Schevitz ’62’s Astonishing Hypocrisy

I read and re-read Jeff Schevitz’s attempt at an apologia in PAW’s May 2022 profile of him. He showed up at our 60th Reunion. He and I spoke briefly, to no particular effect. He apparently fully expects to be accepted, despite his admitted spying on behalf of the East German Communist government, specifically in the “employ” of an element of the Stasi, their brutal secret police. His hypocrisy is astonishing: 1. When later confronted by the legitimate German government he falsely claimed to have been a CIA agent; 2. At his well-deserved trial in Germany he claimed to have been a “double agent,” and later admitted that it wasn’t true; that he had lied, presumably under oath; 3. He freely admits to having “no regrets” in having betrayed friends; 4. He evidences absolutely no regret or concern for people who were persecuted, tortured, jailed, or otherwise were subjected to humiliation, injury, or death by his employer, the Stasi; 5. He brazenly says that he “never rejected Princeton.” How noble. He admits that he used its reputation and stature to further his squalid activities. It would, at least in my view, be more than appropriate for Princeton to reject him.

As a footnote, perhaps to explain the temperature of my comments, I was a serving naval officer in-country in Vietnam, after USMC SERE training. My work sometimes involved being on the receiving end of munitions supplied by Jeff’s “friends.” I have friends who did not make it back, whose names are on the Wall of the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. I cannot abide his arrogant cheek in floating back and expecting to be forgiven and accepted.