Word: augur
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Strangest aspect of the world since it came under the spell of Adolf Hitler is its uncertainty: the whimsical nature of events as they unravel from the Führer's haunted mind. Even heads of governments nowconsult the writings of journalists like Pertinax, Augur, Tabouis, who are reputed to have secret sources of knowledge about things to come. But common men look for guidance where they have always found it: in the stars...
Vladimir Poliakoff (Augur), White Russian newspaperman who snoops around odd corners of European chancelleries and sometimes pulls out something good, last week reported to the New York Times that British Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax had sent, through an unnamed emissary, to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop an odd but simple and direct message: "If you want war you can have war." Almost as defiant was Prime Minister Chamberlain, who delivered the most direct warning he has yet given to the Reich and boasted about Britain's newly found military power...
...this long parade of error, the work of Vladimir Poliakoff deserves a special float. For 20 years, from his six-storied London house, he has been sending out, under the name of Augur, a series of inside stories, interpretations, explanations, which have made him one of the most highly respected European commentators on foreign affairs. Last month he spoke his mind on Poland. Augur's Polish story...
Last week Augur published a book called Europe in the Fourth Dimension.- It is a rambling essay on democracy, British-French friendship, German aggression, which ends abruptly with a suggestion that only Poland bars Germany's path to the East. Typical Augur interpretation: Mussolini adopted anti-Semitism to make Italians racially conscious because he was horrified at the prospect of pickaninnies of Italian descent in Ethiopia...
...Augur's reputation for omniscience rests on his twelve-year record as the London Times's diplomatic correspondent, his standing with the Italian Embassy, his wide acquaintance in Europe's capitals, and a series of scoops that began when he published the substance of the Locarno Treaties before they were released. He was first to report the Anglo-Italian Treaty in 1938, first to announce Anthony Eden's resignation last year. So rarely do prophecies turn out right that these triumphs overshadowed notable Augur misses. But in 1932 he observed that Poland would soon achieve...