Windridge, I doubt that Forbes believed he was part of an infallible system. He was in his fifties at the time and several decades into a marriage that would ultimately disintegrate and leave him with nothing more useful to do for the rest of his life but ride around on motorcycles until he died. Still, it is a decade of life for many men when absolutes play a more important role in one's thinking than the shades of gray that will arise with later years. It is easy to become fixated on being right and having to be at the right place at the right time.
In the one life, one death teleology of most western belief systems, man must eventually become fixated on his present position as being important, at least more important than those of his predecessors or ancestors. When this happens, arrogance must arise. And arrogance always clouds one's thinking.
Misinterpretations abound in such situations. Bull