May 14, 2004
MACLEAN, FITZROY MACLEAN (via Tom Morin):
Arabs, Nazis and Comrades (Cali Ruchala, May 6, 2004, Sobaka)
IT WAS IN 1937 that the foreign diplomats in Moscow became accustomed to a different Soviet official answering the telephone each time they called. The Great Purge was in full-swing, and the most powerful posts in the USSR were entered through a corridor that led to Siberia. The foreign community in the capital - followed by secret police at every turn and under virtual house arrest - twittered nervously amongst themselves over what might be happening in the rest of the country.Enter one of the greatest modern adventurers you've never heard of: Sir Fitzroy Maclean. [...]
His reports for the Foreign Ministry - vast, lurid tales that might have appealed to the readers of dime-store novels - caused a sensation in London. No other country knew what was going on outside of Moscow and Leningrad, in cities with "perfumed names" like Tashkent, Baku and Samarkan. Maclean's reports - between descriptions of his arrests by the NKVD - drew on his interviews with locals and observations of a country ripped apart by the most intense, savage streak of repression in history.
In these reports, former American diplomat Charles Thayer remembered, "Maclean recounted his adventures in that lively, lucid style which is the specialty of the English public schools and the envy of so many of us in the American service." [...]
In his semi-retirement on a sprawling 4,500 acre estate near Holy Loch in Scotland, Maclean recounted his life in several books - paramount among them, Eastern Approaches - as well as what was probably the best biography of Tito published while he was still alive, The Heretic.
Though vilified by the Left for his Tory pedigree, and by the Right for his part in the Communist takeover of Yugoslavia, Maclean became something of a grand old man in British politics after the war. But the most persistent rumour - and what he's best known for - was his supposed role as the model for James Bond. (Maclean himself didn't believe the story, though he had been friends with Ian Fleming.)
A more fitting epitaph for Fitzroy Maclean were the words of Sir John Colville, who once described him as "A man of action who is also a master of the English language." And one of the greatest, if least acknowledged, of the "new explorers" of the last hundred years.
Haven't read MacLean, but for an awesome account of the various British and Russian adventures in the region, we can't recommend this one enough: The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 14, 2004 7:06 PM
I'm always amused when some puffed up city guy writes that "you never heard of" X.
I've read "Eastern Approaches," because of the wonderful story in the Diaries of Evelyn Waugh about the time Maclean, Waugh and Randolph Churchill were parachuted behind partisan lines in Yugoslavia, where they plotted to bring the nazified chetniks to power when the Germans pulled out.
The titoists saw to it that they actually sat around getting drunk on plum brandy, and Churchill made himself obnoxious with his ebullient noisiness.
Maclean and Waugh were amazed to learn, considering the oratory of his father, that Randolph had never read the Bible; and to get a little peace, they bet him 50 pounds he couldn't read the whole thing in 3 days.
They lost the bet and they didn't get any peace, either, because Randolph kept leaping up and saying, "I say, isn't God a sh**!"
Which would explain why Randolph was such a jerk.
Posted by: oj at May 14, 2004 10:00 PMWaugh said that when Randolph had an operation to take out a benign tumor, "they have finally found something benign in Randolph, and are removing it."
Posted by: Brian (MN) at May 14, 2004 10:09 PMTrue enough. My point, though, was that a lot of overinflated egos out there don't have even an elementary store of information about what they're pontificating on.
I recommend "A Gentlemen from England" on the same subject, because of its attention to the Muslim interest in the Great Game, something usually overlooked.
Another great anecdote in that one -- very revealing about Islam, too. When the gentlemen arrived at, I believe it was Merv, to demand the release in the name of Queen Victoria of 2 imprisoned British officers, the khan was astounded.
Don't recall the exact words but he said something like: "You have a queen who's interested in two men. I have 200,000 Iranian slaves and the shah doesn't care about them."
They really are not like us.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 15, 2004 4:50 PMHow easily you forget WWI when you start braying.
Posted by: oj at May 15, 2004 5:32 PM