A bit more on Uncle Joe. From Gore Vidal’s autobiography, a conversation with Nancy Astor about her meeting with Stalin.
“Bernard Shaw and I had made this trip to the Soviet and there was Shaw on the train busy reading a book, never once looking out of the window, because he of course knew everything in the world and so never looked at anything. Anyway, Marshal Stalin, after listening to Shaw for a while, gets up and goes to a map and points at all that pink which was our empire back then and says: ‘How did this little island manage to take over so much of the world?’ Well, I was inspired. I said, ‘because, Marshall Stalin, we had given the world the King James translation of the Bible.’
“What,” I asked “did he say?”
“Well, he just changed the subject. Anyway, as we were leaving I said ‘Marshall Stalin, when are you gonna stop killing all those people?’ And he said directly to me, ‘Lady Astor, the undesirable classes do not liquidate themselves.’
“What did you say?”
“I had run out of small talk so we got out of there fast.”
“What,” I asked “did he say?”
“Well, he just changed the subject. Anyway, as we were leaving I said ‘Marshall Stalin, when are you gonna stop killing all those people?’ And he said directly to me, ‘Lady Astor, the undesirable classes do not liquidate themselves.’
“What did you say?”
“I had run out of small talk so we got out of there fast.”
How likely do the panel think that story is to be true? I'll go for "somewhat less than 1%".
Posted by: ejh | September 18, 2009 at 08:09 AM
“What,” I asked “did he say?”
"He just sat there crooning like a bilious pigeon."
Posted by: chris y | September 18, 2009 at 09:01 AM
Untrue almost certainly, but I'd still pay to see (and better yet, hear) Vidal tell it.
Posted by: Chris Williams | September 18, 2009 at 10:10 AM
That whacky spirograph graphic just appeared next to my post, too. Has Jamie got the interior decorators in? But turquoise is so '05, darlings.
Posted by: Chris Williams | September 18, 2009 at 10:12 AM
I think Vidal heard the story from Astor but his quotes from her are made up ( no one actually says "and so never" in speech). I think it's plausible that an encounter of that kind took place.
"That whacky spirograph graphic just appeared next to my post"
Typepad are dicking around with an exciting new format, much to the inconvenience of their customers.
Posted by: jamie | September 18, 2009 at 10:41 AM