HUDSON INVEREST, TELE-POLITICO

'THE SAINT'
"The Latin Touch"

While Simon Templar was in Rome back in 1962, he got caught up in the kidnapping of a United States governor's daughter.  And in rescuing her, the adventure, as seen by the Trueniverse audience, altered the state of American politics from what was happening back in the real world.

The governor was Hudson Inverest and although his state was never mentioned, I'm fairly certain he was the governor of Vermont.  His daughter was kidnapped by an American gangster living in exile, who wanted the governor to use his position to get his brother off Death Row and get the sentence commuted to life in prison.  (From there the gangster was convinced he could then get his brother out of jail altogether... one way or the other.)

The inmate got himself on Death Row by killing a man in Burlington.  There may be other Burlingtons in America, but to have it stated without attribution to the state would mean - to me, at any rate - Burlington, Vermont.  And that's why I believe that Hudson Inverest was the governor of Vermont in 1962 - as far as Toobworld is concerned.

In the real world, Ray F. Keyser was the governor of Vermont, the youngest to ever hold that position up to that time.  (He was 34.)  And like almost all of the Vermont governors before him, Keyser was a Republican.  But after his one year term, Keyser was replaced by a Democrat.

So the only thing that might have remained constant between Toobworld and the Trueniverse would have been that Inverest was probably a Republican as well.  (As played by Alexander Knox, the former college professor - Dartmouth*? - certainly had that aura.)

I'd like to think that after the death of Governor Hudson Inverest, a mountain peak in either the Green Mountains or the Taconic Mountains was named after him in Toobworld. 

Mt. Inverest has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

BCnU!

* Yes, I know Dartmouth is in New Hampshire, but I think I heard it stated that he had been a Dartmouth professor.  The word was garbled and so it could have been a reference to the subject he taught.