My tastes in fiction are terrible, as I’ve mentioned on one or two occasions previously, but in the pile of pulp thrillers and semi-porn are some outstanding books by Gavin Lyall. In subject matter they are just more crime or espionage thrillers, but his observations keep occurring to me as I read the news, even half a century after some of the books were published.
In The Secret Servant, written to be a television series starring a young Charles Dance (it wasn’t very good, the plot was way too complicated for TV), the protagonist, “Harry Maxim”, is assigned to bodyguard a military strategist, who is attending some weapons trials. After having dealt with an intruder, he approaches the representative of the arms company whose products were being evaluated:
Maxim found it difficult to begin. “I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else… There was a girl in Professor Tyler’s room…”
“From what I hear tell, there’s usually a girl in Professor Tyler’s room. There certainly was at Princeton.”
“You provided this one.”
Brock narrowed his eyes. “Sure.”
“And there was a newspaper reporter staying here.”
“That’s right. He got one of the other girls. Were you thinking I was setting up Professor Tyler for a nice dirty story?”
“I was just asking.”
For a moment, Brock was about to get angry. Then he shook his head and said gently: “Harry, it’s a long time since I told anybody about the birds and the bees, but I’ll try … Fact one: we aren’t going to get any British contract for the mortar. We never were; I could smell that the moment we got here. I assume there’s a political reason, but I don’t know why.
“But so what?” He took a gulp of coffee. “There’s no winning in being a bad loser. Next year maybe we’ll sell you the biodegradable anti-personnel mine, or something new in rifle grenades. I could talk your ass off about what we’ve got coming up there.
“I believe I will have something stronger.” He filled up his coffee with Irish whiskey. “Fact two : if you think I was setting up your Professor for a little blackmail, you’ve blown your tiny Neanderthal mind. For one thing, I really do admire him as a military thinker. Sure, knowing him could be good for trade – or it could be no good at all, particularly if your prime minister loses the next election. Then the Professor would be back in the wilds of Cambridge, England, without any say in policy.
“But—” he stood up and made slow mark-time movements, stretching the stiffness out of his legs. He must have been sitting there a long time, Maxim realised; “—but let me tell you something that would be very bad for trade indeed: any whisper that we went in for blackmail. Giving big commissions, sweeteners, call it bribery if you like – yes, that happens all the time. In most of the countries we do it, there isn’t even a word for it : it’s just a way of life. And it hasn’t hurt Lockheed or Dassault or all the others that there’s a rumour they give away free money. They get it all back in the final purchase price anyhow.
“But blackmail . . . never. Last night I brought along those girls just the same as I made sure the hotel had the Professor’s favourite brand of whisky, that they wouldn’t serve us shellfish, that I had some good cigars to offer him. Harry, this is just routine. If it had been boys instead of girls, I could organise that, too. And when you send me somebody who just wants to talk business, I’ll be very happy to talk business and get to bed early. Until then…”
He sat down again. “Major Harry Maxim, takes coffee black with plenty of sugar, doesn’t drink much but is particular about beer, doesn’t smoke – except maybe a cigar? How’m I doing?”
Maxim smiled quickly. “Pretty well.”
“And it would be girls not boys, if anything. Sheet, you should hear some of what we have to organise in the Middle East or Latin America. Europe’s supposed to be easy territory.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Servant_(Lyall_novel)
I just always assumed that Epstein was doing the same thing. He made a lot of money managing investments for very rich people, and his clients and prospects got all the entertainments he could lay on for them, including celebrity speakers, including girls, including underage1 girls if that was their taste.
It’s not nothing — it’s crime and corruption and I have no inclination to defend it. But it’s always happened, and always will happen, and occasionally people will get properly busted for it, and usually they won’t.
Now the idea that Israeli intelligence, via their connections to Epstein and Maxwell, could have been getting something on the side is not insane. It might or might not be true. But as the “Brock” character above implies, it’s not something they could have been making any regular use of without destroying the whole thing. Very bad for trade indeed.
- In the international context, “underage” is a pretty complex question. Hollywood has memed the world into assuming anyone under 18 is “underage”, though that is not the law in any of Europe or most of the USA, at least at the time. On the other hand prostitution changes things, and any coercion changes things, so whatever the details, it’s been established that there were crimes.