Soviet agent, a Mr...
...Returning to Washington, Mr...
...These were his friends, even though some were in sensitive positions in British intelli-gence, and highly principled people like Mr...
...Back then people were still tried for treason...
...One sees this view portrayed in contemporary art, literature, and popular entertainment, as well as in journalism and scholarship...
...This sort ot conduct rrom Ameri-cans whose liberal values have transcended those of America is not unusual...
...Following a reproachful column by William Safire, Mr...
...Now Mr...
...Jumping to con-clusions, the uncouth would call in the authorities...
Vol. 16 • March 1983 • No. 3
