Arthur Koestler THE GREAT JEW
Antonio Parra.
To interview
Arthur Koestler (Darkness at noon; Yogui & the Commisar, Dart in the
blue) was one of the scoops of my career, a real achievement of which I
have been propud through all my life as a reporter and Foreign Correspondent.
The task was not kind of easy considering his background: a former member of
the Kommitern, a real workhorse in the apparatus, skilful propagandist of
communism, the brain in the shadow of the militant agit prop, dexterous
journalist and a convinced Zionist, then a renagade. He loathed the Americans
as a diehard European, as much as he detested stalin. A man of action and
thought, his fight was against dictatorship. But, a convicted spy, was
sentenced to death in Seville by Qeuipo de Llano, indicted for aiding the
rebellion. In the last moment his execution postponed, he was exchanged in a
swapping prisoners with the aristocratic wife of a wellknown Spanish pilot,
Captain Haya with the Nationals. She had
been taken hostage by the Reds.
I was at that
juncture London Correspondent for the Falange Daily Arriba. I had written to
Mr. Koestler several times. He always answered even I keep one of his letter
posted in the South of France, but he procrastinated the interview. At last Mr
Koestler who was reluctant to have anything to do with Franco Regime and as a
matter of fact he always made the Dictatorship blank of his attacks along the
weekly pieces he usually wrote for The Observer conceded me ten minutes
only for a session of photographs. The ten minutes agreed became an hour past.
He was an extraordinary human being, ful,l of kindness with that characteristic
jewish compassion I have come across in other personages of my
acquantnace
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