Flandry and Ydwyr cooperate to hoodwink and manipulate Terran Admiral Julius!
Flandry to Ydwyy:
"'What we want is to save face all around.'" (p. 358)
This reminds us of the conclusion to the preceding volume, Ensign Flandry, where everything had to be covered up and thus Flandry got way with all the crimes that he had committed. Much the same occurs here as also at the end of the third Young Flandry novel, The Rebel Worlds, when Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov strongly suspects Flandry of treason and murder - committed for the best of reasons, of course!
At the end of Ian Fleming's Moonraker, there is a big cover up. Thus Sir Hugo Drax, publicly perceived as an English hero must continue to be perceived as such even though he was really a Nazi who tried to destroy London!
How much really happens that we do not know about?
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I am sure there are some secrets and cover ups! But, considering how leaky and POROUS the US notoriously is, it's hard for secrets to STAY covered up. But that doesn't stop the conspiracy theorists from concocting their wildly implausible stories.
I don't know if you ever read it, but the sixth century historian Procopius' SECRET HISTORY is a good example of what I can only call character assassination. Pocopius attacks Emperor Justinian, his wife Theodora, the general Belisarius and HIS wife so savagely that the book has to be used with extreme caution.
But, I can see how, for reasons of state, it can be decided that the public good names reputations of certain persons should be protected. And I don't think those reasons will always be bad or unreasonable.
In the mid 1950's, WW II and the Nazis were both still so recent and fresh in the public mind that it made sense to have a Nazi as the villain in MOONRAKER.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Bond's villains fit into five categories:
Russians in general and SMERSH in particular;
SPECTRE in general and Blofeld in particular;
Germans left over from the War (a lot);
North American gangsters;
Dr. No.
THE SPY WHO LOVED me combines four categories:
the KGB hires SPECTRE which sends an ex-Gestapo man who works with Canadian gangsters.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And SMERSH was a real Soviet agency, a division of the MVD/KGB. And Le Chiffre and Mr. Big (from CASINO ROYALE and LIVE AND LET DIE) were Soviet agents. And Mr. Big was also a gangster!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But the fictional SMERSH is different from the real one.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree. And the real SMERSH was not as prominent and powerful as the fictional one. The KGB, as a whole, was very like the SMERSH seen in the Bond stories.
Ad astra! Sean
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