A Very Private Plot by William F. Buckley Page A

been able to examine it. Pletnev had been lied to. What could have been Nikolai’s motive?
    The next day, at the tea break in midmorning, he accosted Nikolai. “You are going to look again next Sunday for the book by Chambers?”
    â€œYes, yes, Viktor.”
    â€œIt was not at the library when you went there last Sunday?”
    â€œI already told you, Viktor. No, it wasn’t there. A faculty member had removed it.”
    Viktor Pletnev sipped his tea. After a moment he said to Nikolai, “It is very kind of you to take the trouble.”
    â€œI am glad to do so. I am told Chambers was an interesting man.”
    â€œYes,” Viktor said. “He was very interesting. He wrote a book which prompted many people to anti-Communist thinking.”
    Nikolai was silent.
    â€œHis book, Witness , is very moving.”
    â€œIs he still alive?” Nikolai thought it tactically wise to feign ignorance.
    â€œAlive! He died”—Viktor quickly calculated it—“twenty-four years ago. In 1961.”
    â€œIf he was so ardent an anti-Communist, how is it that we have such easy access to his book?”
    Viktor opened his mouth wide, thought better of it, and asked Nikolai to lunch with him after the late morning classes, which now impended.
    Two hours later, seated with their vegetables, potatoes, and soup, Viktor started in. “Nikolai, on the matter you raised this morning, your surprise that critical books are to be found in the library. You must know that, with very few exceptions, a student could always get such books. Periodicals, no. But it’s also true that things are a little bit different now, you know. The glasnost of Gorbachev is not entirely meaningless.”
    â€œI saw what he did to Sakharov when Sakharov protested the war in Afghanistan.”
    â€œWell, yes, I am hardly suggesting that Gorbachev is about to change the policies of the Soviet Union. But it is no longer simple suicide to ask a question or two, or to read more widely than we were permitted to do even a year ago. Sure, you have to follow the official line very strictly—you should have heard my department chairman chew me out just yesterday afternoon. But you have not been in Moscow very long, and perhaps in Kiev it is different, but we can talk, if we want to—to be sure, using sound judgment—about the war, about how misdirected it is.”
    Nikolai found himself uncomfortable even listening to such heresy. “As you may know, Viktor, my interests are exclusively in engineering and in languages. I have never—interested myself in political discussion.”
    â€œWell, I don’t say that that isn’t the safest course. It probably is. But at least you should know that, here and there, there are people like me, interested for instance in the historical role of the Narodniki. They were, in case you are unaware of it, the true purists of the revolution. They wished to protest against tyranny, not to be catalysts of a fresh tyranny.”
    Nikolai rose. “I’m sorry, Viktor. I don’t want to continue this discussion. My thoughts and concerns are on other matters.”
    Viktor, flushed, looked up at him. “Well, go ahead and concern yourself with whatever you like. But let me tell you this, Nikolai. The line Gorbachev is taking, in speech after speech—in connection with the disarmament talks, in connection with the summit conference with Reagan coming up—is simple, simple, simple. He wishes to arrest the American pursuit of a strategic defense, what they call ‘Star Wars’ in America. That is his line. Don’t involve the Soviet Union in another arms race . We are bleeding in Russia, Nikolai, and the greatest lesion is in Afghanistan. I hardly need to tell you that we are losing the war in Afghanistan. And my bet is that Gorbachev will recognize this before too long for one simple reason. He has no alternative.”
    â€œViktor!”