07-10-2015, 07:11 PM
I have copied this from the EF, where it was posted by Douglas Caddy:
David Talbot posted today on his Facebook page:
This epigraph with which I start "The Devil's Chessboard" neatly sums up the modus operandi of CIA spymaster Allen Dulles, whose dark shadow continues to hang over America. It's from one of my favorite spy novels, "A Coffin for Dimitrios," by Eric Ambler: "The Colonel laughed unpleasantly.'My dear friend, Dimitrios would have nothing to do with the actual shooting. No! His kind never risk their skins like that. They stay on the fringe of the plot. They are the professionals, the entrepreneurs, the links between the businessmen, the politicians who desire the end but are afraid of the means, and the fanatics, the idealists who are prepared to die for their convictions. The important thing to know about an assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.'"
Ambler wrote that a quarter century before JFK died in Dallas..but you get the point.
I would recommend the above mentioned Eric Ambler book to anyone out there who enjoys spy fiction with deep political themes. Ambler wrote a lot of good stuff around that time (Journey Into Fear, Cause For Alarm, etc.), though his later work was a bit patchy. Many of his best novels have been re-released as Penguin Classic additions over the last few years.
David Talbot posted today on his Facebook page:
This epigraph with which I start "The Devil's Chessboard" neatly sums up the modus operandi of CIA spymaster Allen Dulles, whose dark shadow continues to hang over America. It's from one of my favorite spy novels, "A Coffin for Dimitrios," by Eric Ambler: "The Colonel laughed unpleasantly.'My dear friend, Dimitrios would have nothing to do with the actual shooting. No! His kind never risk their skins like that. They stay on the fringe of the plot. They are the professionals, the entrepreneurs, the links between the businessmen, the politicians who desire the end but are afraid of the means, and the fanatics, the idealists who are prepared to die for their convictions. The important thing to know about an assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.'"
Ambler wrote that a quarter century before JFK died in Dallas..but you get the point.
I would recommend the above mentioned Eric Ambler book to anyone out there who enjoys spy fiction with deep political themes. Ambler wrote a lot of good stuff around that time (Journey Into Fear, Cause For Alarm, etc.), though his later work was a bit patchy. Many of his best novels have been re-released as Penguin Classic additions over the last few years.
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.â€
― Leo Tolstoy,
― Leo Tolstoy,