[JTN]

If he had said, "At the time of the meeting, it was circumstantial, but now we know better" Ann would probably have been more forgiving.

That is what he said. You can read the book review by clicking the link in #22, or see the excerpt I posted in #28.

[grey_whiskers]

I didn't have the excerpt in post 28 available at the time of my post 25.

But even so, it looks to me like someone was being too cute by half--using the words "circumstantial" to imply that the case against the spy had no substantive basis.

From reading your later post, it appears that the book being reviewed was the thing that gave the impression of the case being "circumstantial". As your excerpt in 28 points out, the book authors waited until the end of the book to make it clear Coplon was a spy.

So when the review quotes the book, it could *at first blush* look like the reviewer was calling the government's case circumstantial.

Sounds to me like Ann or one of her researchers used Lexis-Nexis for the phrase circumstantial and did not carefully read the review.

Assuming for the moment your quote is accurate. I'm too lazy to look up the original article from the Seattle paper. :-)

Cheers!