BOOKS
149
What, then, were lhe major ingredients in Straight's back–
ground which led to a life divided among the pursuit of politics, pub–
lic causes, private pleasures, the arts, and a bit of espionage?
Obviously, great wealth and the so-called options, eccen–
tricities, and (initially) unfocused idealism associated with it played
an important part. Attendance at an "innovative" English boarding
school (founded by his mother and stepfather in 1926) - a forerunner
of the failed educational experiments of the 1960s - was also
characteristic of the atmosphere in which he grew up. This school
was to be "a self-governing democracy"; "There was to be no punish–
ment. ... There was no head of the school, since authority was
regarded as regressive ...." On the other hand, to this day, Straight
notes, he cannot spell, and the manuscript of this book was corrected
by his daughter, "who could scarcely believe that any adult's gram–
mar could be as bad as she found mine to be."
Being rich by birth also made its predictable contribution to a
diffuse sense of guilt that has colored the political attitudes of many
who were attracted to radical political movements and ideologies.
The problem is especially acute when the rich feel guilty and yet are
unwilling to part with the source of their guilt:
I had no right to hold on to that money (that my mother had
given to me). Yet I was not prepared to part with it. I cherished
the independence that it gave me; I liked to surround myself
with beautiful things. I had bought an early Picasso in Paris; I
wanted to clasp it to myself before I handed it on to a museum.
. . . By the standards of my fellow students at the London
School of Economics, I was unconscionably rich. That placed
me at a perpetual disadvantage in dealing with radicals...
On returning from England (after attending Cambridge):
On the docks in New York, my mother's old retainers were
waiting for us. George Owens, Jesse's cousin, handed out
twenty dollar bills to speed us through the custom inspection;
Matty the chauffeur drove us to Old Westbury . Harry Lee and
his younger son, Jimmy, waved to us as we rolled up the gravel
dri veway . Curly Joe and Red Joe and Little Joe were lined up
with the household staff at the front door.
His mother, clearly another major influence, was very much
