Louis ARAGON (1897-1982). Autograph manuscript,... Lot 324

Louis ARAGON (1897-1982). Autograph manuscript, signed at head, Aragon vous parle: d'un coup d'échec à la guerre, [1960]; 5pages in-4. About the incident of the American U-2 shot down by the Soviets (May 1, 1960); article published in n°760 of France Nouvelle, weekly of the French Communist Party. "When, for the first time since the world began, man extended his arm to the moon, we hailed this event as a promise of survival for mankind, as a change in relations between nations, where for our part we saw the beginning of a new era, during which, more or less distantly, we believed we could hail the end of violence as a means of settling human affairs, as a factor in human progress". Aragon then recalls the facts: "the flight of the American pilot Powers over the USSR, his plane shot down from a height of 20 km by a single rocket shot, Khrushchev's denunciation of the attack and the recognition by the US State Department that it was indeed a case of espionage, which is just one of the attempts regularly made in the skies over the USSR by US aviators over the last four years"... Aragon then made comments denouncing the American attitude, and insisting on "the good faith, honesty and desire for peace of the leaders of the USSR"...