The Past Comes Round: Stories and Essays by Peter McMillan - HTML preview
PLEASE NOTE: This is an HTML preview only and some elements such as links or page numbers may be incorrect.
Download the book in PDF, ePub for a complete version.
Download the book in PDF, ePub for a complete version.
Endnotes
(1) In the Preface he quotes Albert Camus from The Plague: “plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves.” And to make sure that there is no misunderstanding his reference, he follows the quote with these words: “Something similar happened in the 1950s, which is to say also the 1960s and ’70s and, I believe, on up through today. There is a lineage to the American hard right of today.”
(2) The new Progressive Party, represented in the 1948 presidential election by Henry Wallace, FDR’s Vice-President during his third term, was out of step with the two major parties. Its platform called for peaceful coexistence with the U.S.S.R. The Communist Party of America’s endorsement of Wallace probably did not help given the mood of the nation. Wallace received less than three percent of the popular vote and failed to carry a single state in the electoral college.
(3) Venona was a secret government counterespionage program that intercepted, decrypted and then translated Soviet communications. The first files to be made public were only released in 1995.