Not long after Walter Rodney met his death in June 1980, I was at Castellani House, the president’s residence on Vlissengen Road, waiting to see Forbes Burnham, when Vice-President Desmond Hoyte entered the room. After the usual formal greetings and a brief period of silence, he inquired, ‘Henry, why are the brightest people sometimes so stupid?’
I was not certain where he was coming from and so murmured ‘I have no idea’. He then proceeded to tell me a story about his former headmaster, with whom he apparently had had a good relationship and thought quite clever. The gentleman had had an encounter with the law, was charged, found guilty and then,
