him. He is certain that his file blocked hisnappointment as a Foreign Service officernwhen he sought such a position on onenoccasion after his initial refusal; hensuspects strongly that it prevented himnfrom obtaining a position as FCC commissionernunder John Kennedy, and maynhave contributed to his Mure to obtainnFulbright appointments in 1974 andn1978; and he believes that for somenreason the CIA in the late 1950’s considerednoffering him a position until itnerroneously linked him to Soviet spiesnAlfred and Martha Stem through a realnestate transaction handled by his wife, anreal estate agent. Kimball now sees hisnlife as long shadowed by a file whichn… And S(up SomethingnCompk’lefy DifferentnlliishuiKls. who of lute IKIVC beenninvailc’cl by an iniloniitahlc lecliiigornlimitless parmcrsliip wiili their wives,nhuvc hcL’ome a routine lixtiire in thenilclivery rooms ;ii’ross the eoiinlry. StmicnI.:inut/c instniirtorsregularly speako1′”thcnpivgnain couple.” I1iis uniiiitunil ex;^>{;iT:ttionnof equal participation must havenresulted from an exalted exercise ofnillogical premises: why should we limitnour cooperation to the beginning only:nlet’s have it out together till the very end,nconsistently with the modish iiitersexu:)]nidentitieation games. Never mind that anprecious gamut of refined emotions andnspiritual experiences get lost in thencancellation of the old ritualized apartness:nthe spirit of making trite anynexistential event, of pulling down everyntrailitional curtain of exceptionalir’ andnwonder in order to reveal the commonplacenwins hands down in thensweeiTstiikes of the liberal culture.n.nd now. we are one step down thenladder, .ccording to the reports gleeftillyndistributed by i’.VS ^ews. children of allnages are invited to attend, -witness, andninspect vhai”s going on on the obstetrician’sntable. o agony, privacy, ornI S ^ H ^ H H H H H HnChronicles of Culturencharacterized him as a potentiallyndisloyal citizen, without his even havingnbeen aware of its existence.nAs Kimball sees it, his only recoursenwas to the court of public opinionnthrough this book, in which, by interweavingnautobiography vnth sometimesnexcessively detailed quotations from hisnfile, he can make the record whole (he isnincensed at the FBI, for example, forn”obliterating the truth of… my ownnchildhood”) and restore his reputation,nin addition to raising the entire questionnof the compilation of such security files.nHe views himself as among those mostnlikely to be victimized by security files:nLlBKRAI. CI!LTI’RL: ^nintimacy any longer accepted, thenredemption of our kids is said to be innstark, merciless aulhenticily. The C’.liSnniaveii who related the stor>- hailed thenevent as linally doing away with thenmendacities of the stork fable. >X’ell,nthroughout recorded history, nobodynover die age of live believeil in .storks, butnpaying lip service to mythology seemeilnnot to be the worst kind of culturalndidacticism. Countless generations ofnstrong, valuable, decent personalitiesnhave been formed on this innocentnfalsification of reality, Ix’cause a nourishingnmetaphor always wiis, and still is. thenIx-.st frii-ndofthemoRil imagination. Hownwill tlie generation of toddlers who havenlaced tlie murder of the storks in the namenof naturalism shape up to Ix: hunuin