Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

50 years after Russell: an interview with Tariq Ali

2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 5; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/lril/lry008

2050-6333

Tor Krever,

Intelligence, Security, War Strategy

You arrived in Britain from Pakistan in 1963 to study at Oxford and quickly became a central figure in the British anti-war movement. It was a letter to the Observer, though, in 1965, taking the paper to task for its support of US policy in Vietnam, which I believe first drew the attention of Bertrand Russell. He wrote to you congratulating you on your missive. I got this letter from Bertrand Russell out of the blue. He was one of the great philosophers produced in this country. He came from an incredibly aristocratic family—Russell Square, you’ll find, is named after his family—but was a conscientious objector during the First World War and was a very radical figure who only became more radical as he grew older. Russell had set up a Peace Foundation, where all the money from his royalties accrued. And since he was a very successful author, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, his books sold. The idea for a Tribunal to investigate US crimes in Vietnam came from Russell’s personal secretary, Ralph Schoenman.