CHAPTER 22 RESURGENCE (1957–1958)

1. The classic account is Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of “Brown v. Board of Education”: Black America’s Struggle for Equality (Knopf, 1976). Harvard Sitkoff’s The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954–1980 (Hill and Wang, 1981) is a reliable shorter summary.

2. Los Angeles Herald Dispatch, July 4, 1957 (King). Essie described the Montgomery bus boycott as “magnificent” and hailed the “new young brilliant courageous Negro leaders” who had emerged in an article for the Czechoslovak News Agency, Feb. 11, 1957 (ms. in RA). She expressed much the same sentiments in her Sept. 19, 1957, article for The Afro-American, “Passive, Massive Resistance” (ms. in RA). PR’s statement on Little Rock, dated Sept. 12, 1957, is in RA. The Afro-American carried it in the issue of Sept. 21, 1957; a brief summary appeared in the New York Amsterdam News that same day.

3. Phone interview with Anne Braden, May 5, 1985; FBI New York SAC to Hoover, Dec. 19, 1957–Jan. 8, 1958, FBI New York 100-25857-3186. Oscar Brown, Jr., puts it this way: “He stayed off on this left tangent.… He had gone so far out on that limb, there was no way he could get back, psychologically even” (interview, Dec. 27, 1986).

4. ER to Murphy, Easter Sunday 1957, MSRC: Murphy. In a private letter Essie referred to the Prayer Pilgrimage as “one of the most important events of our time here in this country” (ER to Zamiatin, May 25, 1957, RA). The FBI knew of the Robesons’ presence in Washington for the Pilgrimage (FBI New York 100-25857-2917). PR subsequently recalled that during the Pilgrimage, “Many Negroes came to me and said, ‘Paul, we might not be on these steps [of the Lincoln Memorial] today, but for certain of the things you have stood by and fought for your people’” (transcript of passport hearings, May 29, 1957, RA). The assertion that Robeson was testing the waters for an NAACP takeover was ascribed to Newell Johnson, PR’s public-relations manager during his 1957 California trip (SA, San Francisco, to N.Y., Dec. 19, 1957; then N.Y. to Hoover, Jan. 8, 1958, FBI New York 100-25857-3186); FBI New York 100-25857-3204, also 3210 (CPUSA).

5. He also began work on a never-to-be-completed book on his musical theories (ER to Diana Loesser, March 8, 1957, PR Archiv, GDR). PR’s notes, Aug.-Sept. 1957, RA, attest to his continuing absorption in pentatonic musical theory, and the surrounding scholarship on the subject. In a set of notes entitled “re: article by A. Medvedev on Aram Khachaturyan, USSR (No. 12),” Robeson gave a succinct version of his research design: “… there is a world body, a universal body of basic folk themes from which all folk music is derived, and is directly or in directly related. Interested as I am in the universality of mankind—in the fundamental relationship of all peoples to one another—this idea of a universal body of folk music intrigued me, and I pursued it along many fascinating paths. Confirmation came from many diverse sources.…”

6. Los Angeles Tribune, July 3, 1957; ER to George Murphy, Jr., May 30 (Cayton), Aug. 26, 1957, MSRC: Murphy. In the latter letter, ER characterized the Lomax article as “a dog” and claimed she had told Paul, “That’ll learn you to keep your big mouth shut long enough for some other people to get in a few words edgewise.” She also claimed that “Paul laughed when I suggested that, and admitted it was true.” Something of the same ramblingly immodest tone had characterized PR’s remarks during the May 29, 1957, hearing on his passport application in Washington; he described himself as “one of the great artists of the contemporary period” and referred to his recent recording as “some of the greatest singing I have done in the last 20 years” (transcript in RA). The possibility that Robeson may have experienced recurrent emotional trouble in California is hinted at in a letter from ER to Cedric Belfrage (May 30, 1957, RA) just before he left on the trip: “He is beginning to feel very tired, so we are going to curtail all his activities. When he returns from the coast, we will try to persuade him to take a long holiday, and get some real rest and relaxation.” She expressed the same doubts to the radical clergyman Rev. Stephen H. Fritchman, one of PR’s hosts in L.A.: “I don’t want him tied up to a wearing program even before he starts out. I have no idea whether he will be able to stand up to it or not” (May 2, 1957, RA).

Carlton Goodlett, the left-wing black physician and publisher in San Francisco, credits Rev. F. D. Haynes of the Third Baptist Church (the largest black church in San Francisco) for PR’s breakthrough singing engagement. Following that concert, the Baptist Ministers Union of Alameda County obtained the use of the Oakland Municipal Auditorium from the Oakland City Council for a Robeson concert—the first time since 1952 that a civic building had been made available to him. There was vigorous protest from right-wing groups, but the black community “developed a counterforce” and the City Council held firm. Despite torrents of rain on the day of the concert, the auditorium was filled to overflowing one hour before PR’s performance began. The Oakland police, Alameda County sheriff, and federal officers took down the license-plate numbers of those parked outside (Carlton Goodlett, ms. reminiscences of PR, in the PR Archiv, GDR). In L.A., Robeson gave two concerts at the progressive First Unitarian Church (Stephen H. Fritchman was its minister) to help the church defray the costs of raising additional tax monies resulting from its refusal to abide by California loyalty oaths. He was also sponsored in L.A. by the Committee for Protection of the Foreign Born, on the Attorney General’s “subversive” list, and by the Los Angeles Committee to Secure Justice for Morton Sobell, in prison on Alcatraz Island as a result of the Rosenberg case. While in L.A., PR stayed with black friends, Frankie and George Sims, both active in the L.A. National Negro Labor Council, and was guest of honor at a private dinner at the home of Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted screenwriter. The Los Angeles Herald Dispatch (July 4, 1957) described him editorially as “the man best fitted, by virtue of sincerity, integrity and courage, to give leadership to the Negro people in this day”—though at the same time it expressed the hope that he had “learned a lesson” about the “left progressives” he had surrounded himself with for fifteen to twenty years and who had “failed to give him the proper support”; they had “isolated [him] from his own people,” so that the “Negro masses (had also) failed to rise to support him because they were unfamiliar with his activities.” This affirmation from the black community, however tempered, gave PR a real boost: “a very happy experience,” is how ER described it (ER to Rev. Riley, Aug. 6, 1957, RA). Details of PR’s activities and the concert reviews are in: Los Angeles Herald Dispatch, July 4, 1957; California Jewish Voice, June 21, 1957; People’s World, June 29, Aug. 3, 10, 1957; California Eagle, July 4, 1957; San Francisco Sun Reporter, July 20, Aug. 31, 1957; FBI Main 100-12304-408, FBI New York 100-25857-2965, 3021.

7. Statements of support from many people were published in a pamphlet, Let Robeson Sing, put out by the London Robeson Committee (a copy is in RA). Flora Robson and J. Dover Wilson wrote supporting letters to the London Times (May 4, 10, 1957). Driberg’s column is in Reynolds News, May 12, 1957. The British Equity resolution and the debate surrounding it are described in the Manchester Guardian, April 20, 1957, and the London Times, April 29, 1957. The actor Adolphe Menjou told the New York columnist Hy Gardner he was “incensed” at British Equity (Herald Tribune, May 14, 1957). According to Cedric Belfrage (interview, May 29, 1984), Laurence Olivier was one of the few in England to refuse to lend his name. PR also valued an invitation to appear at the International Music Festival Prague Spring (Vilein Pospisil to PR, Jan. 25, 1957; PR to Pospisil, March 16, 1957, RA).

8. The two fullest accounts are Cedric Belfrage’s article in the National Guardian, May 27, 1957, and the detailed report he wrote ER, May 27, 1957, RA. Additional details are in Belfrage to ER, May 1, 10, 20, 28, 30, 31, 1957; ER to Belfrage, May 13, 30, June 5, 17, 1957—all in RA.

9. Belfrage to ER, May 27, 1957, RA; Manchester Guardian, May 28, 1957; ER to Belfrage, May 30, June 5, 1957, RA. In his May 27 letter Belfrage reported that “One thing that was particularly good was the number of Negroes in the concert audience—I should think at least 150. We also had mainly African and West Indian students as ushers.” Taking a page from Belfrage’s book, the South Wales miners arranged for a transatlantic transmission for the Eisteddfod in Oct. 1957 (Dilwyn Jones to PR, Oct. 25, 1957; Paynter and Evans to PR, October 7, 1957, RA).

10. Boudin to PR, with enclosed copies of correspondence with the Passport Division, Jan. 22, Feb. 19, March 15, May 10, 1957, RA; interview with Boudin, July 14, 1982; Boudin passport-case files, courtesy of Boudin.

11. The full transcript of the hearing is in FBI New York 100-25857-1A88; FBI Main 100-12304-403 (“wash out”).

12. ER to Mr. Evans, Aug. 29, 1957 (perjury fear); Knight (Passport Division) to PR, Aug. 9, 1957; Boudin to PR, Aug. 13, 1957. FBI Main 100-12304-427 (Trinidad). The Jagans had met and corresponded with the Robesons (e.g., Janet Jagan to ER, Oct. 2, 1957, RA).

13. Shaw to PR, Oct. 16, 1957, RA. Shaw had first sounded out PR about the possibilities of Pericles in Jan. 1957 (ER to Paul Endicott, Jan. 15, 1957, RA); the formal invitation and announcements ten months later were aimed at public relations. Boudin to PR, Nov. 7, 1957; Boudin to John Abt (who had joined as PR’s counsel; Abt was known as the lawyer for the CPUSA), Dec. 6, 1957, enclosing draft letter to Frances G. Knight; Boudin to Knight, Dec. 10, 1957—all in RA.

14. ER to Shaw, Nov. 15, 1957; ER and PR to Shaw, Nov. 26, 1957; Shaw to ER and PR, Nov. 22, 1957; Tony Richardson to PR, three notes, n.d.—all in RA.

15. Daily Herald, Jan. 15, 1958. Harold Davison to PR, Jan. 14, 31, 1958; Richardson to ER and PR, n.d.; Frances G. Knight to Boudin.Jan. 17, 1958; Boudin to Loy Henderson, Jan. 31, 1958; Boudin to PR, Feb. 3, 19, 1958; Boudin to ER, Feb. 7, 25, 1958; ER to Richardson, Feb. l, 1958—all in RA. Daily Express, Jan. 31, 1958; see pp. 233–34 for the earlier incidents referred to. Less predictably, the Oxford Mail wrote (Jan. 30, 1958), “He has made some most insulting remarks about Britain, but obviously does not mind taking British money”; but the Mail did not want to keep him out of Britain—to do that “would be to punish a man for his opinions.”

