"Why do we study coup d'etats in a course on politics?" asked Jacob Foxx, Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard.

Foxx slowly surveyed the packed lecture hall, letting the students stew for a moment in their own silence. The five-hundred-odd seats in Lowell Lecture Hall were full. A few students were even squatting Indian-style in the aisles. Without question, his course, "The Pathology of Politics," was now the most popular in the Government Department. Not the great Galbraith in the Economics Department nor the celebrated Schlesinger in the History Department had as many students in their lectures.

"No takers?" Foxx asked, breaking the silence. His wiry brown hair, which flopped over his brow like a schoolboy's, made him look more relaxed than he was "Then let me answer my own question." After pausing a moment, he began. "The coup in its purest form is an act of' statecraft. Its objective is not overthrowing the mythic political system nor paper constitutions, but the instruments of power that control the state. Perhaps it is not in your standard textbooks, but the coup cuts to the heart of the study of politics."

Like an orchestra conductor, Foxx punctuated each point he made with both hands slicing the air. Finishing this brief introduction, he stepped back from the lectern. He tended to slouch slightly when he relaxed. Being nearly six feet four inches tall, he was somewhat self-conscious about his height. The undergraduates seemed quite impressed with his lecture. This was only his third year at Harvard, and already his course had received a rave review in the "Confidential Guide to Classes" published by the Harvard Crimson. It described Government 233a as "the hottest thing going on in an otherwise dead Government Department." And it was especially kind to him, noting that "Professor Foxx avoids the usual humdrum about legalities, constitutions, etc. Instead, he applies his own Machiavellian cunning to political power." It concluded its recommendation with "New, original, and requires very little outside reading." Actually, the review had proved something of an embarrassment. His colleagues in the Government Department were teaching courses about the very sort of constitutions and formalities his course derided. The review added fuel to an already burning fire. Foxx knew from remarks made at faculty meetings that his colleagues considered his presentation overly dramatic and overly conspiratorial. On the other hand, he was undeniably drawing more students than any other lecturer. They would have to take that fact into account when he came up for tenure in the spring.

While the class watched, Foxx quickly drew a maze of circles, squares, arrows, and interconnecting lines on the backboard behind him. "Think for a moment of government as a labyrinth," he resumed. "Painted on the outside Walls of this labyrinth are figureheads— a president, Congress, Cabinet members. To find the power, it is necessary to enter into the maze itself. Here, in nameless bureaus are faceless men that keep records, reports, and dossiers." He paused to allow the students to catch up with him in their note taking.

A hand shot up in the front row. Foxx instantly recognized it as belonging to Brixton Steer. Even down to the bow tic, young Brixton looked like an exact replica of his elegant father, Ambassador Steer. Since Brixton was also his tutee, Foxx knew how conscientious he could be. "Question, Mr. Steer?"

"If I understand you correctly, Professor," Steer began over-deferentially, "you suggested that elected officials are merely fronts for hidden power elites."

"You got it. The modern bureaucratic state," Foxx replied.

"Then I don't quite understand why coup d'etats often aim at overthrowing these figureheads?" Steer sat down, knowing his question would be answered.

Foxx said, nodding as if he were taking in its fullest implications. He welcomed questions because they broke the tedium of the lecture, and allowed him to refocus the students' attention. "I did not mean to minimize the important function of elected leaders. Even though they do not exercise real power in this model, they still symbolize it in the public's imagination. The first objective of the coup d'etat is to capture the real nerve centers of government. This may be a military communications center, a counterintelligence agency, the censorship authority, or whatever. Once the coup controls the inner machinery that collects and disburses information, it controls the government. If the coup-makers want to publicly identify this change in power, this requires some sort of symbolic coup d'etat-which is what we read about in the newspapers. It involves overthrowing and possibly arresting the elected leaders. Such a symbolic coup should not be confused with the real coup which preceded it."

Foxx could see that he was losing the interest of the class. The signs were unmistakable: papers could be heard rustling, eyes began wandering around the amphitheater, and shoes scraped together. He could almost feel the students becoming fidgety. He had been too analytical in describing the coup d'etat, he thought. What students at Harvard demanded was not disembodied concepts but interesting anecdotes— anecdotes they could repeat in their houses and clubs-- they could use later to impress their friends.

"Consider, for example, what really happened in Venezuela in 1948." As he began his anecdote, he could see students perking up their cars. It reminded him of police dogs responding to a subsonic whistle. "I happened to be in Caracas that year doing research on my thesis. The real coup occurred in October, when the counter elite seized control of such power centers as the liaison with the U.S. Military Mission in Caracas, which then operated all the military airports in Venezuela; the Central Telephone Exchange, which controlled communications between the capital and the provinces; the anti-subversive unit of the National Gendarmerie, which held dossiers on key politicians; and the State Security Agency in the Ministry of Interior, which could neutralize any pro-government military unit by issuing fake marching orders. After they had gained real power, the coup-makers in turn waited until November fifteenth, 1948, before overthrowing the President and closing down Parliament."

