Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

20 страница из 86

They talked of the successes and failures of ERP, the uranium mines in Bohemia, British trade, Italian Communists, Chinese graft, and the Japanese Zaibatsu. They leaped across the globe to The Straits, and she asked him what he thought of the new Turkish military loan. "It's ridiculous," he said. "There'll be big parties in the Casino Taxim, and toasts to that noble ally and splendid democracy, Turkey. Then the pashas will take the hundred million bucks and build more villas on the islands in the Marmara. The Turkish Army doesn't need equipment. It needs education. It would take one generation for the Turkish Army to learn to read, and another to learn how to use radar and jets and rockets."

"Jeff," she asked, "do you always say what you think, like that?" She asked this very quietly, and very seriously.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose I do."

"People don't like to hear that sort of talk. It isn't, you know, very diplomatic. Particularly in the Department it isn't diplomatic. There are men in the Department whose reputations suffer when any part of our policy is questioned--even such a small part as the Turkish loan. You could very well get your official throat cut, for a statement like that."