16. ER to Shaw, Feb. 22, 1958; Shaw to ER, March 8, 1958, RA. Edric Connor, the West Indian singer and actor, replaced Robeson as Gower, thereby becoming the first black to appear in a Shakespeare season at Stratford. According to the London Daily Herald (July 8, 1958), PR had suggested Connor as a replacement. For more on Robeson and Connor, see note 12, p. 686; note 48, p. 750.

17. FBI New York 100-25857-2921 (“losing courage”), 2927 (“supers”), 3184 (1957 activities); FBI Main 100-12304-428 (1957 activities); ms. of PR’s Carnegie Hall speech, Nov. 10, 1957, RA; PR’s many New Year’s Day greetings are in RA; the Albanian one is dated Feb. 25, 1958.

18. ER to Richardson, Feb. 1, 1958; Pollard to ER and PR, Jan. 29, 1958; Daisy Bates to PR, Jan. 24, 1958; ER to Bates, Feb. 22, 1958; Archie Moore to PR, Jan. 26, 1958, telegram April 5, 1958—all in RA. Another telegram from Archie Moore to PR, dated Dec. 31, 1958, reads: “One punch was in your behalf. I’m sure you understand me” (RA).

19. Sacramento Union, Oct. 27, 1957; San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 5, 1958; Oregon Journal and The Oregonian, March 17, 1958. Pleased though he was to have renewed requests for his appearance, PR turned down a tentative invitation for a concert at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington, D.C., unless (in ER’s paraphrase) it “should be backed by the NEGRO COMMUNITY, not just one church, in order to insure that the concert will be properly supported by a wide section of the community, and not become involved in fears and rivalries and uncertainties of individuals or small groups” (George Murphy.Jr., to ER, Feb. 22, 1958; ER to GM, Jr., Feb. 28, 1958, MSRC: Murphy).

20. FBI Main 100-12304-465, 501, 511, 515.

21. FBI Main 100-12304-465 (Perry), 511 (left prominence). Hoover decided not to survey PR’s residence for “installation of a tesur,” since his continuing travels would prevent “sufficient day-to-day coverage” of his activities (FBI Main 100-12304-501, May 28, 1958). Interview with Rose Perry, April 27, 1982; ER to Pettis Perry, Nov. 16, 1957, NYPL/Schm: Perry Papers. When SAC, New York, later recommended to Hoover that PR “be removed from the Key Figure list of the NYO” (FBI Main 100-12304-545, Oct. 17, 1958), Hoover replied that “The Bureau does not concur with your recommendation.… Robeson continues to be of sufficient importance and potential dangerousness from an internal security standpoint to require his immediate apprehension in the event of an emergency.… Robeson’s current activities and freedom to travel enhance his value to the communist movement. It is, therefore, felt that his potential dangerousness to the internal security of the United States is increased” (Hoover to SAC, New York, Oct. 28, 1958, FBI Main 100-12304-545). PR, Jr., ms. comments (accident). For more on the St. Louis and Los Angeles incidents, see pp. 317 and 431.

22. Oakland Tribune, Feb. 10, 1958 (“velvety”); San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 10, 1958 (“greatest basso”); FBI New York 100-25857-3502; FBI Main 100-12304-515 (effective). PR billed his 1958 concerts as “informal recitals,” combining songs with his reflections on “the origins of, and relations between, folk music”—meaning theories on the pentatonic scale (PR press release, RA). Geri Branton (interview, April 2, 1982 [PR, Jr., participating]) confirmed PR’s enthusiastic reception in the black community.

23. Pittsburgh Courier, April 12, 19, 28, 1958. The FBI kept fully posted on the events in Pittsburgh (FBI Main 100-12304-512). Rosalie to Marian Forsythe, April 22, 1958, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe.

24. ER to Burroughs, March 22, 1958; ER to Bennett, March 22, 1958; ER to Ishmael Flory, March 23, 1958—all in RA; interview with Oscar Brown, Sr., July 2, 1986. By the time of the Alpha Phi Alpha national convention the following year, Ishmael Flory, who attended, found “attitudes towards both Du Bois and Robeson very high, very high” (interviews with Flory, July 1–2, 1986).

25. Interview with Margaret Burroughs, July 1, 1986; interview with Julia Lorchard, July 2, 1986. Mrs. Lorchard has recently (1986) given her husband’s papers to Du Sable Museum in Chicago, and I found them a rich source. Also useful was a 1969 tape Studs Terkel played for me made with various prominent blacks in the Chicago area, including Margaret Burroughs (for a full description of the tape, see note 7, p. 577.

26. Interview with Sam Parks, Dec. 27, 1986, plus follow-up phone discussion, Dec. 30, 1986.

27. Ibid.

28. Interviews with Ishmael Flory, July 1–2, 1986; interview with Oscar Brown, Sr., July 2, 1986; Jet, April 17, 1958; Murphy to ER, April 10, 1958, RA; MacDonald, Black and White TV, pp. 56–57 (local TV). According to Flory, the establishment of the Afro-American Heritage Association was the direct result of PR’s 1958 visit to Chicago. A number of people had asked Robeson what they could do to help, and he had suggested they direct their energies toward disseminating information about the Afro-American past. Flory described the Heritage Association as “an effort to build local heritage associations for the purpose of stressing the Negro’s past history in communities of Negro population of 2000 or over” (Flory to Pettis Perry, May 30, 1958, NYPL/Schm: Perry Papers).

29. The quotations in this and the following paragraph are from PR, Stand, pp. 1–2, 38–40. The 1958 edition of Here I Stand was issued by Othello Associates and was dedicated to ER (a rather impersonal acknowledgment of her political labors). Angus Cameron, the radical editor at Knopf who had known PR in the Progressive movement, had been trying since the 1940s to get him to write an autobiography; he believes PR did not submit Here I Stand to him for possible publication because he wanted to keep “full control” in his own hands (interview with Cameron, July 15, 1986). The 1971 edition (Beacon Press) contains an informative preface by Lloyd L. Brown about the book’s initial reception and a brief Afterword (dated Aug. 28, 1964) by PR in which he takes pleasure in noting recent “transformations” that had changed his 1958 emphasis on the “power of Negro action” from “an idea into a reality that is manifesting itself throughout our land. The concept of mass militancy, of mass action, is no longer deemed ‘too radical’ in Negro life.” There was open displeasure among some in the CPUSA over PR’s emphasis in Here I Stand on the need for blacks themselves—rather than the Party—to serve as the vanguard in the black struggle.

30. Stand, pp. 98–99, 103.

31. The Afro-American, Feb. 22, March 15, May 3, 1958; Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 22, March 29, 1958; Chicago Crusader, March 8, 1958; Herald Dispatch, May 8, 1958; The Crisis, March 1958; “Summary Financial Statement” as of May 31, 1959, RA. Continuing his campaign to mend fences, PR sent an inscribed copy of the book to Ralph Bunche, who acknowledged it politely (Bunche to PR, Feb. 14, 1958, RA). The FBI also took an interest in the book, following its publication history and sales closely (FBI New York 100-25857-3266). In a bugged conversation between Lloyd Brown and Ben Davis, FBI SAC New York reported to J. Edgar Hoover (Sept. 15, 1958, FBI Main 100-12304-541) that Brown felt a recent speech by A. Philip Randolph was “right out of the book on the subject of white allies” and that “even” Adam Clayton Powell was “red-baiting less and less”; Davis responded with the assertion that Here I Stand “is going to be like Tom Paine’s Common Sense as far as Negroes are concerned.” The Afro-American serialized Here I Stand in nine weekly installments in the spring of 1958, as arranged for by George Murphy, Jr. (GM, Jr., to ER, Dec. 20, 1957, Jan. 13, 1958; GM, Jr., to Carl Murphy, Dec. 20, 1957, MSRC: Murphy).

32. Ebony, Oct. 1957; transcript of the Oct. 2, 1957, NBC program is in RA. In response to a question about whether Robeson was ill, Rowan said, “I noticed no signs of physical illness when I interviewed him.” George Murphy. Jr., to ER, n.d. (1957); in a letter to his brother Carl, Murphy characterized the Rowan piece more moderately (GM, Jr., to CM, Sept. 30, 1957, MSRC: Murphy). In a long letter to Ebony, Essie expressed gratification that “the Negro press has taken the inititaive in raising the Curtain of Silence with which official America has tried for seven years to cut Paul Robeson off from the American public” (ER to Ebony, Sept. 16, 1957, RA).

33. ER to Peggy Middleton and Cedric Belfrage, Feb. 5, 1958, RA; ER to George Murphy, Jr., Feb. 28, 1958, MSRC: Murphy. Equity, June 1958, has selections from the debate over the Robeson resolution; the resolution was not, however, passed by the Equity Council, to which it was automatically sent (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, April 1, 10, 1958). Nat Hentoff sat in on one of the Vanguard recording sessions and wrote a piece about it (The Reporter, April 17, 1958) in which he quoted the “grinning” president of Vanguard, Maynard Solomon, as saying, “It’s a real schmaltzy album.”

34. The correspondence between Peggy Middleton and Essie, in RA, is full of details of the birthday celebrations; additionally, Middleton’s correspondence with “Schlicting” (G. F. Alexan) in the GDR, copies of which are in RA, and Alexan’s with PR, are particularly rich in information about the East European celebrations. Also useful has been Akira Iwasaki to PR, March 16, 1958; ER to Iwasaki, March 30, 1958; L. Kislova to PR, April 19, 1958—all in RA; FBI Main 100-12304-490 (Port-au-Prince). RA also has a bulky collection of messages of greeting to PR from around the world, including one from Soong Ching-ling (Madame Sun Yat-sen), March 31, 1958. Earl Robinson (interview, Aug. 1986) said the GDR paid him ten thousand dollars to make the film on Robeson. PR himself was in Chicago on the actual day of his birthday and celebrated at a public party for him in the Masonic Temple.

35. A copy of Nehru’s widely publicized statement is in RA, dated March 6, 1958. The New York Times announced it on March 21, then in its edition of April 9 headlined “Nehru Soft Pedals Words on Robeson.” The New York Post, among other publications, characterized the Indian celebration as run by “Indian Communists” (March 25, 1958), and Blitz (London) reported the diplomatic flurry (April 12, 1958).

