High life
Bitter pill
Taki
New York
This is not a pleasant story but one that must be told. Mind you, it is hard- ly original, but it does give a certain perspective on the state of crisis in our society. And being a Greek I am more aware than most that all the mighty civilisa- tions of the past have fallen because of tragic flaws in man. None more so than the Greeks.
Although it does not necessarily mean that our civilisation must share the fate of all previous ones, contemplating their ruin does not fill me with hope. Certainly not after what happened to a friend of mine recently. But before I tell you about him, a small reminder. It was just about 20 years ago that all the progressive cognoscenti were eagerly promoting the legalising of various drugs. I remember as if it were yesterday when I first heard Timothy Leary preaching — pontificating rather — about the benign qualities of LSD. Smaller fry praised marijuana, and the Hollywood shylocks backed cocaine. The cant they used in order to sanitise the drug issue was that it was a 'victimless crime'. So Leary went on to make a good living as a victim of a repressive society, and the trendy Hollywood types made fortunes from films that glorified drugs as if they were an art form.
Despite the efforts of many to warn against drugs, they are still widely used and enjoy a certain social cachet. And although people who live in glass houses should not throw stones, heaving a boulder is the only appropriate projectile when it comes to drugs. The progressives are still around,
however, to prevent wiser minds from act- ing upon our bitter knowledge, while the victims of the so-called victimless crimes pile up.
Two weeks ago one of the most gifted men that I have known — and I've known many — died tragically and mysteriously In California. As the case is still under police investigation I will not name him, but he was a golden boy in the true, classical sense of the word. In fact he was the most phenomenal athlete I ever knew. In the exclusive world of diving he was a master. In 1964 he won a gold medal in the TokY° Olympics, and retired from competition soon after. He was 19 years old when he retired and, unlike most great champions' he never looked back. He went on to university and became a classics scholar. His family was an extremely rich one, and he combined the grace and assurance the rich rarely possess, with the warmth and tolerance of those who know that knowledge is strength and not a whip to be used aginst those who never acquired it. His was a brilliant mind inside a god-like body' with the soul of a saint.
Although it sounds as if I'm going over the top, I don't care. I know that I'm not' He and 1 had only one thing in common; We both loved women and never tired 01 chasing them. Predictably, he was waY ahead. His Achilles heel was his charm. Few could resist it, least of all himself. He was a happy person. When he got into cocaine wasn't worried. His was not one of the 'stupefied faces and inert minds' the brilliant Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about in his memoirs when he recalled the widespread drug addiction at the Egyptian University in the late 1920s.
Maybe, definitely in fact, it suited me to think so. I pride myself on taking on all corners, including the most insidious, and beating them. Now I'm not so sure. Not sure at all. He was a better man than I ye', he's now gone. After some years he lost everything, but was too proud to go to his family for help. As he had been the youngest ever Olympic medal winner in dot- ing, he thought he could kick the proble0 .But he gave in to the sweet escape, that cer- tain route to illusion and squalor. My friend Bob Tyrrell used to, and still does, warn Me constantly about the insidiousness of drugs. Tyrrell was his best friend and I will never forget what he told us once: 'In our age we do not have a proper hate for illusion,' he said, 'and so many of our public values are based on it.' How did he die? No one is sure. While dining with a group of friends he tried to reach for something underneath the table, and banged his head while coming up. A few hours later he was found dead, after having complained of a headache and gone to bed. Some of those present were drug users, and eventually it transpired that he was to be a federal prosecution witness In a cocaine-trafficking case. His parents, wife and young children never knew 01., suspected anything. Only Bob and I knew that he used drugs. A drug, rather. A' though I hate to preach, or sound seri- °us, I am not embarrassed to write this. Perhaps someone less strong than Ken will get the message. Drugs are not noble op- Ponents. They must be shot in the back.
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