Begun 80/3/28

136 Grant St. Apt. 1

Portland, ME 04101

 

 

Dear Person,

I know this is a hell of a way to begin a letter, but I don't remember your name. Trouble recalling names is number among the overabundance of flaws from which I suffer. But if you will give me enough time, I swear I'll get it right.

One day a while ago, I was in your office asking of Dr. Shedletsky (you see, I finally got his name correct). During what turned out to be a lengthy and wandering conversation, you suggested I read Ayn Rand. As you spoke or her, her books, and her philosophy, I felt several things: 1) the philosophy made intellectual sense but seemed, to me, to be of a kind that made it scary in practice; 2) I knew of Rand in a way more direct than the removed experience of the printed page; and 3) for reasons unknown, i.e., not remembered, I detested her as evil.

Well, today, as I sat at my desk stymied in my attempt to pull together an "unrelated" project, I leaned back and scanned the bookshelf in front of me. The books were essentially those I felt worthy of having but which were as yet, for the most part, unread. One such book, Scoundrel Time, by Lillian Hellman, jumped out and bit my face. As I nursed my sore face, I suddenly recalled why I had been so previously unaccountably down on Ms. Rand.

I had purchased the book, a rare occasion I assure you, because I had heard that it was an unforgiving, possibly hateful memoir of the nineteen fifties.

At this point it is, unfortunately necessary to offer something of my feelings on the nature of America and freedom, or perhaps more accurately, my feelings on the nature of American Freedom. Alexis de Toqueville writing in Democracy in America published in 1845 states my position better than I do, so I shall quote;

In whatever way then the powers of a democratic community may be organized and balanced, it will always be extremely difficult to believe what the bulk of the people reject, or to profess what they condemn.

 

In democratic states organized on the principles of the American republics, this is more especially the case, where the authority of the majority is so absolute and so irresistible, that a man must give up his rights as a citizen, and almost abjure his quality as a human being, if he intends to stray from the track which it lays down.

 

As is, no doubt, quite clear, I don't hold that America is the land of perfection many claim it to be. Nor do I accept the more or less generally accepted equation: America = Freedom.

In nineteen fifty-two, Hellman was called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. In a letter, she offered to talk about herself, but refused to name other people. Such may not, at first glance, seem any big deal, but for her, in America, it was, and remains, an act of great moral courage. And for that singular act, for daring to stand against the unashamed fascism of the day, she was made to suffer the particular punishments that America, as a democracy, can alone inflict. For here the authority says:

 

You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow citizens, if you solicit their suffrages; and they will affect to scorn you, if you solicit their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights or mankind. Your fellow creatures will shun you as an impure being; and those who are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace. I have given you your life, but it is an existence incomparably worse than death.

 

Indeed, it is to be seen that she suffered worse than Toqueville had predicted; for, in having to sell her house, she did not retain all that she possessed, she did not retain her property.

While others sacrificed even friends to save their careers, she stood tall and proclaimed, "I cannot had will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."

And, for myself, I believe that Lillian Hellman, as well as Paul Robeson, Larry Adler, and others should be recognized as the heroes I hold them to be.

Freedom is the key, and I don't believe there is much of it here. People point to Russia, China, and presently to Iran; but still I remain unswayed, for:

 

If the absolute powers of a majority were to be substituted by democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of independent life, they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new dress for servitude. There is - and I cannot repeat it too often - there is in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom as a holy thing and hate not only the despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me, and I am not more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me, by the arms of a million men.

 

Absolute monarchies have thrown odium upon despotism; let us be aware, lest democratic republics should restore oppression, and should render it less degrading in the eyes of the many, by making it more onerous to the few.

 

 

If Hellman, Robeson, Adler, etc. Are to be the heroes for their stands against American oppression, especially during the witch-hunting, black-listing fifties; who then are to be the villains? Well, we recognize that those shooting from the hip were the likes of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. But these were just power-happy glory-seekers. Who supplied them with their weapons, their ammunition; who loaded and pointed their guns? Who unleashed the attacks on the artistic community? Who justified it?

One movie made in 1944, especially disturbed Committee members (HUAC). They called for expert testimony on the film from novelist Ayn Rand, and quickly identified the works major flaw: it showed Russians smiling. "It is one of the stock propaganda tricks of the communists to show these people smiling." Since Russian propaganda shows Russians smiling, and this American film showed Russians smiling, this American film was part of the Russians' propaganda. It is the kind of logic for which Miss Rand is famous, and it dazzled the congressional students who had summoned her in 1947 to instruct them. Richard Nixon was one of her pupils that day, and he and no questions to ask about her Syllogism of the Smiles. Only Representative John McDowell had some reservations:

McDowell: Doesn't anybody smile in Russia anymore?