36. The full packet of Indian press clippings and pertinent State Department documents are in RA and too numerous to cite. The critical documents are: Bunker telegram to Dulles, March 26, 1958; Chargé Turner to State, telegram, March 20, 1958; Department of State memoir of talk with Mehta, March 21, 1958; Bunker to Dulles, telegram, March 22, 1958; Dulles to Bunker, telegram, March 24, 1958. A stirring defense of PR by Chagla is in Blitz, April 19, 1958.

37. ER to Nehru, March 31, 1958; ER to Indira Gandhi, March 31, 1958 (RA). Details on the celebrations in India are in the Delhi Times of India, May 10, 1958; The Hindustan Times, April 7, 1958; National Herald, April 10, 1958; The Hindu Weekly Review, April 14, 1958. Turner reported to Dulles that Alub D. Gorwala had suggested to him that “Nehru’s backing this movement stems from Lady Mountbatten who is admirer of Robeson” (telegram, March 21, 1958, 791.-001/3-2058); for the earlier contact between Mountbatten and PR, see pp. 160–61. In an untaped interview granted me, PR, Jr., and Marilyn Robeson in Aug. 1982, Indira Gandhi expressed anger at the attempted interference of the American authorities in the celebration and confirmed that her father, for diplomatic reasons, had stayed aloof from the detailed planning after issuing his initial statement. Late in her life Indira Gandhi described PR as “a remarkable man. It is tragic that his country tried to denigrate and belittle him” (Gandhi to Marie Seton, Aug. 22, 1982, courtesy of Seton).

38. The Afro-American, May 17, 1958; National Guardian, May 19, 1958; New York World-Telegram, May 10, 1958 (“lost glow”); New York Herald Tribune, The New York Times, May 10, 1958; New York Post, May 11, 1958; New York Amsterdam News, May 17, 1958; Newsweek (the sourest review), May 19, 1958; DownBeat, May 29, 1958 (“vigor”); The Saturday Review, May 24, 1958. The latter review, by the respected Irving Kolodin, chided PR for announcing the “basic musicological truth” about the affinity between the different folk musics of the world as if it was “a revelation”—aided by his “histrionic talent for vivifying a commonplace by an inflection of speech, a thrust of head.…” The FBI tapped a phone conversation with Ben Davis in which PR spoke of “new vistas” (FBI Main 100-12304-? [illegible], May 26, 1958). The second concert is described in an interview with Marvel Cook (who helped distribute the tickets) by Mike Wallington and Howard Johnson for their 1986 BBC program on Robeson (tapes courtesy of Wallington and Johnson); interview with Edith Tiger, June 17, 1985. The tape of the concert at Mother A.M.E. Zion is in RA. George Murphy, Jr., played a key role in arranging the A.M.E. Zion concert (GM, Jr., to Ben Robeson, March 3, 1958, MSRC: Murphy).

39. FBI Main 100-12304-516, 524; ER to Paul Endicott, June 19, 1958, RA; Daily Worker, June 28, 1958; interview with Leonard Boudin.July 14, 1982; New York Times, June 17, 27, 1958; National Guardian, June 23, 1958; The Afro-American, May 31, 1958; ER to Glen Byam Shaw, June 30, 1958, RA. Corliss Lamont, who, unlike PR, had been at liberty to travel in the Western Hemisphere, got his passport back at the same time. Originally passports had been denied both men on the ground that their travel was contrary to the “best interests” of the nation. Later the ground was shifted to stress their refusal to sign “non-Communist” affidavits, a rationale entirely removed as a result of the court’s denial that the State Department had a right to inquire into the political beliefs or associations of those applying for passports. The court did not, however, give a definitive ruling on the constitutional question of whether Congress had the right to withhold passports on the basis of an applicant’s politics. As a result, there was an immediate move, spearheaded by President Eisenhower himself, to pass explicit enabling legislation. On July 7, 1958, Eisenhower asked Congress to give the government “clear statutory authority” to refuse passports to known Communists and to those subject to CP domination, claiming it was “essential” that the Secretary of State have such authority to maintain “national security.” Eisenhower stressed the “urgency” of the matter: “each day and week that passes without it exposes us to great danger.” A bill embodying the President’s wishes was immediately introduced in both the House and the Senate. (The New York Times came out editorially against such a bill [July 8, 9, 1958]; the New York Herald-Tribune came out for it [June 18, July 9, 1958].) Eisenhower’s call for speed prompted a sardonic editorial in the Washington edition of The Afro-American (July 12, 1958): he “proved again this week that his advocacy of patience is a commodity which he reserves especially for a minority clamoring for civil rights.… Eisenhower does not think that it is important to rush matters where the interests of colored citizens are concerned.…”

40. Shaw telegram to PR, June 28, 1958; Patrick O’Donovan to PR, June 28, 1958 (The Observer); Neruda to PR, July 1958; Alexan to Middleton, July 6, 1958; Iwasaki to PR, July 2, 1958; ER to Shaw, June 30, 1958; ER to Indira Gandhi, June 30, 1958—all in RA. Multiple interviews with Freda Diamond (“applause”). Not wanting to cause Nehru any political embarrassment, ER wrote Indira Gandhi, in regard to a visit to India, “You are to be absolutely frank with me, because we want to become, wherever it is possible, a UNIFYING force, not in any way a divisive or controversial force. We women have to by pass diplomatic nonsense and be practical.” After the Robesons were settled in London in July, Indira Gandhi arrived in England for a visit and asked Essie to meet her at the airport and “had a good talk”; it was apparently at that time that Mrs. Gandhi okayed a visit to India (ER to Freda Diamond, July 22–27, 1958, RA). To a Soviet friend (Mrs. Kislova), ER wrote (June 30, 1958, RA) that Paul thought probably the first thing he would want to do on a visit to the Soviet Union would be “something with the Soviet children, who have sent him so many letters of love and encouragement.…” According to an FBI report—based apparently on a phone tap—PR called the passport decision “an important political victory” and called the offers coming in from overseas “fantastic” (FBI New York 100-25857-3842).

41. Interview with James Aronson, May 31, 1983.

42. Essie’s two pages of notes are in RA.

43. Daily Mail, June 28, 1958; Pitts burgh Courier, July 5, 1958; World-Telegram and Sun, July 9, 1958 (Ruark).

CHAPTER 23 RETURN TO EUROPE (1958–1960)

1. Interviews with Cedric Belfrage (May 19, 1984) and Harry Francis (Aug. 1982); National Guardian, July 21, 1958; West Indian Gazette, Aug. 1958; Sunday Times, July 13, 1958; News Chronicle, July 12, 1958; Reynolds News, July 13, 1958; Daily Mail, July 12, 1958; Daily Sketch, July 12, 1958. In its welcoming issue of July 11, 1958, the Daily Worker printed greetings to PR from, among others, the bandleader Johnny Dankworth, the actor Bernard Miles, and Dame Sybil Thorndike (“We welcome him to England with all our hearts and wish him a triumphal success once more”).

2. Daily Express, July 6, 1958; News Chronicle, July 12, 1958 (“most remarkable”); Daily Sketch, July 12, 1958 (“royal personage”); Reynolds News, July 13, 1958 (Driberg); New York Herald Tribune, July 14, 1958; interviews with Cedric Belfrage (May 29, 1984) and Harry Francis (Aug. 1982). Both dailies quoted Robeson as making the same later statement, thereby increasing the likelihood that it was reported accurately (Edinburgh Evening News, The Bulletin, both Nov. 10, 1958). Bernard Levin, the highly regarded critic, chided PR for constantly saying people of color were “walking in freedom” in the Soviet Union: “In the Soviet Union no man, whatever his colour, can walk or carry out his task freely” (The Spectator, Aug. 29, 1958).

3. James Aronson, “Notes on a Reunion,” National Guardian, Aug. 25, 1958; interview with Aronson, May 31, 1983.

4. A typed schedule of PR’s appearances is in RA; the many letters of invitation from organizations, ambassadors, and friends are also in RA. The Daily Telegraph (July 14, 1958) reported that PR’s ITV fee was “believed to be the largest ever paid to an American performer for three appearances.” The Nigerian dinner is described in a report from AmConGen, Lagos, to State Department, July 30, 1958. Nigerian Premier Azikiwe himself wrote PR (Aug. 23, 1958, RA) to welcome him to London.

5. PR, Jr., interview with Bruno Raikin, Sept. 8, 1982; interview with Alan Bush (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 3, 1982; ER to Brown, Aug. 6, 1958; ER (with appended PR note) to Freda Diamond, July 22–27, 1958, RA; London Times, July 28, 1958; also Variety, Aug. 6, 1958; Sunday Dispatch, July 27, 1958; The Stage, July 31, 1958. Soon after his television debut, PR sang at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Introduced by Aneurin Bevan and his wife, Jennie Lee, Robeson was given a rousing, heartwarming reception by the miners and their families. Though the reunion was emotional, Rachel Thomas, who had appeared with him in The Proud Valley, did not think he was in particularly good voice (Sterner interview with Thomas).

6. Larry Brown had apparently answered the call to London reluctantly (Rockmore to LB, Aug. 4, 8, Sept. 17, 1958; Marie Dokens to LB, Aug. 6, 1958, NYPL/Schm: Brown), and once he arrived was apparently as nervous about the concert as PR (ER to Lloyd Brown, Aug. 6, 1958, RA). While in London, Brown negotiated with Dennis Dobson for a “Paul Robeson Song Book,” which never saw print, though the projected table of contents can be found in Dobson to Brown, Aug. 14, 1958, NYPL/Schm: Brown. LB stayed with the Robesons for a while when he first arrived in London. PR, Jr., interview with Raikin, Sept. 8, 1982; Telegraph and Morning Post, News Chronicle, London Times, Evening News, Daily Mail—all Aug. 11, 1958; News Chronicle, Aug. 14, 1958 (backstage with Belafonte). Beaverbrook’s Daily Express printed a savagely negative review (Aug. 11, 1958): “… a sad shock … dull and monotonous”; Reynolds News, Aug. 19, 1958; also Daily Mirror, July 12, 1958; National Guardian, Aug. 25, 1958 (Belafonte). Yet, the following year, in the Herald (Dec. 19, 1959), Belafonte is quoted as saying, “I disagree violently with Paul Robeson. He’s always giving out with that stuff about ‘the Africans are on the march.’ He makes me think sometimes that his influence might start a Negro movement that could get out of hand. And he would regret that.”

