Got just the right man to take over the neuro lab--Goldweiser, my assistant. I weighed the thing from every angle before I made up my mind, since his being Jewish makes the situation very touchy: some people will be snide enough to say I picked him to be a potential scapegoat. Well, Goldweiser, no matter what his origins may be, is the best neuro man I know. Of course, personally--although my personal feelings don't enter into the picture at all--I _am_ just a bit leery of the fellow. Have been ever since that first log-cutting expedition, when he began to talk in such a peculiar way about needing to relax and then laughed so hard at Len's jokes. That sort of talk always indicates to me a lack of reverence for your job: if a thing's worth doing at all, etc. Of course, I don't mean that Goldweiser's cynical attitude has anything to do with his being Jewish; Len's got the same attitude and he's _not_ Jewish. Still, this afternoon, when I told Goldweiser he's going to head up the N-Pro lab, he sort of bowed and said, "That's quite a promotion. I always did want to be God." I didn't like that remark at all. If I'd had another neuro man as good as he is, I'd have withdrawn the promotion immediately. It's his luck that I'm tolerant, that's all. * * * * * _November 6, 1959_ Lunch with Len today, at my invitation. Bought him several Martinis, then brought up Lundy's name and asked who he was, he sounded interesting. "Steve?" Len said. "I roomed with him my first year in New York." I asked what Steve did, exactly. "Reads, mostly. He got into the habit back in the 30s, when he was studying philosophy at the University of Chicago. When the Civil War broke out in Spain, he signed up with the Lincoln Brigade and went over there to fight, but it turned out to be a bad mistake. His reading got him in a lot of trouble, you see; he'd gotten used to asking all sorts of questions, so when the Moscow Trials came along, he asked about them. Then the N.K.V.D. began to pop up all over Spain, and he asked about it. "His comrades, he discovered, didn't like guys who kept asking questions. In fact, a couple of Steve's friends who had also had an inquiring streak were found dead at the front, shot in the _back_, and Steve got the idea that he was slated for the same treatment. It seemed that people who asked questions were called saboteurs, Trotskyite-Fascists or something, and they kept dying at an alarming rate." I ordered another Martini for Len and asked how Steve had managed to save himself.