Horizon

Leaving aside the virtues or otherwise of the 'public' Miller, I've always had a sneaking feeling that he was overrated as a playwright.

An odd moment in the NYT's piece:

"In his autobiography he recalled that at one performance, upon the execution of the leading character, John Proctor, people in the audience "stood up and remained silent for a couple of minutes with heads bowed" because "the Rosenbergs were at that moment being electrocuted in Sing Sing.""

Since the VENONA decrypts in the 1990s have established that the Rosenbergs were indeed guilty of spying for the USSR, and at a quite serious level too (Krushchev remarked that their information accelerated the Soviet atom bomb program by several years), isn't there something a bit odd about this detail passing unremarked by the Times? If John Proctor has revealed at the last gasp: "fair cop, I really was a witch" it wouldn't necessarily negate the thematic power of The Crucible, but it would complicate and make us think a bit differently about the story.

He was a writer who got to marry Marilyn Monroe. I think he deserves to become the patron saint of geeks everywhere...

Alan -- IIRC what the cables established was that Julius was guilty but Ethel may or may not have been.

Graeme -- Eeyup.

Alan -- IIRC what the cables established was that Julius was guilty but Ethel may or may not have been.

Possibly, though as I understand it Ethel was probably guilty of complicity to commit espionage. It's certainly fair to question whether or not this lesser (though not trivial) offence deserved the death penalty.

I've always had a sneaking feeling that he was overrated as a playwright.

WE AGREE!

Another view, eloquently expressed, in today's SF Chronicle.