Neal Ascherson

Men everywhere supposed (as A.J.P. Taylor tends to begin sentences) that he would join in the general execration of Lord Dacre over the Hitler diaries. A lot of men, indeed, were looking forward to this: historians wrestling in mud is a common spectacle that never loses its power to give pleasure – like dissent between taxi-drivers. They were disappointed. Taylor stayed out of the mud. More accurately, he wrote in these pages that he found the whole affair boring – ‘cold mutton’, as he said about the Anthony Blunt affair. Perhaps he did. Historians are queer. Still, boredom is ruder than execration. I have nearly finished imitating A.J.P. Taylor’s rhythms now. Let me add this. I once wrote a whole book in what I conceived to be his style – short, choppy sentences bouncing the reader rapidly up and down so that he does not fall asleep. The book received a kind notice from Taylor, and sold almost no copies at all. Men thought it too expensive. I only paid the indexing bill years later. This was not because I was cross or indigent, but because I was mean.–

‘The fire that is burning in our own front yard’. Three days after President Reagan used those words to describe events in Central America, as he addressed the joint Houses of Congress, the Polish police were out again on the streets of Warsaw and Gdansk and the crowds were fleeing from the teargas and the batons. Back yards have become front yards these days. The change in wording isn’t insignificant. In a back yard, something can be expected to be smouldering at most times. It smells nasty, but poses no threat: this is where the householder is allowed to do his own destroying. But in a front yard (not an altogether easy feature to imagine, unless you think of living in a stable), any fire can only have been lit by somebody else with hostile intent. In fact, any yard in which a dangerous fire is burning, capable of setting light to the house, automatically becomes a front yard. This both Russians and Americans seem to agree upon. They also concur that the fireman’s job is a dirty one, best left to friends and allies, although their own tanks or marines may have to be used in the last resort. But the techniques approved for firefighting differ a little. The Russians, in their thrifty way, appreciate friends who know how to use the truncheon, the censor’s scissors and the psychiatric ward. The Americans believe in denying flames oxygen by piling money on them, and they hand their friends sacks of currency with appropriate instructions.

‘This book is written in anger,’ the author begins. ‘Anger at previous attempts to portray the British soldier. Anger at the violence and the hatred that became part of a way of life. Anger at the misrepresentation of the facts …’

It is certainly time for a long silence. The long clamour about those who have come so strangely to be called ‘the Cambridge spies’, revelations malevolent, piteous or merely inaccurate, ought to be wound up after the publication of Michael Straight’s contribution. Very possibly, Anthony Blunt will one day write such a book himself. But the names have almost all been named, the questions of motive worn smooth, the titles and pensions (some of them) stripped like epaulettes, the spell in the pillory served. Let’s get the blanket over this parrot and enjoy a spell of peace.

When they heard that Britain was sending troops to recover the Falklands, many in this country were inclined to laugh. Some farcical anti-climax was expected – Anguilla on a wider stage, with penguins. Events which soon followed, ending with Mrs Thatcher taking the salute at a victory parade, have made it hard to remember why it all at first seemed so comic. But the early incredulity...