Rand: Well, if you ask me literally, pretty much no.

McDowell: They don't smile?

Rand: Not quite that way, no. If they do, it is privately and

accidentally, certainly not social. They don't smile in

approval of their system.

 

Miss Rand, a screenwriter, must have put some odd directions in

her scripts- like: "Smile accidentally, not socially."

 

Robert Taylor played lead in Song of Russia. Ayn Rand could not forgive him for telling a farmer, "That is wonderful grain."

 

...Just three years after he made the movie, and two days after Miss Rand condemned it, he (Taylor) was subpoenaed to meet the charge of trafficking in Russian Smiles.

 

- Garry Wills in the introduction

to Scoundrel Time

 

The whole thing might seem laughable except that "Russian smiles" were very serious business. Taylor, no fool, would quickly realize what was going on, and would quickly kneel, no crawl before the committee. It did not take him long not only to condemn the film and his part in it, but to name people, and thus personally blacklist a number of people. And as you have no doubt guess it is Rand whom I hold fundamentally responsible.

I mean, among other things neither she nor the committee seemed to care that the film was meant to portray a brave ally, smiling along with us in the war on Hitler. Or that Taylor appeared in the film at the request of the chief of movie propaganda in the government's (ours) Office of War Information.

Such is why I am down on Ayn Rand. And if the information I have is correct, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, I shall stay that way. And this despite having never read any of her famed books. After reading her texts, I may well see her in a different light; but I shall never forgive her what she did that day. Nor do I really feel I should. I don't think of myself as anti-American; I just feel it has a fistful of major flaws. Rand has demonstrated one of them perfectly.

For her way of thinking is as American as Apple Pie, and is evil nevertheless. Her reasoning is at the heart of many of the fun activities our FBI, C.I.A, and even IRS have engaged in. And what about Nixon and his boys, those lists, and dirty tricks.

And there is a very personal level in all of this. I must damn Rand and praise Hellman; for I have been placed in a similar situation, actually a few of them. I need to believe that I can justify my position. I did not sell out.

In '52 Hellman said no to naming names; in '72 I said no to naming names. I lost my job, my home, my fiancée, got blacklisted, got labeled "fag" and thief, and still bear the scars of the financial, emotional, and psychological burns which I suffered. So what is gained?

This country does not admit to its crimes; it does not apologize; it does not make amends. People suffer and are hopefully forgotten. We do not wish to remember.

But some still try, for example, to get Robeson into the College Football Hall of Fame. His skills would have placed him there long ago; but his personality, his statements, were judged as not that which was judged necessary. The All-American was judged Un-American. His political actions overshadowed his football and he remains to this day excluded. He said such things a Blacks got a better deal in Russia than in America (a very loose paraphrase). He noticed that there was an equality in Mother Russia that far exceeded anything he had witnessed in his homeland. I guess this made him Un-American, or Pro-Russian, no difference. But it is necessary to remember that in his day, Blacks were still fairly regularly lynched as part of Saturday night entertainment; that segregation was the rule and was practiced as the norm; that though he did go to law school, it was only with the greatest of personal difficulty and that upon graduation his practice of law was basically as a show piece. He could not get a decent job. His comments thus were not of political preference as much as they were simply a factual statement of relative condition and treatment.

Paul did not consciously set out to be a great actor or concert singer. He did not desire to be spokesman for the "Negro People," or an advocate for freedom of the world; rather he was made such by a hostile country. For it remains that as we so much seek affirmative action as a statistical cure for our traditional racism and sexism; that other countries, notably that accursed Russia, already have that which we seek. Thus as we brag of female astronauts, they have had women up in space orbiting this speck of dust. They have the doctors and lawyers we presently seek to train. And Antonia Brico would tell you that she could probably practice her trade, conducting, there; she can't here, her in this land of freedom and equality.

I am not pro-Russian; but they ain't anymore all bad than we are all good. Russia afforded Robeson something this country never did - there, he could be a man. For in America, he was a Black man. Brico could be a conductor in Russia, here a woman conductor. Such adjectives are called limiting in grammar books, you know. Paul could smile in Russia, smile with a sense of belonging and common humanity; and that was his crime. A few years ago smiling was a crime, we should never forget nor forgive that; just as we are committed to never forgiving nor forgetting a time when being Jewish was a capital offense. Robeson recalls the case of the dwarf, a sad tale. Learn of it and never forget. I do not like the cold intellectual rationale that not only allows but demands such injustices - Rand is on my personal "shit" list.

Thank you for bearing with me, I can take the smallest thing and get on a hell of a roll. Another of my flaws. I'll try to work on it.

Sincerely,

 

Robert C. Witham, Jr.