Fair Game
GOODMAN, WALTER
Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Enemy Documents Since the retirement of Joseph Alsop, all Captured Enemy Documents have been forwarded directly to the offices of The New Leader. A fresh batch has...
...Can we make a gentleman's agreement...
...Little Red: No...
...There is no such person as Bella Abzug...
...See who I captured prowling around this mysterious jungle...
...A CIA agent will make a gentleman's agreement with anybody...
...Let's hang him...
...Little Red: Look...
...Big Red: Sounds like the real thing, all right...
...I didn't think the Americans could afford any more of it...
...He claims he's a tourist...
...You want Barbra Streisand's mail opened...
...I was told they were indispensable in Mexico...
...Needless to say, the State Department appreciates their efforts and sincerely regrets any inconvenience to the widows and orphans...
...Big Red: Obviously...
...Little Red: That's because they don't want to be dependent on Arab oil...
...Big Red: I'd like for you to find your way back to America and send us dispatches...
...Little Red: All right...
...But first we have to try him...
...I'm trying to figure out where we are...
...Making a Deal Tiny Red: Let's hang him...
...Little Red: It's his beautiful family...
...Big Red: Are you absolutely sure these Enemy Documents are the real thing...
...Little Red: But they're on their way to solving their problems...
...F-310: About diplomatic matters...
...Let me copy that down...
...Little Red: That hippie...
...Big Red: What's that you have...
...Big Red: Sounds reasonable...
...Big Red: Ah...
...Little Red: Because the President has figured out that the American people can get more gas at a higher price if there is no rationing than they can if there is...
...Big Red: Hmmm, Uncle Mao never told us that...
...A fresh batch has just been received from the jungle headquarters of the Khmer Rouge...
...F-310: Actually, our entire Cambodian policy hinges on Lon Nol...
...It's becoming very dangerous to be known as a friend of the U.S...
...Little Red: Tell us, is it true that the American Congress is going to expose the CIA's most secret secrets...
...F-310: Also, it has something to do with dominoes...
...Little Red: It says here in these Captured Enemy Documents that America is having grave economic problems...
...F-310: No it's that we can spell his name...
...What happened was, I was on the trail of Bella Abzug and she shook me in the East Village...
...Big Red: Say, F-310, now that you're here, how about explaining America's policy in Cambodia to us...
...Big Red: You mean the stock market is still in trouble...
...Little Red: Thanks be to Ho the Americans don't like us...
...Little Red: I don't think so...
...As long as I'm here, maybe I can do you a favor...
...On other days when the news is bad, the stock market goes up...
...Usually the news is bad...
...Would you please explain the Middle East for me...
...Ho, Little Red...
...Big Red: Yes, honor is expensive...
...Little Red: Wait till you see what I got here, Big Red...
...Big Red: No, something else...
...F-310: Nothing to it...
...F-310: The secrets are too discouraging...
...Big Red: Hey, mister, why would you want to tour a place like this...
...Little Red: Not exactly...
...Big Red: I begin to understand...
...F-310: Those aren't poison pellets...
...Little Red: They are going to solve their recession by reducing Federal spending, and solve their inflation by giving more cash to people...
...Suppose, F-310, we agree to let you go, in return for doing us a small service...
...While foraging for mortars, I found a batch of Captured Enemy Documents...
...Big Red: Shhh...
...F-310: No, only on the ones our internal security people don't like...
...I'd also appreciate it if Ronald Reagan is represented...
...Big Red: Please, Little Red, stop yelling or you will give away our mysterious location to the Central Intelligence Agency...
...Little Red: They are also going to stem inflation by increasing the price of oil...
...F-310: As a matter of fact, we can spell it backwards or forwards and it doesn't make any difference...
...Big Red: What's on your mind...
...F-310: Darn travel department...
...Why is he wearing those funny short pants...
...F-310: Don't be hasty...
...Big Red: They thought he was a Kurd...
...Tiny Red: He says he got them in Bermuda...
...Little Red: See-it says right here, "the New York Times...
...It's a full-time job...
...F-310: The main thing is that America's credibility must be kept alive no matter how many people die in the process...
...Only stay out of his way because he shoots crooked...
...Little Red: Stop kidding around...
...Then they will send somebody to assassinate me and probably kill you by mistake...
...F-310: Not a chance...
...Tiny Red: And what about this card I found on him...
...Big Red: I guess it must be the Crisis of Capitalism, like Uncle Mao and all those American professors keep telling us...
...They are water-purification tablets...
...Tiny Red: The white man lies...
...Scientific matters...
...Little Red: This isn't Mexico...
...Tiny Red: "To all Right-wing generals: This will introduce Agent F-310...
...Tiny Red: Then why is he carrying these poison pellets around with him...
...Big Red: Is it true that you maintain surveillance on all major and minor political figures...
...Lon Nol is the one element in Cambodia we know we can't go wrong on...
...Tiny Red: No deals with the white devils...
...F-310: Not exactly...
...Little Red: Ah, hah...
...Little Red: You mean...
...Little Red: Lon Nol represents the American ideal...
...Little Red: A white man...
...F-310: Do you happen to have $350 million and half a submarine you want dredged up...
...Little Red: According to these documents the American President wants $222 million to spend on Cambodia...
...You want me to lay a tap on Henry Kissinger...
...Little Red: No, so he can find us...
...Big Red: Hey, Little Red, do we have a submarine...
...Big Red: Inscrutable...
...Big Red: Inspiring...
...Big Red: No kidding...
...The foreman has to be Nelson Rockefeller...
...Big Red: What card...
...He will see to it that you are paid whatever you need...
...F-310: I can't...
...Big Red: That's a relief...
...We must continue the killing in order to prevent a bloodbath...
...Big Red: So he can beat us...
...Big Red: And then beat us...
...F-310: You want $222 million...
...F-310: I'm looking for prehistoric artifacts that I can smuggle out of the country and sell to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a fortune...
...Big Red: A humanitarian motive...
...The Secretary of State keeps the Middle East folder at home, in the drawer with his socks...
...You are an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, trying to discover our mysterious whereabouts and identities...
...Are you sure they're authentic...
...F-310: Absolutely...
...Caught in the Act Tiny Red: Ho, Big Red...
...Think of the embarrassment if we switched sides now and our confidential dispatches began to read Modoron Kuonahis...
...Little Red: How can you be so sure...
...Look what happened to King Faisal...
...Little Red: Big Red...
...Big Red: No, about geographic matters...
...Big Red: So why don't they ration gasoline...
...If I understand right, it's so he can lose with honor...
...But if the American Secretary of Defense has a spare one that he can give to Lon Nol, we'll sink it immediately and then F-310 will be able to dredge it up...
...As a former leader of ours has said, "With malice toward everybody, with charity for nobody, we're hanging tough...
...I was supposed to swallow that...
...The first of these Captured Enemy Documents appears to be a conversation between two mysterious leaders of mysterious Cambodian insurgents...
...Big Red...
...F-310: In that case, I demand a jury of my peers...
...On some days, when the news is bad, the stock market goes down...
...F-310: It's not so much that...
...The nephew was recruited by the CIA in Colorado...
...F-310: Shucks...
...We are making them public now in the interest of clearing up the confusion that is preventing Americans from appreciating the war in Cambodia...
...I can't figure out where America is at these days...
...Big Red: Wait a minute...
Vol. 58 • April 1975 • No. 8
