Split Infinitives and Spying Initiatives

Most obituaries of William Safire, who died yesterday at age 79 from pancreatic cancer, note that he had long written columns about politics and language for The New York Times, that he once served as a speechwriter for disgraced U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, and that he was an ardent Iraq war propagandist. But The HMSS Weblog observes as well that this “libertarian conservative” took “a turn at being a spy novelist. Safire’s 1995 novel was called Sleeper Spy. In it, a ‘sleeper’ agent planted by the old Soviet Union has been activated.” Jiro Kimura of The Gumshoe Site adds that Safire also penned another crime-oriented novel: Full Disclosure (1977).