He hesitated for a brief moment, seeing his tutee, Arabella, out of the corner of his eye. She was entering the lecture on mock tiptoes.

When she reached the third row, a young man in a charcoal suit and white buck shoes offered her his seat. She had that effect on men. She sat in his stead, easing one leg over the other, she dangled her calf so that her toe just touched the floor.

Foxx touched his hand to the back of his neck. It was damp, the first sign of anxiety. "The coup may thus provide us with the only glimpse we will ever get of the actual power structure."

Arabella couldn’t help but smile at her tutor’s performance. He reminded her of a man on a tightrope, who smiled to impress the audience with his utter confidence while betraying his fear with short tentative steps. At times, she held her breath, sure that he would fall flat on his face with some point he was making, but he always managed, somehow, to regain his balance. At Oxford, where Arabella had studied Philosophy, three years, she had never seen a professor quite like him. She thought that he was pushing his "hidden power structures" much further than logic allowed, but his enthusiasm to clear away the underbrush made her head spin, like when she had drunk too much champagne.

His lecture concluded, as it always did, just as the chimes began ringing. He was nothing if not punctual. He always tried to avoid watching the students as they filed out. Experience had taught him that even the briefest eye contact might cause students to linger and ask half-articulated questions about the nature of politics. He knew by the time the last chime struck the lecture hall would empty out. Like everyone else, students were creatures of habit. Turning to the blackboard, he began erasing the maze of symbols.

Foxx whistled a tune he couldn't quite remember as he walked across the Yard. It was only November, but the frost had already defoliated most of the trees on in Harvard yard. He tried to protect himself against the cold wind by hunching his shoulders, though he knew it was a illogical gesture.

His office was on the third floor of Littauer Center. It wasn't very large, but he had taken pride in furnishing it with the few possessions he care about. His ex-wife Lulu, a luscious Parisian photographer, had bought the Spanish colonial desk in Venezuela. It was all he had to show for his four years of service there or, for that matter, his four years of marriage. Lulu turned out to be a lulu: She went to France to visit her parents and never returned. Eight months later, he received a note from her saying, "Sorry but I don't breed well in captivity. Divorce papers on route."

The leather Chesterfield sofa he had bought soon after receiving Lulu's letter. He got it at Turtle’s auction house in downtown Boston. Its previous owner, a professor of Art history, was famous for seducing his tutees on it. Its seventy-six inches of black pleated leather turned out to be a perfect length for him to snooze on. Over it was his latest acquisition, a Belle Epoch etching by Beardsley.

The shelves were conspicuously empty of books. As far as he was concerned, few books had been written on politics that deserved to be reread. On the floor was an Armenian dragon carpet. It had been a gift from his mother. She never said where she had gotten this museum piece— or very much else, except on a “need to know” basis. She had refused even to tell him even his father's proper name. All he had ever learned of him was that he was some sort of international businessman. Most of Foxx's youth was spent traveling through Europe with his mother. She usually identified him as a nephew or cousin. He played along with this deception, arranging his identity and cover story to fit hers. Only after die died in a car crash did he begin to establish his own identity, first as a political scientist at UCLA, then as a propagandist in Venezuela, Now, at thirty-three, he was an Assistant professor at Harvard.

Sitting at his desk, he leafed through the report on his desk called “'Praetorian Politics." He would be presenting it at the colloquium he had been invited to in New York that Friday.

His eye than fell on a post card. It was the latest move in the correspondence chess game he had been playing for two years with an opponent whom he had never met. He slid out the chess set from his desk drawer. It was more interesting than his presentation. Was his opponent attempting to lure him into a trap? He scribbled a counter move on a postcard.

A knock on the door interrupted him. Through the translucent glass, he could see a student's silhouette. "One moment, please," he called. He put the chessboard back in the drawer— he want his students to think of him as a compulsive game player— and returned the report to his desk.

"Sorry to break in on you like this," Arabella said, standing in the open doorway. "I was hoping that we could re-schedule my tutorial."

"Isn't it scheduled for later this afternoon?" "Yes, 4 pm. But my sister Tina left a message she is going to call me at home then. Can't be in two places at one time, though I sometimes wish I could. She is coming to Cambridge. Perhaps I can bring her to your lecture, Professor Foxx."

