Notes from the Basement

I’ve been holding off commenting on the Litvinenko case, because … well, because I can’t make heads or tails of it. As international mysteries go, this one is particularly murky. But that doesn’t keep the preternaturally astute Charles Krauthammer from sharing his indisputable conclusion that Vladimir Putin did it. Fresh from his astounding success at predicting the outcome of the US invasion of Iraq and other remarkable acts of prescience, the Mad Doctor expects to convince his reader (there must be at least one) that he knows everything there is to know about both the Kremlin and the Russian underworld.

I don’t pretend to know as much as CK, but here’s what I think is probably true:

• When the Soviet Union imploded, the force of the event sent towering jets of scum skyward, some of which ended up in Great Britain, the US, Israel, Germany … just about everywhere.*
• The substratum occupied by some Russian emigrés is a world of shadows and shady dealings, where one might swear by the cross and still be double-crossed, fatally.
• Litvinenko was a pal of “exiled” Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who is a sworn enemy of the legitimately elected head of the Russian state and reportedly aspires to return to his native land as a conquering hero.

Now, many observers take this last fact and spin a comely tale: Putin killed Litvinenko because he was a pesky critic. On second glance, it’s not such a well-written story. In fact, it just doesn’t make sense. Dr. Krauthammer talks of “Occam’s razor.” What a genius to think of using such a classic philosophical tool! But is this where Occam’s razor gets him? God help him when he shaves.

As luck would have it, on the very day the doctor reported his brilliant deduction, the Washington Post ran the first story I’d seen opening up the speculation to … well, who else but Platon Elenin (the fugitive in plain view formerly known as Boris Berezovsky)?

Do I know how polonium-210 ended up inside Alexander Litvinenko, and why? Of course not. Every day brings a new suspect or two (most recently, the colorful Dmitry Kovtun), who together with such early favorites as Andrey Lugovoy and the Italian Mario Scaramella (by some accounts a scheming scamp with a tenuous grasp of what some of us still quaintly call the truth) continue to lead us on a merry chase through the sewers of the world’s capitals.

Oh—and I apologize if the heavy dose of Krauthammer-induced sarcasm has corroded anyone’s monitors or LCD screens.

Addendum 2006.12.12: Katrina vanden Heuvel does a nice job cataloging the irresponsible, sensationalist coverage of the Litvinenko affair, especially in Great Britain. She also mentions the eminently reasonable alternative hypothesis put forward by Edward Jay Epstein, among others: that the polonium-210 poisoning may have been an accident, not murder, and the context might be smuggling, not political intrigue.
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*Lots of nice Russians ended up here as well—don’t get me wrong.