“So?”
Harper shrugged. “They think … they’ve changed their minds. They feel that they’ve been deceived.”
“By me you mean?”
“Not you particularly but the whole apparatus of the Party.”
“But I still ask why so suddenly?”
Harper smiled. “It’s St. Paul on the road to Damascus. A sign from God.”
“What was the sign for them?”
“When Moscow closed down our access to Berlin and we had to organise nine hundred Dakota flights a day to feed the people of West Berlin.”
“Why that?”
“Tell me,” Harper said, “what do you think of it yourself?”
“I don’t know. I guess they’ve got a good reason. What do those two think it is?”
“They think that it’s proof positive that Moscow is bent on confrontation and aggression. Ready to risk another war. Which is what could have happened if the Americans had insisted on their rights under the Allied Commission.” He sipped his coffee and then said, “The Americans were strong enough in themselves and their beliefs to back down.” He paused, looking at Aarons. “And now the whole world knows that the men in the Kremlin are just bully boys, looking for a fight.”
“That’s ridiculous, Myron. Is that what you think yourself?”
“Let’s say that it’s made me think about some fundamental things. Beyond the Berlin airlift, even beyond the Party.”
“What things?”
“How many people in the Kremlin decided to confront us about access to Berlin? Just roughly. Three, a dozen, a hundred maybe.”
“Probably Stalin, Molotov and three or four others and maybe two from the army.”
“So let’s call it a round dozen.” Harper shifted in his chair and leaned forward. “Do you think it’s right that just twelve men should be able to decide to risk another war?”
“So how many people should be involved?”
“You’re not getting my point, Andrei. What I’m saying is that I can’t understand how it comes about that a handful of men should be able to decide the fate of millions of people. Not just in war but in peace too. And not just in the Soviet Union, but everywhere. Who the hell are these men who can take over whole nations and decide how people shall live.”
Aarons shrugged. “In Moscow’s case they are the elected leaders.”
“Oh, come off it, Andrei. There are no free elections in the Soviet Union. You vote for the Party or not at all and in some back room a handful of men decide who gets the power and how it’s shared out.”
“Just like the Democrats and the Republicans do in the so-called smoke-filled rooms.”
“You’ve made my point, Andrei. Here there are at least two parties and the power lies with Congress, openly and publicly.”
“So here you bribe politicians and judges.” He paused. “So what made you change your mind so suddenly?”
“It wasn’t sudden. I didn’t like the coup in Hungary. Nor the take-over in Prague. When the Soviets walked out of the Allied Control Commission in Berlin I really started thinking. And when we had to start the Berlin airlift I knew that it was time to think again.”
“So now you’re anti-communist and we don’t meet anymore.”
Harper smiled. “No. On both counts. And I’m not talking about Communism, I’m talking about Moscow. I’m not pro-Soviet anymore but I’d be glad to meet you the same as we always have but I’d like it to be a two-way deal in future. I give you the Washington gossip and you give me the Moscow gossip.”
“I’m not in Moscow. I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to.”
“But you have instincts and views, Andrei. You get my honest opinion and I get yours.”
“That would be a poor deal for you. Like I said, I’m not in Moscow. I would have nothing to give you.”
“I’ll take the risk, Andrei. I’ve known you a long time. We’re not so far apart in our thinking.”
“I’m afraid we are, Myron. Very far apart.”
Harper smiled. “See you next Sunday, usual time. We’ll play chess instead of bridge.”
“Are you being controlled by the FBI, Myron?”
Harper laughed. “No way. I’ve always kept my personal views on politics to myself.” He paused. “And you. Are you working for the Russians?”
“I’m a bookseller, Myron.” He stood up. “I’d better get on my way.”
“Think about what I’ve said. We could still be useful to one another.”
CHAPTER 30
Even with the benefit of hindsight nobody could say what went wrong with 1948. Truman was handsomely back for a second term, the war was over, America was getting back to normal and Europe was trying to decide where it wanted to be in the post-war world. But it was as if the two great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, were hell-bent on irritating each other until something got settled. Nobody quite knew what the something was. Like two savage dogs they snarled at each other across the world as if they were intent on tearing each other to pieces.
The glib explanation was that they were each looking for world domination. Pessimists on both sides reckoned that their antagonists were shaping up for World War III. From time to time they drove each other to a fury of action and abuse that defied reasonable explanation.
The battle-ground was mainly the hearts and minds and territory of Europe. Each pressed its cause in its own inimitable way. The Russians by domination and the Americans with a generous helping hand. And both came to find their clients both ungrateful and unrewarding.
The Soviets couldn’t understand why their satellites’ inhabitants wanted to flee to the West when the Soviet Union had singlehandedly won the war and freed them from the Nazis. And the Americans were baffled as to why a country that had given a hundred billion dollars in foreign aid should have to install shatterproof window glass in its European embassies and offices because they were so frequently the targets of hostile demonstrators. Each gave what they valued most and found it incredible that they should be abused for so doing. Soviet power despised along with the US dollar.
What made it worse was that both powers