7. Along with an official “Moscow tour” schedule, there is a ten-page typed itinerary, with comments by Essie, in RA. The opening-day reception is described in the Moscow News, Aug. 16, 20, 1958; the Daily Worker, Aug. 16, 18, 1958; the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post (London), Aug. 16, 1958. ER to family, completed Aug. 31, 1959; this letter and several others were found in duplicate in CIA files, proof that the Robesons’ mail was intercepted.

8. David E. Mark, first secretary of Embassy, to State Department, Aug. 18, 1958, FBI Main 100-12304-(no file number), and distributed, as marked on the dispatch, to the CIA, the USIA, and intelligence units of the army, navy, and air force. The account of PR’s TV show in the National Guardian (Sept. 8, 1958) also has him saying that “things are better for the Negroes in America.”

9. Pravda (the only Moscow paper appearing on Monday morning) devoted a four-column spread with photographs to Robeson’s Lenin Stadium appearance (Aug. 18, 1958, issue); Daily Worker, Aug. 18, 1958; Moscow News, Aug. 20, 1958; Washington Post, Aug. 18, 1958. The New York Times did report (Feb. 4, 1959) that the Soviets were making a film about PR, adding with a hint of derision that it would show him as an “unbending peace champion.”

10. Typed ms. of ER’s “Southern Hospitality (Soviet Style),” RA, published as the first of a two-part series by Essie in The Afro-American, Oct. 11, 18, 1958. Later, in Tashkent, the Robesons spent time with Bertha and Lillie Golden, wife and daughter of the deceased John Golden, the black American from the Tuskegee Institute who had helped the Russians with their fledgling cotton industry.

11. Vasily Katanian’s recollections (recorded about 1978) were made available to me by PR, Jr. All the quotes are from Katanian’s memoir, except the one about Robeson’s dancing, which is from ER’s typed ms. “Paul Robeson Jitterbugs in Middle Asia,” dated August 20, 1958, RA. Katanian (in a letter to me, May 1987) has approved the accuracy of the quotations from his memoir. Soviet Weekly (October 2, 1958) reported PR’s visit to the collective.

12. ER’s annotated schedule, RA; Katanian’s memoir; ER, article on the boat trip, San Francisco Sun Reporter, Nov. 8, 1958; ER to family, completed Aug. 31, 1959, RA.

13. Phone interview with Sally Kent Gorton, Sept. 28, 1986; Gorton to me, Oct. 1, 1986; Konstantin Kudrov, “Paul Robeson: A Russian Remembrance,” Rutgers Alumni Magazine, Winter 1974, pp. 26–27 (Yalta). Ivan S. Koslovski, ms. reminiscence of Robeson—including singing with him at Yalta—in the PR Archiv, GDR; Katanian’s memoir; Moscow News, Sept. 17, 1958 (Chekhov). RA contains a film script by Paul Delmer, Caravan in Russia, which he sent along to the Robesons, asking for their help in promoting it.

14. ER to family, completed Aug. 31, 1959, RA; ER’s ms. “Kill The Umpire!!! U.S.A. and U.S.S.R.,” RA (Khrushchev joke). PR also recorded several songs especially for Katanian’s film; when he couldn’t remember the words, Essie wrote them in chalk on a blackboard in large letters. On Aug. 31, 1958, The New York Times printed a captioned picture of the two men, “Khrushchev Receives Robeson,” but with no accompanying article. In the Aug. 31 letter home ER described Mrs. Khrushchev as “delightful, very motherly and warm.” PR told the Soviet News Bulletin (a publication of the press office of the U.S.S.R. Embassy in Canada), Sept. 18, 1958, that on meeting Khrushchev he had been “greatly impressed by his penetrating mind, a clear understanding of the affairs all over the world, and his concern and sincere striving for the further development and prosperity of the Soviet Union, for an all-round increase in the welfare of his people”; he commented, too, on Khrushchev’s “cheerful disposition and optimism … his good-heartedness and hospitality, his subtle racy humor.…”

In a news conference in Moscow about his visit to the United States, First Deputy Premier Anastas J. Mikoyan charged that the Voice of America was “the chief spokesman of the cold war” and said its broadcasts were “not pleasing to our ears.” Paul Robeson, he added, was “also a voice of America and he is pleasing to our ears” (The New York Times international ed., Jan. 26, 1959). When Khrushchev was in the States in Sept. 1959, he made comments much like Mikoyan’s at a dinner of the Economic Club of New York. Asked why the Russian people were not allowed to listen to American broadcasts, he replied that they were anti-Soviet in content, and inquired why the voice of Paul Robeson, which was not unfriendly, had been “jammed” by Robeson’s government (The Afro-American, Sept. 26, 1959). Essie’s friend from the UN, Ruth Gage Colby, went up to Khrushchev at the Togo reception for him at the UN and on behalf of the Robesons offered their greetings of welcome and affection. According to Colby, Khrushchev thanked her profusely (Colby to ER, Sept. 22, 1960, RA).

15. RA contains a large collection of tour reviews; almost uniformly positive and nearly uniform in their descriptions, they would be redundant to cite individually. PR, Jr., interview with Raikin, Sept. 8, 1982. Halfway through the concert tour, PR again came down with a cold, and some of the dates had to be canceled (ER to Rajni Patel, Jan. 29, 1959, RA).

16. Ernest Bradbury in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury (Oct. 9, 1958) had this comment on Robeson’s musical theories: “Robeson has discovered—afresh if not for the first time—the international language of folk songs, and he is caught up in the idea of universality in music … and demonstrated the mystery of the pentatonic scale with all that seriously boyish enthusiasm which is so much part of his charm.” The New York Times, Sept. 22, 1958; Essie’s rebuttal is in The Afro-American (Nov. 22, 1958); Carl Murphy to ER, Nov. 20, 1958, RA. About the only political comment made on tour—at least as reported by the press—was to criticize U.S. policy on Formosa (The Scotsman, Sept. 23, 1958); he also described himself as “perhaps a little to the left of the British Labour party” (Daily Telegraph, Sept. 28, 1958) and expressed the view that recent race riots in Nottingham and Notting Hill “do not typify the general feeling in this country” (Leicester Evening Mail, Sept. 25, 1958). The Boston Evening News (Sept. 22, 1958) reflected the minority reaction to PR’s announcement about staying in London by commenting that, if he claims “the greatest measure of freedom” is to be found in the Soviet Union, “isn’t it surprising” that he should have decided to seek refuge in Britain instead.

17. London Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Herald, News Chronicle, Manchester Guardian—all Oct. 13, 1958; ER’s ms. “Paul Robeson Sings in St. Paul’s Cathedral,” RA (reprinted in the San Francisco Sun Reporter); Peggy Middleton typed ms. “Paul in St. Paul’s,” Oct. 13, 1958, RA (reprinted in the National Guardian).

18. The invitation to attend the Accra conference (which is in RA) had actually been to Paul, and he sent a message (also in RA) with “warmest greetings” expressing his deep disappointment at being held in England by tour commitments. Marie Seton’s book, Paul Robeson (Denis Dobson, 1958), has been referred to and commented on at several points in this text, and I will not undertake a repetitive assessment here. I would only add in general that the book, though valuable in places for its firsthand recollections, is sketchy overall and in details frequently inaccurate, suffering from a lack of archival sources. At the time it appeared, Robert Rockmore wrote Larry Brown regretting that it “was not more accurate and less ‘slanted’” (Sept. 8, 1958, NYPL/Schm: Brown).

Claude Barnett and his wife, Etta Moten, were also at Accra and seemed so impressed (so Essie described it) “with the respect and affection the Africans paid me—all of them—and also the way Nkrumah treated me,” that Barnett decided to syndicate her articles (ER to Freda Diamond, Dec. 12, 1958, Feb. 8, 1959; ER to Tamara, Feb. 3, 1959; Barnett to ER. Jan. 19, 1959, RA). The notes Essie took during the UN sessions and the Accra convention are in RA. She hailed the conference in her articles as opening “a new page of history for the African Continent,” chided Western press representatives for trying to pit Nasser against Nkrumah, and complained that “the women of Africa were not adequately represented” (only ten of the two hundred delegates were women, and only two addressed the plenary, Shirley Du Bois being one). One of ER’s articles on Accra, in which she had written that Africans “are no longer passive (because the situation seemed hopeless) under foreign domination” and advising the white minority that “if they are sensible” they would find themselves “well treated,” was reprinted in the West Indian Gazette, a London monthly, and alarmed the American Embassy. In a confidential dispatch to the State Department, the Embassy characterized ER’s piece as “a most devastatingly destructive article, calculated as it obviously is to stir Africans and Asians alike against Westerners” (Francis J. Galbraith, first secretary of Embassy, to State Department, Jan. 27, 1959, FBI Main 100-12304-566).

19. Memo of Washington-Herter phone call, plus Skofield to Oulashin reporting it, Dec. 9, 1958, no file number, State Department. Consul General Turner in Bombay reported to Dulles that the same individuals who had organized PR’s birthday celebration were behind his visit and that therefore “we may confidently predict strong anti-American propaganda along color lines.”

20. Bunker to Dulles, Dec. 10, 1958, Jan. 8, 1959; memo Dec. 24, 1958, of State Department meeting involving Val Washington and Kenneth Bunce “to counteract communist exploitation of visit of Paul Robeson to India”; Dulles to Bunker, Jan. 12, 1959; Turner to Dulles, Jan. 20, 1959; CIA dispatch, Jan. 6, 1959—no file numbers listed.

21. ER, ms., “Purely Personal,” dated Jan. 14, 1959, RA (also the source for the following paragraph).

22. Daily Worker, Aug. 21, 1958; ER to Lloyd Brown, Aug. 6, 1958, RA. Du Bois sat for the sculptor Lawrence Bradshaw while staying in the Robeson apartment, and ER was later asked to present the finished head as a gift to the People’s Republic of China (Shirley Graham to George Murphy, Jr., Oct. 20, 1959, MSRC: Murphy).

23. Shirley Graham Du Bois, Pittsburgh Courier, June 20, 1959; Shirley Graham Du Bois, ms. reminiscences of PR, PR Archiv, GDR. While in Moscow, PR also saw the Stratford Company perform Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet; according to Essie, he thought Michael Redgrave “simply marvelous” (ER to Glen Byam Shaw, Jan. 13, 1959, RA).

24. ER to PR, Jr., Jan. 12, 1959; ER to Rajni Patel, Jan. 29, 1959; ER to Seton, March 12, 1959; ER to Glen Byam Shaw, Jan. 13, 1959—all in RA.

25. ER to Glen Byam Shaw, Jan. 13, 1959, RA (“duty idea”); ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 12, 16, 1959, RA.

26. ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 16, 1959, RA.

27. ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 14, 16, 18, 1959; ER to Freda Diamond, Feb. 8, 1959; ER to Rajni Patel, Jan. 29, 1959, RA. Nehru expressed his personal disappointment at the cancellation of PR’s trip to India (Nehru to ER, Nov. 30, 1959, RA). In her letter to Patel, Essie refers to the doctors’ diagnosing “a slight strain on the heart due to exhaustion.” She also mentioned, in a letter to Glen Byam Shaw (Jan. 20, 1959, RA), that the doctors were “not at all satisfied with his heart condition.” PR himself later told a reporter, “The doctors thought I had heart trouble” (News Chronicle, March 10, 1959). Rumors that Paul had had a heart attack, or possibly even cancer, prompted his sister, Marian Forsythe, to telephone him for reassurance (The Afro-American, Feb. 14, 1959). Marian’s husband, Dr. James Forsythe, had died in January 1959; Paul, from the hospital, wrote her one of his rare letters (PR and ER to Marian Forsythe, January 31, 1959, RA). In a phone conversation between two unidentified people (tapped by the FBI), a woman told her caller that she had recently received a letter from the Robesons and that they were “very upset and nervous.… She added that he had not been well since he had that business a couple of years ago” (FBI New York 100-25857-650, March 3, 1959).

28. ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 16, Feb. 6, 1959, RA; ER to Shaw, Jan. 20, 1959; Shaw cable to PR, Feb. 4, 1959, RA.

29. Alphaeus Hunton to George Murphy, Jr., April 9, 1959 (weight), MSRC: Murphy; ER to PR, Jr., Feb. 6, 1959; PR and ER cable to Shaw, Feb. 5, 1959; ER to Shaw, Feb. 6, 1959; Shaw to ER, Feb. 13, 1959; Shaw to PR, Feb. 13, 1959—all in RA. On Feb. 21 and March 3, PR felt strong enough to attend a meeting of the World Peace Council in Moscow (ER to family, Feb. 28, 1959, RA). He also consulted with the Russian film crew on the documentary. Katanian organized a special showing for Essie, of whom he was very fond, in the hospital (Katanian memoir). PR gave a speech to the World Peace Council on Feb. 21, 1959 (ms. in RA). It is notable for his repeated references to the “deep-seated will and desire of the American people” (as opposed to “a powerful minority”) for “lasting peace.” Even more significant, PR attended a special evening to honor Shalom Aleichem; according to ER, he “was pleased to make this gesture on the ticklish question of Jewish culture” (ER to family, March 4, 1959, RA).

30. ER to Rosens, March 14, 1959 (courtesy of Rosen); ER to family, Feb. 28, March 4, 1959, ER to Rosens, March 1959, RA; News Chronicle, March 10, 1959; Daily Herald, March 10, 1959. Time magazine (March 24, 1959), predictably sardonic when discussing PR, commented that he had had “predictable praise” for the Kremlin Hospital. Essie was so enthusiastic about Soviet medicine that she wrote an article on it (“Robesons Participate (As Patients) in Soviet Medicine,” ms. in RA), taking special care to point out that medical care in Russia was free and that some of their doctors had been women.

31. For more on Andy, see pp. 478, 496 and note 61, p. 617. Interview with Andrew Faulds, Sept. 7, 1982 (PR, Jr., participating); Faulds to me, Oct. 30, 1984. Faulds credits Robeson with having inspired his own subsequent career as a member of Parliament. Watching the Oct. 1959 election returns on television, Faulds bemoaned the return of the Conservatives to power. “Paul made a very simple observation in that very rich voice of his, saying something like ‘You have no right to complain about these things, because you are not politically involved!’ And I thought, ‘My God, he’s absolutely right.’” The very next day Faulds joined the Stratford-on-Avon Labour Party and was later elected to Parliament.

32. London Times, Manchester Guardian, Daily Herald, Evening Dispatch, Daily Mirror, The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, News Chronicle, Daily Express, Daily Mail—all April 8–12, 1959; The New Statesman, April 18, 1959; The Tatler, April 22, 1959. According to Sylvia Schwartz (interview, Jan. 16, 1983), PR found Mary Ure “cold” and did not enjoy acting opposite her. Nor did he have high opinions of Richardson and Wanamaker, although, typically, he barely alluded (even in private) to his discontent with them.

33. ER to Freda Diamond, April 18, 1959, RA; multiple interviews with Helen Rosen (in one she said, “He did Othello on sheer guts,” it being her feeling that he “was never quite the same” after his 1955 prostate operation. “It had done something to his psyche, upset his feeling of … strength or invulnerability or something”). Peggy Ashcroft to me, Aug. 28, 1984, enclosing the memoir she was kind enough to write for me, which includes her impressions of the 1959 Othello. A note from Vanessa Redgrave, apparently written to PR on opening night, is in RA: “… We are all very proud and thrilled that you are with us playing Othello.” Among Robeson’s other opening-night messages were telegrams from Olivier, Gielgud, Edith Evans, Sean O’Casey, and a number of voices from his past:’André Van Gyseghem, Turner Layton—and his Rutgers sweetheart, Gerry Bledsoe. Alphaeus Hunton was among those in the audience on opening night and wrote an article about it (Hunton to George Murphy, Jr., April 9, 1959, enclosing typescript of article, MSRC: Murphy).

34. RA contains a typed list, apparently made by ER, of PR’s schedule on a near-daily basis, along with a few words of comment by her. In an interview in The New York Times (April 26, 1985), Roy Dotrice recalls occasional baseball games between the Stratford players and a nearby U.S. Air Force base, Robeson playing first base. ER to Freda Diamond, April 18, May 8, July 21, Sept. 17, 1959, RA; Report of SA New York, Nov. 16, 1959, FBI Main 100-12304-689-? (illegible) (separation). Shirley Graham wrote up her enthralled impressions of PR as Othello in an article that appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier (June 20, 1959); she had seen the 1930 Othello and “beyond all question” thought his performance at Stratford superior. In her ms. reminiscences of PR in the PR Archiv, GDR, she recalled Paul’s going up to London with the Du Boises on a train the morning after they had seen him in Othello. Besieged during the ride by fans and well-wishers, Robeson turned toward Du Bois and said, “Now I want you to meet a really great man,” and then “boomed on about Du Bois.”

35. ER to Katanian, May 17, 1959, RA; interview with Ashcroft, Sept. 9, 1982 (PR, Jr., participating); Ashcroft Memoir. A painful knee—stumbling at the theater, he reactivated an old football injury—added to his discomfort. When, several months later, PR and Ashcroft appeared together at the Youth Theatre Festival in Bristol, Ashcroft remembers “again being amazed at the rapturous acclaim that he had from the young people. It was quite marvelous.” That same season at Stratford—before the appearance at Bristol—Robeson agreed to join Ashcroft at a poetry reading for the Apollo Society, which she had started in 1943, with Larry Brown accompanying them; she remembers that Paul read “marvelously”—“he surprised by his mastery of so many other poets—Byron, Blake, Browning, etc.”

36. Mimeo, “Excerpts of Speech of Paul Robeson,” June 27, 1959 (Gazette), RA; Claudia Jones, “The Robeson Legend,” West Indian Gazette, June 1959; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn to Pettis Perry, Nov. 3, 1958 (“do something”), NYPL/Schm.: Perry Papers; John Ebert to PR and ER, April 21, 1959, RA (Africa Day); Whitney to State Department, telegram, April 23, 1959, no file number (Africa Day); Daily Express, April 20, 1959. At the end of March, PR appeared at a private subscription dinner for the Daily Worker in London (ER to Freda Diamond, March 8, 1959, RA), and also accepted election as vice-president of the British-Soviet Friendship Society (The New York Times, May 11, 1959). Robeson’s private socializing likewise had a considerable admixture of—though it was not confined to—left-wing friends; he lunched, for example, with Miroslav Galuska, the Czechoslovak Ambassador, greeted a group from the Chinese Embassy backstage, and saw Shirley and W. E. B. Du Bois with some frequency, including a dinner in Du Bois’s honor at the Chinese Embassy (outline of daily schedule, RA).

37. Daily Worker, April 25, 1959; News Chronicle, June 29, 1959; Manchester Guardian, June 29, 1959; Jim Gardner (British Peace Committee) to PR, July 1, 1959; Prague News Letter, June 27, 1959; Josef Ullrich to ER, July 28, 1959; ER to Freda Diamond, July 21, 1959; Heinz Altschul to PR, July 17, 195c)—all in RA; FBI Main 100-12304-575, FBI New York 100-25857-4172; The New York Times, Aug. 4, 11, 1959. While at the festival, PR used the occasion of a visit to the GDR tent to tell reporters that he “believes the future of the whole world rests on socialism” (National Abend, Aug. 4, 1959).

38. Essie wrote Katanian (June 14, 1959, RA) that in Prague Paul met with his “Soviet friends and had a wonderful time.” The New York Times, Aug. 4, 11, 1959. Inger McCabe Elliott, a member of the American delegation to the Vienna Youth Festival, describes the ongoing conflict within the delegation as a “brawl,” with the anti-Communist “Chicago group” eventually losing out in its struggle to gain control over the election of officers (interview, Oct. 14, 1986). The anti-Communist version can be read in detail in Gloria M. Steinem et al., Report on the Vienna Youth Festival (Cambridge: 1960).

39. A translation of PR’s interview in Nepszabadsag, Aug. 22, 1959, is in RA; a tape recording of his comments to the Budapest crowd, transcribed by PR, Jr., is also in RA.

40. The assorted telegrams, memos, and letters involved in this episode are in the FBI files for 1959–60, and too numerous to cite in detail. In the middle of the dispute, and probably further prejudicing his case, PR appeared at a festival sponsored by the Communist newspaper L’Humanité at Meudon, a suburb of Paris (L’Humanité, Sept. 5–7, 1959). The American legate in Paris, on behalf of the FBI, asked for and received help from the Prefecture of Police and the Renseignements Généraux, general-investigative section of the Sûreté Nationale, in gathering information on PR (FBI Main 100-12304-579, 581). The ms. of an essay PR wrote for L’Humanité, mostly on musical theory, is in RA.

