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ARTISAN REVIEW
Union, they necessarily take on new meaning. I realize that in
Chambers's burdened life Goronwy recognized a parallel to his own
much-burdened life and something of this must even have communicated
itself to me at the time because, as I say, I suggested to Lionel that, like
Chambers, Goronwy may once have been an agent of the Soviet Union,
or perhaps a British agent, or both. But Lionel
'WQS
not inclined to
speculation of this sort and I soon dropped the subject.
Actually, in some important part I shared Lionel's reluctance to see
Goronwy as a figure in this dark political program of our century. I
preferred to think of him as reckless in love rather than in politics, a ro–
mantic rather than an ideological adventurer. Yet considering the fact
that he was the most attractive man I ever met, it is strange that he was
never, for my imagination, an object of direct sexual interest. One
evening he and I were alone together at our London hotel while we
waited for Margie and Lionel, each engaged elsewhere, to join us.
Goronwy was restless; he moved about the room nervously. This was
unusual for him. He was not a person who was uncomfortable in his
skin. He went to the window and drew aside the heavy draperies; for
several moments he stood looking out on our quiet street. Perhaps he
was counting the Rolls Royces at our curb. Without turning, he said
quietly: "This is where I would have taken you if we had met when we
were younger." I made no reply; none was required of me.
It
was a se–
duction without an invitation and until I came to write this recollection
of our friendship, I had not again thought of it.
Today, there is still something unnatural to me in having to think of
Goronwy as only secondarily a charming and intelligent friend and first
as a member of his radical generation, someone who so easily but
calamitously overstepped the line between Communist fellow-traveling
and disloyalty to his country. Whittaker Chambers had similarly breached
this thin wall and similarly destroyed his life. Lionel had been at college
with Chambers but I scarcely knew him - until, all unexpectedly, he had
one day appeared at our apartment to see me. His purpose was to solicit
my help in his spying operation. (I have in several places written about
this encounter.) He wanted me to receive mail for him. In spy parlance, I
was to be his mail drop. I said "no" to his request but I am not
convinced that I deserve any great moral credit for the decision. Had the
scene been enacted six months earlier, it might have had an opposite
outcome. I was approaching the end of what had been almost a year–
long commitment to the Communist cause; my disenchantment was
about to be translated into a lifelong opposition to the Soviet
despotism. Although it had never occurred to me to join the
Communist Party, I had been for these past months a devoted adherent
