Re: Suggested killfile rules for recent attack

-1, 1996, short version
*
* It was just before April Fool's day, and Virginia Bernard thought the
* caller was one of her friends pulling a practical joke. Her husband, an
* ex-IRS official got on the phone, and after a brief discussion was
* convinced the man really was an FBI agent.
*
* Agent Emmett arrived: The seventy-three-year-old part-time teacher was
* asked: "why did you subscribe to 'Soviet Life' and why did you write to
* the Soviet embassy?"
*
* "I need to clear this up. It's in the interest of national security."
*
* With the invocation of the sacred words "national security," one of
* the most powerful mantras of the long-lived Cold War, Mrs. Bernard's
* seventy-nine-year-old husband burst out laughing. At any time, it
* would have been hard to imaging the connection between his wife and
* the fearsome world of espionage, the arms race and Check Point Charlie.
*
* But the wall had fallen, and Russia had a complete upheaval too. The FBI
* agent's linkage of his wife to "national security" seemed absurd. The
* agent, however, did not share George's amused astonishment.
*
* "Don't mock me," the couple remembers Emmett warning them.
*
* She had subscribed to the magazine for its impressive photography, and
* had written to the Soviet embassy to thank them for sending an icebreaker
* to free some whales, as suggested by a television show host.

How foolish of her to put her real name and return address on the letter.



.

Relevant Pages