"why not. Is she interested in politics: "Pathological politics," she corrected. "No, not really. Tina's interests lie..." She was quite content to let her sentences dangle in midair. Men usually rushed in to complete them favorably for her.

"Elsewhere," Foxx completed the sentence on cue. "When would you like to do the tutorial?" Is this a convenient time."

He picked up the report on his desk as to show how busy he was “I have to edit this paper..."

She had that confidant glint in her eye saying, as if to say she knew something he didn’t know. He wanted to tell her to come back the following the week, just to teach her a lesson about who was in control. Instead, he heard himself say, “"But I can do that later paper later. Sit down, please”

Leaving the door slightly ajar, she made her way to the Chesterfield. The sun, streaming in the window behind her, revealed the outlines of her lithe body through a loose gauze dress. She slid into the sofa, tucking her legs under her skirt, with great agility.

He again felt those tell-tale beads of perspiration forming on his neck. He hoped she did not see them. He had known Arabella only since September, when she had transferred from Oxford to Harvard. He had been impressed first with her mind. Although she was only nineteen, she applied the rigor of a trained logician to everything said in her presence. She relished challenging whatever points he made. A belle dame sans merci. But it was her body that came to unnerved him. "Have you had a chance to read the chapter on the labyrinth, Arabella?"

“Every word, twice.” She poised her head, sphinx like, on a bridge she made for it by clasping her hands together.

"Do you agree that possessing a blueprint to the labyrinth of government is in itself tantamount to power?"

"The terms of your argument are clear enough. The power to control a government resides in the agencies that control intra government communications. If a potential usurper can identify and locate these agencies, his chances of success are increased."

"That's an excellent summary of the thesis." He liked the terse way she stated things, like precise hammer blows on a nail head.

"It's your basic assumption I question." As she spoke, her ryes remained fixed on him.

"Yes?" He swivelled uncomfortably in his chair, opening himself to her attack.

"You assume that power will be concentrated in a few key Centers, but what if it is widely distributed throughout a government?"

"Even if power is dispersed, communications will inevitably be focused in a few command centers."

"Why inevitably?" She spoke without hand gestures. Her body held its positions as tenaciously as her mind.

"Because that is the model that I've chosen to describe: a nation in which communications are transmitted through closely held channels." He strode over to point out the relevant section on "Selection of models" in the manuscript she was holding.

"Then isn’t it' tautological."

"Its political science. We describe empirical situations. We have givens."

“But then its conditional, not inevitable, right?”

"It's inevitable under those hypothetical conditions," he shouted at her.

“Do you have a fever?” she suddenly interrupted. “You’re soaking wet.”

She reached out towards his shirt. Without thinking, he grabbed her wrists, arresting them in mid air, clamping on invisible handcuffs. He didn’t want her to feel the nervous sweat or know what she aroused in him.

She pulled away with a jolt and started moving back, towards the door.

He closed his eyes, wondering if she would complain to the Dean. The last thing he could afford was a scandal: HARVARD TEACHER MOLESTS TUTEE was the headline he was envisioning as the door banged shut.

But she was still in the room. After locking the door, she was walking towards him. Then, putting her arm on him for leverage, she slipped into his lap. "I still say it's a tautological, but so are you.”

That was it. Only two months earlier Harvard summarily dismissed an Assistant Professor of History for just such all indiscretion. Yet, he knew that it was no use pretending that he could be a rational calculator in this situation. He could feel his excitement growing. He wanted Arabella more than anything else. Up until now, it had been merely a secret fantasy that he had managed to repress.

It took him only a minute to unbutton her dress, and, with a firm tug, pulled it over her head. Raising her hands in mock surrender, she allowed him to finish undressing her.

She pressed her lips to his lips with determination. Then her her right hand, expertly guided by his own, began undoing his zipper.

Suddenly he heard footsteps shuffling down the corridor. "You can't believe what's happening in Washington," a distant voice was saying. Foxx recognized it as the voice of Professor Edward Wiley, the antitrust expert, who taught at the law school. "Are you telling me that they are going to drop the cartel case, Wiley?" said Professor W. L. Lock, Chairman of the Government Department. Lock's office was next to Foxx's.

Foxx froze as he listened to Wiley and Lock chatting in the hall. They paused for a moment, and then continued into Lock's office.

"They are now claiming that national security transcends the criminal code of justice," Wiley continued in an agitated voice.

"Bosh, it's crude oil, that's all," Lock replied.

Foxx could hear Professor Wiley in the next office explaining: ". . .The cartel controls everything, ships, pipelines, refineries. If the truth be known they control the British government. The risks would be enormous...”

He could no longer concentrate on what was being said in the adjoining office. But Arabella seemed to enjoy their enforced secrecy.

"Enormous, indeed," she echoed.