Care-less Carlos and "Ia revolucion"

Terrorist Carlos the Jackal to stand trial for 1975 murders

I know very little about this Carlos, the international terrorist, character. As a member of his generation, it is clear to me that he- pitiful as he now is - was shaped by the late Sixties.

I was warned before going to an anti-war rally in downtown Providence by my "petty bourgeois" newsman brother that it was completely controlled by communists. At the time I was innocent of left wing politics - just anti-war.

The rally -for the time - was peaceful enough. No bomb throwers in sight. In the Sixties you learned that lunacy was relative. There was the lunacy of the RIGHT - completely abhorrent - and the lunacy
of the LEFT- often forgivable.

After the rally a leaflet invited me to a meeting on the bastion of radicalism - the Brown University campus. To be debated: "Leninism vs. Stalinism"

Within a few months I was speaking the language of American Trotskyism myself. Today I am still rather fond of the "Old Man" but it does not seem likely that his theory of Permanent Revolution will be verified.

I am deeply grateful, however, for one of his propaganda pieces : "Against Individual Terrorism".

Leon Trotsky absolutely would have rejected the Carlos delusion that a few well aimed shots - and a few grandiose explosions - can make the world a more just place.

What is the use of POLITICS if dynamite can do the job? I feel sorry for you Carlos - and for your tragic victims !