Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

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"Yes, I still want to go," Jeff said.

"You saw the dispatch about Kenov?"

"Yes, I saw it."

"He was a friend of mine," Matson said. "A good friend. Just as good a friend as any friend I have here in Washington. And he was a gentleman. He's been in my home a dozen times. Furthermore, he was a good public servant. He devoted his life to raising his people out of ignorance and poverty. He opposed the Nazi tyranny, and he opposed the Red tyranny, and now those damn beasts have killed him."

"They're bastards, all right. But do you think all of them are bastards?"

"Enough of them are bastards so sometimes I agree with those who say we can't be far wrong in wiping out the whole bunch, while there's time."

"You can't kill two hundred million people."

"Wouldn't have to. Just kill thirty or forty million, and hang the New York radicals from every lamppost on Fifth Avenue. That's what people are saying and perhaps that's the only answer."

"Isn't that genocide?" Jeff said. He knew he should be quiet. "Isn't that advocating the same thing for which we condemned the Nazis? Incidentally, for which we condemned some of them to death?"