Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich, an egg-bald Russian with a twin-pronged beard, spent a lifetime seeking peace and, somehow, disturbing everything he touched. Devoted followers thought he was a genius who could unify humanity through art. Loudmouthed Westbrook Pegler thought he was a quack who wanted to become "head" of Siberia.
Quack or genius, Roerich led a busy life that brushed against Eternal Krishna the Regenerator—and the ferrets of the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue; against dreamy Henry Wallace in Washington—and the 363 local gods of the Punjab's Kulu Valley. On Manhattan's Riverside Drive his devotees reared to his name a 29-story skyscraper, graded...
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