321 CHRONICLESnperiod kept their options open and theirnpowder dry as they cast about for somethingnand someone to adhere to. Mr.nSmith correctly notes that “the propernstudy of treason … is the study of thenentire sink and puddle of sixteenthcenturynpolitics.” Also correctly, hendwells on the ineptitude of Tudor traitors,nwho often detailed their conspiraciesnin letters to each other and entertainedngrandiose visions of what theyncould accomplish with a purse of goldnand a few bodkins, only to wind up onnrack and scaffold after their harebrainednschemes were discovered by Mr. SecretarynWalsingham. For all the influencenMachiavelli is supposed to have had onnthe politics of the century, the plottersnshould have read him more carefully.nThe longest chapter in the Florentine’snDiscourses on the First Ten Books ofnTitus Livius deals with conspiracies,nbut the burden of his advice is thatnconspiracies hardly ever succeed andnare at least as dangerous to those whonhatch them as to the states againstnwhich they are directed.nBut it was not mainly Machiavellinwhom the plotters of the period read.nMr. Smith surveys the court literaturenof the Tudor era and finds in it thenelements of societal paranoia. Treatisesnon how to advance one’s career atncourt openly counseled spying, blackmail,nmendacity, flattery, braggadocio,ncultivating the right friends, and avoidingngetting caught. Mr. Smith comparesnthis literature to such contemporarynclassics as Robert Ringer’snWinning Through Intimidation, an exemplarnof a genre which chain booksellersnnow devote entire sections to.nInevitably followed a few years later bynother volumes with titles such as WhynDo I Feel Lonely? what Mr. Smithncalls the “soulless,” antisocial qualitynof such 20th-century reading fornyoung managers on the make lacks then”free, demonic spirit” that characterizednMr. Ringer’s predecessors at thencourt of the Tudors. “The ethics ofnloyalty today,” writes Mr. Smith,nhave little meaning for thenupwardly mobile success hunter,nfor loyalty can “be too easilynsimulated or feigned by thosenmost desirous of winning.”nWhere the twentieth and thensixteenth century part company,nhowever, is in the concept ofnthe enemy as the villain whonseeks the destruction of hisnopponent for his own sake. InnRobert Ringer’s WinningnThrough Intimidation . . . “thengame of business is played in anvicious jungle,” but that junglenis filled with impersonal types,nnot with depraved and personalnenemies.nThe “sink and puddle” of 20th-centurynpolitics in relation to treason has beennagonizingly appraised in a small librarynof books from Whittaker Chambers andnRebecca West to Allen Weinstein andnRonald Radosh. Once dismissed asnright-wing fantasy or political opportunism,nconcern over the loyalties of Westernnelites to the institutions that enablenthem to hold wealth and power has bynnow been understood as a profoundlynimportant historical factor in midcenturynpolitics and diplomacy. AlthoughnAlger Hiss and Kim Philby havenserved as the archetypes of 20thcenturyntraitors, the late Anthony Bluntnwas recently giving them a run for theirnmoney. Barrie Penrose and SimonnFreeman, however, in their large Conspiracynof Silence: The Secret Life ofnAnthony Blunt do little to advance thisnarchetypal status; they are more concernednwith compiling biographicalnfacts about this distinguished art historiannand pervert who was exposed asnthe notorious “Fourth Man” in thenHouse of Commons in 1979, yearsnafter his complicity in treason withnPhilby, Guy Burgess, and Donald Macleannwas covered up by his friends innthe British establishment. The authors’ndigest of Blunt’s life is likely to remainnthe major biography and the mostndispassionate account of the Blunt circlenfor some time.nBlunt’s background as a marginalnbut respectable member of the Britishnupper classes was not extraordinary,nand his early years were apolitical. Henwas drawn into Communism while atnCambridge and was assiduously courtednby a party cell led by Marxistneconomist Maurice Dobb and innwhich John Cornford, son of the classicalnscholar F.M. Cornford, was a dominantnand active figure. Young Cornford’snphysical attractions (thoughnheterosexual) probably had more thanna little to do with the attention thatnBlunt and his close, weird friend Bur­nnngess bestowed upon him and with theirneventual political subservience to him.nGiven the upheavals of the earlyn20th century, it should not be remarkablenthat bright, frustrated, and oftenndeviant young men became Communists,nespecially in an era when Sovietnatrocities and failures were less wellknownnthan they later became, andnv/hen the vacuity of traditional elites innAmerica and England was becomingnapparent. What is more remarkable,nand far more dangerous, has been theninability of the elites themselves, traditionalnor new, to take the defections ofntheir peers seriously. The insouciantnattitude toward treason displayed bynAlger Hiss’s defenders from 1948 tonthe present indeed remains the paradigmnof this phenomenon, but thencover-up of Blunt’s role in espionage isnno less noteworthy and is part of thensame enduring pattern. Even after hisnexposure to British security authoritiesnin 1964, Blunt was allowed to remain anSurveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, tonretire as “Adviser” for the Queen’snPictures in 1972, and to retain anknighthood as well as his reputation,nuntil his exposure by Mrs. Thatcher innthe Commons on November 15,n1979.nIf there is one difference betweennthe 16th and 20th centuries’ attitudesntoward treason, it lies in the contemporarynconviction that treason not onlyndoes not prosper but does not evennexist. As German political theorist CarlnSchmitt understood, a political societyndefines itself largely through the enemiiesnit perceives. When an elite refusesnto recognize enemies, it cannot takenits own rule seriously or define thenlimits of permissible deviance withinnthe society it pretends to rule. In thensuperstition of universal friendliness tonwhich 20th-century elites generallynsubscribe and in the bureaucraticn”games” of conflict in which theyncompete, there can be no perceptionnof enemies, foreign or domestic, andntherefore, no treason. Nor can there benan adequate definition of what fidelitiesncomprise the state and society tonwhich both elites and their subjects arensupposed to remain loyal.nIn a nation where untold millions ofnillegal aliens wander at will across thenborders, where the proponents of capitalismnboast of living in a “globalneconomy” permeated by foreign own-n