41. ER to Helen Rosen, Oct. 5, 1959; Huw Wheldon (BBC) to PR, April 14, 1959—both in RA; The New Statesman, Nov. 7, 1959; ER to Freda Diamond, Sept. 25, 1959, RA (Menuhin); ER to Mrs. Beard, July 5, 1959, RA (rest); Bill Worsley to PR, Dec. 18, 1959, RA (new series); RA contains dozens of letters from fans about his broadcasts; Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 31, 1959; Daily Worker, Feb. 15, 1960 (reprint of part of PR-Menuhin broadcast). Though the white press did not report on PR’s triumphs (except for Othello), William Weinstone of the New York State CP committee, at its meeting on Nov. 6–7, 1959, in New York City, told the gathering that he had talked to PR on the phone while in Prague and was delighted to report that he was “an immense figure” everywhere he went in Europe (FBI New York 100-25857-4204).

42. ER to Claude Barnett, Oct. 13, 24, Dec. 2, 1959; Barnett to ER, Oct. 21, 1959, CHS: Barnett; ER to Rosens, Oct. 24, 1959; ER to Helen Rosen, Nov. 13, 1959, courtesy of Rosen. Helen Rosen described the “polite” nature of her relationship with ER in our multiple interviews. Only once, she said, did Essie visit them in Katonah—after she had expressed interest in seeing the place “Paul is so fond of.”

43. ER to Freda Diamond, Nov. 14, Dec. 1, 1959, RA; Glen Byam Shaw to PR, Nov. 26, 1959, RA; PR to Helen Rosen, November 16, 23, 28, 1959, courtesy of Rosen. Robeson’s final performance coincided with Shaw’s retirement as director of Stratford (to be replaced by Peter Hall), and there was a farewell on stage, with all the stars of the hundredth season joining in (Birmingham Post, Nov. 30, 1959).

44. ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 24–29, 1960, RA. ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 24, 29, 1960, RA; U.S. Embassy in Moscow to State Department, Feb. 18, 1960, FBI Main 100-12304 (no file number).

Robeson’s appearance at State Ball Bearing Plant # 1 involves an episode of crucial if clouded importance. The State Ball Bearing Plant was where the black American toolmaker Robert Robinson had long worked. Robinson had been a reluctant resident of the U.S.S.R. for decades (see the account in his book Black on Red [Acropolis, 1988]), had known PR since his first visit to the U.S.S.R. in 1934 (see pp. 188–89; note 3, p. 629; notes 7 and 12, pp. 629 and 630; note 53, p. 641; note 17, p. 634), and had unsuccessfully been trying to enlist PR’s assistance in getting out of the Soviet Union (Black on Red, pp. 313–17). In his book Robinson claims that he arranged for Robeson to give a concert at State Ball Bearing Plant #1 in 1961 and he prints two photos of PR at the plant (pp. 315–16) which he dates “July 1961.” But that dating cannot be accurate; in July 1961 PR was confined in poor health at Barveekha Sanitarium. Moreover, the photos show PR with the beard he did have during his January 1960 visit to Moscow but (according to Helen Rosen’s distinct recollection) he was no longer wearing when she saw him in March 1961 in London, just prior to his trip to the U.S.S.R. Since Robinson’s book contains several other serious misdatings (notably on p. 319, where he is off by several years on PR’s vacation meeting with Khrushchev and on his medical treatment in the GDR), I pressed him during our interview (May 18, 1988) about his choice of dates for the PR photograph in his book. Robinson insisted that he dated (with the year, not the month) all his photographs at the time he took them, and the evidence I marshalled above persuaded him only that “July” on the photo might be inaccurate—he continued to insist that the year 1961 was not. However, a photo I found in the Sovfoto Archives (New York) of PR singing at State Ball Bearing Plant #1 is clearly dated “Jan. 1960.”

The importance of all this is in how it affects an evaluation of the dating and veracity of the additional testimony Robinson offers on PR, both in his book and in our interview. In Black on Red (pp. 318-19) Robinson records his surprise—since he had long since decided that PR was blinkered to the harsh realities of Soviet life—when, during his concert at the ball bearing plant, he included “a mournful song out of the Jewish tradition that decried their persecution through the centuries.” Robeson sang it, in Yiddish, with such “a cry in his voice,” such a seeming “plea to end the beating, berating, and killing of Jews,” that Robinson concluded PR had made a conscious choice to protest Soviet anti-Semitism (a conclusion confirmed in Robinson’s mind after he checked with PR’s interpreter and learned that he had also chosen to sing the Jewish song during several of his other concert appearances in Moscow). A week or so later, according to Robinson, a rumor began to circulate that PR had had “an unpleasant confrontation with Khrushchev.” In our interview, Robinson claimed to have heard the rumor from five different people, none of whom knew each other and all of whom were “within the Party structure.” According to the rumor, Robeson purportedly had asked Khrushchev if stories in the Western press about Soviet anti-Semitism were true, and Khrushchev had purportedly blown up and accused Robeson of trying to meddle in Soviet internal affairs. Robinson claimed as further confirmation of the rumored confrontation the fact that he never again heard Robeson’s records broadcast over Radio Moscow (as they had previously been on a regular twice-weekly basis) and “never read another word about him in the Soviet press.”

In our interview, Robinson staunchly stood by the accuracy of the content of his account and wavered only insofar as he was willing to say that the Ball Bearing concert (and Robeson’s purported subsequent confrontation with Khrushchev) may have taken place in March rather than in July 1961. If that confrontation did take place in March 1961—though I have found no evidence that PR saw Khrushchev at all on that visit—it might shed some light on PR’s attempted suicide in that month (see p. 498) or his seeming terror when later passing the Soviet Embassy (see p. 502). But as I have argued above, the weight of evidence far more strongly supports the date of January 1960 as the correct one for PR’s appearance at Ball Bearing Plant #1.

But although the dating of Robinson’s account can be proven unreliable, that does not automatically discredit the content of his testimony. In the present state of the evidence (perhaps more will surface in the future), the accuracy of Robinson’s reporting cannot be definitively gauged. During our interview, I found his manner to be earnest and impassioned, and his memory, though inconsistent, seemed vivid and detailed. But on the other hand, I found portions of his book so heavy-handedly anti-Soviet, and the circumstances surrounding its writing and publication so thick with cloak-and-dagger innuendo, as to suggest some sort of “official” sponsorship.

45. PR to Helen Rosen, March 1, 11, 1960, courtesy of Rosen.

46. Birmingham Post, Feb. 29, 1960; Leicester Mercury, Feb. 24, 1960; Nottingham Evening News, April 7, 1960; Yorkshire Evening News, April 29, 1960 (thin audiences). Rockmore to ER, April 29, 1960 (“expenditure”); PR telegram to Rockmore, July 3, 1960; Rockmore to Harold Davison, May 4, 1960; Davison to Rockmore, March 31, April 29, May 10, June 16, 28, 1960—all in RA.

47. Daily Worker, March 14, 1960; American Consulate to State Department, May 3, 1960 (May Day; Sterner interview with Stern). The day after he returned to London he participated in a ban-the-bomb rally in Trafalgar Square (Daily Worker, May 16, 1960; the London Times, May 16, 1960; the rally also called for admitting China to the UN). The May Day affair was apparently marred by a poor amplification system (Glasgow Herald, May 2, 1960). Interview with Andrew Faulds (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 7, 1982. Just before leaving on tour, Robeson told a Daily Worker interviewer (Jan. 14, 1960), “I feel I have reached the beginning of another stage in my life.… It is something that reaches beyond art. I feel that a battle has been fought and won. Now I feel that I can relax.” He still had enough political verve to denounce the resurgence of anti-Semitic outrages in West Germany, and the American government for propping up the Adenauer regime.

48. Interview with Diana Loesser, July 29, 1986; Franz Krahl (Neues Deutschland) to PR, June 22, 1960, FBI Main 100-12304-622; PR to Helen Rosen, May 16, 1960, courtesy of Rosen; Faulds interview (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 7, 1982.

49. PR to Helen Rosen, March 6, 7, 1960, courtesy of Rosen.

50. PR to Helen Rosen, May 10, 16, 1960, courtesy of Rosen; FBI New York 100-25857-4248 (“permanent”); Washington Post, June 21, 1960; PR’s speech in Melbourne, Australia, Nov. 1960 (“my folks”), tape courtesy of Lloyd L. Davies.

51. Earl Robinson to PR, Sept. 12, 1959; Willard Uphaus to Robesons, Nov. 8, 1959, RA; also the positive report in George Murphy, Jr., to ER, Jan. 29, 1961, MSRC: Murphy. PR wrote A. Philip Randolph that he had “avidly followed” plans for the creation of a Negro Trade Union Congress and paid him the conciliatory compliment—despite Randolph’s longstanding and outspoken hostility toward Communism—of having “so wisely led” the Pullman Porters. In the same letter PR applauded the “courageous activity” and “growing unity of Negro and white American Youth in breaking down the tottering walls of segregation and discrimination,” and also expressed his pleasure that “all sections of the Negro People” were “drawing together,” despite “some differences of opinion in some spheres, particularly that of International Relations.” Finally, Robeson expressed the poignant hope of being “able to greet you in person in the near future” (PR to Randolph, July 22, 1960, RA). There is no known reply from Randolph.

52. ER to Freda Diamond, July 17, 1960, RA. In another letter to Freda Diamond (June 27, 1960, RA), ER contrasted the unpromising U.S. scene with developments abroad: “the picture this side looks better and better. War and nuclear policies are being repudiated everywhere, tactfully, but quietly and very firmly. I think the U.S. is going to have to take low. Will be healthy.” PR’s remark on Kennedy is as quoted in the National Guardian, Oct. 1960. In a postelection estimate of Kennedy, John Pittman wrote the Robesons from Moscow: “… he will at least begin by trying to emulate some of FDR’s statesmanship. He will undoubtedly bring many Negroes into the project of ‘saving Africa from communism.’ … Under such a banner, he is sure to have the support of the right-wing labor bureaucracy, including Mr. Randolph” (Pittman to the Robesons, Dec. 10, 1960, RA).

53. ER to Freda Diamond, June 27, July 7, 17, Aug. 19, 1960; ER to Ruth Gage Colby, Sept. 10, 1960, RA. During the summer PR also completed the second series of ten radio broadcasts and a special Christmas program for the BBC, as well as a long-playing, stereophonic album for EMI (with a fifty-fifty royalty split). Though the trip to Ghana never came off, it involved considerable preliminary planning and correspondence, including letters between ER and President Nkrumah (A. W. Ephson to PR, Feb. 23, March 25, April 6, 23, 1960; K. A. Gbedemah to PR, April 23, 1960; Nkrumah to ER.July 29, Aug. 10, Sept. 7, 1960—all in RA). Hearing of PR’s difficulties in getting his passport renewed, Nkrumah suggested he become a citizen of Ghana—as W. E. B. Du Bois was soon to do.

