Thursday 17 October 2013

Etienne Fourre II

When I summarized Fourre's career, my sources were:

"Marius" (published 1957; set approximately 1964);

"Un-Man" (published 1953; set approximately 2004).

What I omitted was the point of "Marius":

Fourre forcibly replaces Reinach with Valti as chairman of the European Council;

this is to prevent Reinach from becoming another Marius, a general who wins a war but is a disastrous politician;

also, according to Valti's equations, leaving Reinach in power would have led to World War IV and probably an end of humanity in another fifty years.

Fourre appeared in "Un-Man," then Anderson wrote the prequel, "Marius." Are they consistent?

According to "Un-Man," Fourre was in the French Resistance of World War II and was "...high in the Western liaison with the European undergrounds of World War III...," entering the occupied countries on several missions (The Psychotechnic League, New York, 1981, p. 54);

according to "Marius," he represents France in the European Council after World War III.

OK. This can fit together. He was in France during World War II and after World War III but was based in Britain or the US during World War III?

Of Fourre, Naysmith thinks:

"Such a man...would in earlier days have stood behind the stake and lash of an Inquisition, would have marched at Cromwell's side and carried out the Irish massacres, would have helped set up world-wide Communism...Thank God he's on our side!" (pp. 54-55)

Do we want such a man on our side? He arranges an assassination and a coup. But the assassinated man is a dictator, not a campaigner or reformer. The overthrown regime was anti-UN, not anti-US! And "UN" here means a peaceful, rational world government, not the institution with which we are familiar.

So maybe Fourre was the man for his time, after all?

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