Forbidden Writings and the Government Authorities

On Friday January 15, 2010 two officers from the U.S. Department of Justice visited me at my residence to interview me about my writings, which they found disturbing from a law enforcement perspective -- or so they claimed.  There is some evidence they were trying to intimidate me because they found the message of my writings unsavory -- or so I believe.

As I was sitting talking to the officers my mind drifted off at times.  I was thinking about an anecdote concerning the Russian dictator Josef Stalin and the writer Boris Pasternak, whose novel Dr. Zhivago, later landed Pasternak in hot water with the Russian authorities.

In 1933, the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam wrote a page-long poem about Stalin. Never had Stalin been attacked with such courage, to say nothing of such genius. Stalin annihilated millions of slaves for their disrespectful whispers about him. But here was Mandelstam, a fearless witness to history, exposing a monstrous subhuman super-criminal.

It seemed that having read any four lines of the poem, Stalin would say through his teeth to his secret police: “Burn him alive!” or “Drown him in sulfuric acid!”

Instead, Stalin phoned Boris Pasternak and asked him whether it was true that Mandelstam was a poet of genius. “Yes,” said Pasternak, “it’s true. But there is something else I would like to speak with you about.” “What is it?” asked Stalin. “About life and death,” answered Pasternak. Stalin hung up.