54. Roucaute to PR, June 29, 1960; ER to Roucaute, July 18, 1960; Leschemelle to ER, July 22, 1960, RA; FBI Main 100-12304-603, 608; L’Humanité, Sept. 1–6, 1960; Daily Worker, Sept. 25, 1960; ER to Direktor, Interkonzert, Aug. 14, 1960, RA (Budapest). He spent a lot of time in Paris with his brother Ben, who had come overseas for a World War I reunion (ER to Rockmore, Sept. 9, 1960, RA). For more on Fajon, see Edward Mortimer, The Rise of the French Communist Party, 1920–1947 (Faber and Faber, 1984).

55. Diana Loesser, the wife of Franz Loesser, handled most of the details of the Robesons’ visit to the GDR, and her correspondence with Essie about arrangements is in RA. Also pertinent are Walter Friedrich (president of the Peace Council) to PR, Aug. 29, 1960; George Spielmann to ER and PR, August 2, 1960, RA (Peace Medal); New Zeit, Oct. 7, 1960 (interview with PR in which he said, “I will tell the peoples of other countries that I have seen the true Germany”); Neues Deulschland, Oct. 9, 1960 (PR press conference); Morning Freiheit, Oct. 23, 1969 (Graham); Brigitte Boegelsack, “Paul Robeson’s Legacy in the German Democratic Republic,” Arbeitschefte (Paul Robeson For His 80th Birthday), (Akademie der Kunste [Berlin], 1978); and the English-language “souvenir book,” Days with Paul Robeson (Der Deutsche Friedensrat, 1961). The latter records one additional honor given Robeson during his stay: honorary membership in the German Academy of Arts. The American legate in Bonn requested U.S. Army Intelligence and the Office of Special Investigation (OSI) “to furnish any information coming to their attention” regarding PR’s “activities” while in Berlin, but the agencies “indicated that they had no information” (Bonn to Hoover, Nov. 22, 1960, FBI Main 100-12304-618). Essie had been to the GDR the previous year as well, to help celebrate its tenth anniversary (Paul had been unable to go, because of his Othello commitments). During her trip Essie visited the site of the Nazi camp at Ravensbriick and helped dedicate a monument to the women who died there. She was accompanied by the GDR Minister Toeplitz, the Deutsches Theater actress Mathilde Danegger, and Erica Buchmann, the Communist Party member who had been imprisoned in Ravensbrück from 1934 to 1945. Buchmann introduced Essie to Rosa Thalmann, widow of the German Communist leader (interview with Diana Loesser, July 29, 1986, who is also the source for the story about the medals).

56. PR to Clara Rockmore, Sept. 9, 1960, courtesy of Rockmore; the contract for the New Zealand-Australia tour is in RA; R. J. Kerridge to Harold Davison, Sept. 30, 1960 (TV fees); ER to Freda Diamond, July 7, 1960, RA). The offer was put together by Kerridge who was the owner of the largest chain of motion-picture houses in New Zealand and the sponsor of all Soviet-bloc performers in the country, along with the well-known Australian impresario D. D. O’Connor, who sponsored PR’s tour.

57. Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 13, i960; Telegraph, Oct. 13, 1963; Sunday Truth (Brisbane), Oct. 16, 1960; ER to Diamond, Nov. 13, 1960, RA.

58. Nancy Wills to me, Nov. 12, 1983. In 1987 Wills wrote a theater piece on PR’s life, which was produced in Brisbane (The Age, Sept. 18, 1987).

59. ER to Freda Diamond, Nov. 13, 1960, RA; D. D. O’Connor to ER, Oct. 24, 1960, RA (Hobart).

60. The Sydney Morning Herald, Nov. 8, 1960 (platform manner); PR postcard to Clara Rockmore, Nov. 29, 1960, postmarked Feb. 12, 1961 (Maori), courtesy of Rockmore. Comparing New Zealand with Australia, ER wrote, “America is here, all over the place. But much more in Australia than in New Zealand. So, as you can imagine, we by far prefer New Zealand, which we found very beautiful, and very friendly. Australians are much more like Americans” (to Freda Diamond, Nov. 13, 1960, RA). A sample of PR’s excellent musical reviews in New Zealand is the Evening Post (Wellington), Oct. 21, 1960: “The voice, even at the age of 62, is the remembered voice of the records, of no great range nor sophisticated cultivation but with a rich vibrant sonority.” I have not detailed the musical reviews of the tour because they are so repetitive and also so much of a piece with the kinds of reviews PR got throughout his career: they were largely positive and often glowing (“a great entertainment by a great man”—Melbourne Sun, Nov. 17, 1960), emphasizing the richness of his personality over the richness of his art, though an occasional critic complained about the narrow range of his voice and his selections (Melbourne Nation, Nov. 19, 1960; Adelaide Advertiser, Nov. 28, 1960) or the “naivete” of his interpolated political references (Sydney Sun, Nov. 8, 1960; Sydney Daily Mirror, Nov. 8, 1960). Janetta McStay, the young New Zealand pianist who was the assisting artist for the tour, also got her share of excellent notices—as did Larry Brown.

61. New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Nov. 2, 1960; New Zealand Herald, Oct. 18, 1960; People’s Voice, Oct. 19, 26, Nov. 2, 1960 (Maori Centre); Christchurch Star, Oct. 24, 1960; Otago Daily Times, Nov. 3, 1960; ER to Freda Diamond, Nov. 13, 1960, RA; The Press (New Zealand), Oct. 27, 1960 (sample ER interview); ER to Rosens, Nov. 26, 1960, courtesy of Helen Rosen. Perhaps Robeson’s most notable contact with workers in Australia was his appearance, by invitation of the Building Workers’ Industrial Union, on the job site for the construction of the Sydney Opera House. PR sang to the workers, they presented him with a hard hat with his name on it, and, to great applause, he autographed the cuffs of their working gloves (correspondence of P. Clancy, secretary of BWIU, to PR, RA; also Australian TV interview with Miriam Hampson, transcript courtesy of Sterner).

62. James P. Parker, American Consul in Auckland, to State Department, Nov. 7, 1960, FBI New York 100-25857-4294. Although there was no civic reception, the mayor of Auckland, D. M. Robinson, did entertain the Robesons at a private morning tea, and in Wellington, the seat of government, Prime Minister Nash and the Minister of the Interior and Culture received them in their offices. PR did a “Spotlight” television show, arranged to include three sympathetic interviewers, in which he was “friendly and gay (not angry)” and which had “a very fine effect” (ER to PR, Jr., Dec. 15, 1960). She sent a duplicate letter to Mikhail Kotov of The Soviet Peace Committee (same date, RA), designed to fulfill a promise to Tass for an article. There is considerable correspondence in RA concerning invitations and arrangements in regard to social occasions and public appearances; the letters from Flora Gould (New Zealand Peace Council), Rona Bailey (New Zealand), and William Morrow (New South Wales Peace Committee) contain especially important details.

63. I’m grateful to Lloyd L. Davies of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia, who saw a newspaper “call” of mine for information on PR and responded with anecdotes of his own about PR’s visit to Australia and sent two tapes of speeches PR gave while there (one of which, at Paddington, is quoted above). Davies subsequently placed a “call” of his own in the Australian press, which reaped an additional trove of letters and photos, which he then forwarded to me (one of them is a letter from Faith Bandler, May 11, 1983, but the Bandler quotation above is in fact from an interview she gave to Australian television about PR—the transcript courtesy of Sterner). In regard to the Australian press, PR is quoted on the aborigines in the Sunday Mirror (Sydney), Nov. 13, 1960; Truth (Brisbane), Nov. 13, 1960; and the Melbourne Age, Nov. 16, 1960. In his book Broad Left, Narrow Left (Alternative Pub. Coop.), Len Fox has an account of PR seeing the aboriginal film that corroborates the Faith Bandler version (Fox to Davies, May 16, 1983, courtesy of Davies). The Perth newspaper The West Australian (Dec. 1, 1960) described PR as so wound up during his press conference that it was “difficult for anyone else to get a word in edgeways.” He began by protesting the treatment of the aborigines and ended by warning that anyone who tried to get tough with Russia “could get hurt, and they have plenty to hurt you with.”

64. Lloyd L. Davies to me, Jan. 14, June 24, 1983. In her letter to Davies of May 11, 1983, Faith Bandler points out that PR “did not have many opportunities to meet Aborigines while here,” though he did meet Charles Leon and several of his friends at a reception in Paddington Town Hall. Another of Davies’s correspondents, Vic Bird (letter of June 18, 1983), recalls an occasion, in the Collingwood-Fitzroy area of New South Wales when Mr. and Mrs. Jack Lynch, peace activists, arranged at the Robesons’ request for them to meet two aboriginal women at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sam Goldbloom; according to Vic Bird, who was a guest at the Goldblooms’ that evening, Robeson left the group of some forty to fifty people in order to go off to an anteroom and have a talk with the two women. It’s possible that Judy Ingles was the woman who arranged the meeting between PR and the two aborigines (Ingles to Robesons, Nov. 24, 1960, RA, along with enclosure about her work on the aborigines). The Bandler and Bird letters were kindly forwarded to me, along with much other material, by Lloyd L. Davies. I’m also grateful to Annette Cameron of Maylands, Western Australia, who sent me her own brief memoir (Cameron to me, June 25, 1983), which includes an account of a union committee at Midland Trailway Workshops arranging an outdoor event for Robeson after management had refused to let him inside to sing. The tape of PR’s speech to the West Australian Peace Council is courtesy of Lloyd L. Davies. Though PR continued to speak out in Western Australia and also in Adelaide, South Australia, the press and public seemed more indifferent to his politics than in New South Wales and Victoria. John C. Ausland, the American Consul in Adelaide, explained it this way: “… they are eager for novelty and, for the most part, completely indifferent to international politics”; Ausland was speaking of Australians in general (Ausland to State Department, Dec. 15, 1960, FBI New York 100-25857-4306).

65. PR to Clara Rockmore, Dec. 6, 1960, courtesy of Rockmore; ER to Freda Diamond, Dec. 15, 1960, RA (“strain”); ER to George Murphy, Jr., Dec. 16, 1960, Jan. 23, 1961, Murphy Papers, MSRC. Essie was not only preparing a new book, but still trying to resuscitate an old film script (ER to David Machin, March 16, 1961, RA).

