SAVING THE QUEEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200430003-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 11, 1976
• Content Type: NSPR

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Saving the Queen
By William F. Buckley Jr.
247 pp. New York: Doubleday & Co. $7.95.
movie-star type. He is rich, and com-4
By WALTER GOODMAN bines his father's gypsy glamour and
audacity. with his mother's quiet and .
"savin
th
" i
i
e
g
e Queen
,
s a f
rst nov
`al f gentle tenacity. He is gifted with a'-E.
a
t
h
4
coun
erespionage t
at runs
ifearlessly counter to .the trend oft notable frankness of expression, which
.
trench-coat fiction since that spy came finds its way into formal verbal formu-
in from the cold. The author gives lations; He is extraordinarily self-as-
sured. with. an indefinable cultural
insouciance, and .his rhythms are never
left-liberal. literary convention that disharmonious. His skills as a combat
iamns the intelligence agencies of
alt nations, and America's most par- pilot in World. Wfit, and come II made him a
ticularly, as unscrupulous and im- legend in his. outfit,
moral. He adopts the aphorism: Quo4 handy here when tt n the time arrives
'_icet Jovi, non licet bovi---`That which to tie up the plot.
A is permitted for Jove to do is The hard-sell advertisements for,the
zot necessarily permitted for a cows 'remarkable qualities - of, Blackford
-o do." The cow, in the early. 1950's'
.vhen the-action takes place, is repre-:
;ented by Joe Stalin, Jove being repre-
:ented by Joe McCarthy and function-'
cries of the C.I.A. The hero elucidates:
We might in secure conscience lie
_nd steal in order to secure the escape
if human beings from misery or death:
;talin had no right to lie and steal
:t- order to bring misery and death
n others. Yet, viewed without paradig-
-iatic moral coordinates, simpletons,
.'ould sajr, simply: Both sides lied
-ad cheated---a plague on both their
-ouses."
Despite his paradigmatic moral
*ordinates. this hero is no gray,.
Bing, brooding, conscience-nagged.
ettidy, ill-fated operative of the sort
a whom we were introduced some
ecades ago by Graham Greene and
Oakes--for that is his name--point
to an identification of the author with
his creation that is too close to be
comfortable for either of them. Or
perhaps it is simply that the author
was concerned. justifiably as it turns
out, lest his protagonist, left tb his
own devices, could never persuade
us that. he is anybody special; a case
of tell if you cannot show. (Who
would ever guess, without the author's
assistance, that Blackford's rhythms
are harmonious?) Be that as it may.
our yo ng agent's morale is excellent
and his conscience is unspotted; clearly.
this book was not written by a Catho-'i
lie novelist. ,
Blackford is recruited into the C.I.A.
straight out of Yale, magna cum laude,
having lately read "God. and Man
ave encountered again shuffling - verbal -formulations, having been un
ong John le Carr@'s "alleyways. Far able to put it from his mind. His men-
-om it. He is 25 years old and uncan- tors in the Company, who bear names
ly attractive. He is, we are, told tike Anthony Trust, Singer Callaway, ?
.er many pages. blond, blue eyed
-id lightly tanned; tall, trim and splen-
dly proportioned, in a phrase, seduc-
vely good 'looking. in a phrase, a..,
Walter Goodman worked for the
_I.A* during the period in which this {
:ok its set.
I at Yale," and to judge by these formal ,
King Harman and Jonathan 1-Hanks.
also list toward the orotund in their
conversation. In fact. practically
everybody in this book, regardless of
nationality or sex, has.a weakness for.
elaborate periods.
Here, for example. is the Queen
of England: "This is a pretty good.
job. I. have inherited a lot of money,
and-a lot of junk, and a lot of perqui.
sites,. 'lut there is something in it
for everybody because of the presump-
tive necessity. the people having low-
ered their idealistic sights during the
past' generations, to worship somew
thing--somebody-worldly; by biolog-
ical accident, I am she."
The author has evidently drunk at.
the same ? fount as his characters, i
and - emerged tipsy on -subordinate
clauses, extended references, rounda-
bout routings, political-point making.-;
and small jokes: "Blackford simply
didn't know Peregrine, could not guess
what was the mysterious dislocation
that had prompted him to this dizzy-
ing treachery-what an old-fashioned
word, Black thought, in the cosmopoli-
tan world of summit conferences,
where the American President, the
British Prime Minister, and the Soviet
despot make dispositions involving I
hundreds of thousands of people -mil-
lions of people,. actually, committing
them, for the sake of temporary geopo-
comity, to any convenient fate--
litical
these men go back to receive the
great acclaim, to be gartered by the
Queen ' (Blackford thought it would
be interesting to be around for one
of these)."
Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01350R000200430003-4