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- <text id=90TT0121>
- <title>
- Jan. 15, 1990: American Notes:Ideas
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Jan. 15, 1990 Antarctica
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 33
- American Notes
- IDEAS
- The Mysterious Mr.- or Ms.-"Z"
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> Except in rarefied intellectual circles, articles that
- appear in the Cambridge, Mass., journal Daedalus (circ. 14,000)
- seldom stir up much of a fuss. But a pseudonymous piece
- appearing in the quarterly's winter issue is kicking up a
- storm. Titled "To the Stalin Mausoleum," the pessimistic
- assessment of the Soviet Union's ability to transform itself
- both economically and politically is obviously modeled after
- George Kennan's famous 1947 Foreign Affairs essay, in which
- Kennan outlined the concept of containment of the Soviet Union.
- While Kennan wrote under the byline "X," the Daedalus author
- identified himself--or herself--only as "Z."
- </p>
- <p> After the New York Times excerpted the article last week,
- Washington was abuzz with speculation about the author's
- identity. Could it be Robert Gates, deputy director of the
- National Security Council, whose hard-line views on the Soviets
- upset Bush Administration moderates? (Gates said no.) Or
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's tough-talking National
- Security Adviser? Others pointed to the piece's stilted, formal
- prose as persuasive evidence that the author is most likely a
- foreigner, possibly a Russian. The editors at Daedalus weren't
- talking. Neither was Z.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-