February 16, 2003
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The Recruit, Part Deux
Walter L. Pforzheimer, one of the founding fathers of the Central Intelligence Agency, and its “institutional memory,” died on Monday, February 10, 2003.
From my notes of February 10, 2003:
“… gather me/ Into the artifice of eternity.”
— W. B. Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”
This poem has a sequel, titled simply “Byzantium” —
At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds….
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame….
The Emperor’s Pavement
See also yesterday’s note “The Recruit,”
on the CIA and what Vonnegut called
“A Duty-Dance with Death.”