As part of his musical research, PR corresponded with Edinburgh critic Christopher Grier (PR to Grier, Jan. 29, March 1, 1961; Grier to PR, Feb. 19, 1961, RA) and visited the musicologist Dennis Gray Stoll (Stoll to Robesons, Jan. 12, 1961; ER to Stoll, Jan. 23, 1961, RA). Robeson sent Grier some of his writing on the pentatonic scale. In his response (Feb. 19, 1960, RA) Grier expressed agreement with Robeson’s high evaluation of Bartók but thought “it was too late” for “a return to the basic roots of a world universal folk pentatonic modal musical mother tongue” which PR had apparently called for; moreover, Grier felt “a return to ‘grass roots’ is only valid in countries which have lacked or been outside the main stream of Western European musical culture.” On the other hand, Willie Ruff, the bassist, French-horn player, and professor of music at Yale, credits Robeson’s insistence that the folk music of widely disparate countries has a common source, and his recognition of Bartók’s importance, for having opened his own ears to musical interconnections (The New Yorker, April 23, 1984).

66. PR, Jr.’s notes of his talk (not taped) with Harry Francis, Sept. 1982, courtesy PR, Jr. The FBI got wind of PR’s invitation to visit Cuba, apparently as the personal guest of Castro, and Justice Department memos flew (FBI Main 100-12304-619, FBI New York 100-25857-4310). In the Soviet weekly, Ogonek, no. 14, April 1961, Robeson is quoted as saying about his future plans (which included possible trips to Ghana and Guinea): “I received an invitation to visit Cuba.… I don’t see how I can do it all.”

67. PR to Clara Rockmore, Jan. 30, Feb. 12, 13, 1961, courtesy of Rockmore; ER to Freda Diamond, Feb. 19, March 25, 1961, RA; PR to Helen Rosen, Feb. 11, 27, 1961, courtesy of Rosen; Claude Barnett to ER, April 14, 1961, CHS: Barnett; ER to George Murphy, Jr., Feb. 25, 1961, MSRC: Murphy. Both Essie and Paul wrote letters in support of Kenyatta to the Release of Jomo Kenyatta Committee, Jan. 22, 1961, RA; A. Oginga-Odinga (vice-president of the Kenya African National Union) to PR, Dec. 22, 1960; Ambu H. Patel (organizing secretary of “Release” Committee) to Robesons, March 1, 1961, RA. Harry Francis remembered “how deeply affected” Robeson was by Lumumba’s murder (Francis to PR, Jr., June 10, 1968, RA). The thirty-first birthday celebration of the Daily Worker, at the Albert Hall on March 5, 1961, at which Robeson sang and spoke, heard Communist Party General Secretary John Gollan protest the jailing of Kenyatta and the murder of Lumumba (Daily Worker, March 6, 1961). Paul had already left for Moscow, but Essie spoke at the big Trafalgar Square Anti-Apartheid rally to commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre, along with Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Barbara Castle, and Rev. Michael Scott (ER to Freda Diamond, March 25, 1961; Martin Ennals to ER, Feb. 24, 1961, RA). While still in Australia, the Robesons had been invited by Nnamdi Azikiwe personally to attend his inauguration on Nov. 16, 1960, as Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Federation of Nigeria (Azikiwe to Robesons, Oct. 26, 1960, RA). The script of “This Is Your Life, Flora Robson” is in RA (Robeson praised her work with him in All God’s Chillun but penciled out the portion of the prewritten script that talked about her being “better” than Mary Blair in the American production); “thank-you” note from Flora Robson to PR, Feb. 18, 1961, RA; interview with Flora Robson, Sept. 1982.

68. Interview with Herbert Marshall and Freda Brilliant, July 20, 1985; Neil Hutchinson to PR, Robeson, Nov. 15, 1960 (Othello); Herbert Marshall to Robesons, Dec. 25, 1960; Tony Richardson to ER, Feb. 8, 16, 27, 1961; Lewenstein to ER, Feb. 16, 1961; ER to Richardson, Feb. 22, 1961; ER to Lewenstein, Feb. 22, 1961—all in RA.

69. PR to Clara Rockmore, Sept. 9, 1960 (HUAC), Jan. 30, 1961 (lengthy), Feb. 12, 13, 27, 1961, courtesy of Rockmore. Abe Moffat (president, National Union of Mine Workers) to ER, March 29, 1961, RA; ER to Kotov, Feb. 24, 1961, RA; Marie Matejkova to PR, Oct. 7, 1960; ER to Matejkova, Feb. 17, 1961; Walter Friedrich to Robesons, Feb. 16, 1961; ER to Friedrich, March 4, 1961—all in RA. Robeson had been set to participate in the Africa Freedom Day concert on April 16 in London and had also accepted an invitation to join the Tagore Conference, part of the Centenary Celebrations in London on May 5 (John Eber to PR, March 13, 1961; Omeo Gooptu to PR, March 20, 1961—both in RA).

70. PR to Helen Rosen, Feb. 11, 1961, courtesy of Rosen.

71. PR to Helen Rosen, Feb. 11, 24, 27 (twice), 1961, courtesy of Rosen; multiple conversations with Helen Rosen.

72. Multiple conversations with Helen Rosen.

73. Neue Zeit, April 27, 1961; Moscow News, April 1, 1961; Ogonek, no. 14, April 1961; Izvestia, March 24, 1961; Bechernyaya Moskva, March 21, 1961; Trud, April 2, 1961 (Zavadsky); Chernyshev to PR, March 24, 1961; McVicker (U.S. Embassy in Moscow to State Department), March 31, 1961, FBI Main 100-12304-(no file number); ER to PR, March 24, 1961, RA.

CHAPTER 24 BROKEN HEALTH (1961–1964)

1. The sketchy details of PR’s suicide attempt are primarily derived from interviews with PR, Jr. (multiple), Helen Rosen (multiple), Dr. Alfred Katzenstein (July 26, 1986), and Dr. Ari Kiev (Dec. 14, 1982). According to PR, Jr. (ms. comments), “[I] asked to see two top-level Soviet officials with whom [I] discussed the entire matter of [my] father’s collapse. When [I] asked them whether a blood test showed any evidence that Paul had been drugged, they answered in the negative and with considerable concern gently suggested that perhaps [I] had been under excessive strain and ought to get some rest. But when [I] asked them about the party at the hotel, they became visibly agitated, saying that although many of the people at the party ‘were not Soviet people’ (i.e., disloyal Russians), there was not concrete evidence against any of them. As for the party, everyone had assumed it was Robeson’s party, so despite many complaints, no one had intervened.” Interview with Lord Ivor Montagu (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 1982; PR, Jr., interview with Harry Francis (notes courtesy of PR, Jr.); interview with Dr. Alfred Katzenstein, July 26, 1986 (“conflict”); Harry Francis was surprised (and hurt), because he had increasingly become a trusted go-between for Robeson (ER to Jerry Sharp, Aug. 30, 1961, RA). There are various versions of the overcoat incident: that Robeson pushed it away, that he accepted it and later returned it, that the overcoat belonged to an American art dealer or to Montagu himself. Unable to reconcile the sketchy memories involved, I have settled here for a “best guess.” Essie, too, seems to have believed the overcoat incident had been significant. In my interview with Jay and Si-lan Chen Leyda (May 26, 1985), they recalled meeting ER accidentally in a GDR airport (they thought the year was 1963 but were not positive; a letter from ER to family, Nov. 26, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe, reporting on meeting the Leydas, confirms that the year was 1963, and the place Leipzig). Upset, Essie had sat the Leydas down, said she “had to talk,” and proceeded to describe how in an airplane someone—“she thought an American”—had put a heavy coat over Paul’s shoulders on seeing he didn’t have one. “He was never the same thereafter,” the Leydas quote ER as telling them; startled at the gesture, he had reacted as if (in Jay Leyda’s words) “chase and capture—and some sort of revenge” were at stake. What seems to have been meant as an act of kindness was apparently mistaken for the opposite by Robeson. Significant as a triggering event, the overcoat episode does not, of course, account for Robeson’s underlying and pre-existing anxiety.

2. The translated Russian medical report (dated April 4, 1964, RA) is an overall evaluation but makes specific reference to the 1961 period. PR, Jr.’s recollections are on a tape he made for me and in his ms. comments. Cedric Belfrage and his then wife, Jo Martin, are among those who saw Robeson with some frequency in the months before his departure for Moscow and did not detect any overt symptoms of disturbance. But Jo Martin, now a therapist herself, stressed the unpredictability of depressive mood swings; she feels certain of only one diagnosis: Robeson did not have the serious memory losses associated with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, as others have suggested to me (interviews with Cedric Belfrage, May 29, 1984, and Dr. Josephine Martin, June 5, 1984).

3. Several people who knew PR only casually have voiced the view that he collapsed “from conscience,” from disillusion with the Soviet Union. Herbert Marshall, in Moscow at the time but denied access to Robeson, is the strongest proponent of that view, and quotes Pera Attasheva, Sergei Eisenstein’s widow and a friend of Robeson’s since his first visit to Moscow in 1934, to the effect that “the full knowledge of what had been happening in the Soviet Union crashed in on him” (interview with Herbert Marshall and Fredda Brilliant, July 20, 1985). But Zina Voynow told me that her sister, Pera Attasheva, warned her that Marshall was not a reliable witness (conversation with Voynow, March 1987). Angus Cameron (interview, July 15, 1986) and Marie Seton (interviews, Aug.-Sept. 1982) are among those who have argued the broader view of disillusion with the historical process, Seton adding as causative the accumulated stress Robeson felt at being alienated from the black struggle at home, and from living with Essie on a daily basis. Interview with Sam Parks, Dec. 27, 1986 (moorings).

4. Multiple conversations with PR, Jr.

5. ER to Jessica Abt, April 19, 1961; ER to Ben Robeson, May 6, 1961 (“Feeling much better”); ER to Freda Diamond, May 9, 14, 1961 (“fell flat”); ER to Prof. Friedrichs, May 29, 1961; PR, Jr., to Marilyn Robeson, April 13, 27, May 5, 10, 1961; PR, Jr., to Ben Robeson, May 4, 1961—all in RA. PR, Jr., to Marian Forsythe, May 4, 1961; ER to Marian Forsythe, May 5, 1961—both courtesy of Paulina Forsythe. Larry Brown, too, wrote Helen Rosen that he was feeling “a little happier” after getting “a very cheerful letter” from ER (April 29, 1961, courtesy of Rosen), and ER’s own chatty letter to Helen about how well both Pauls were doing was no more informative (April 28, 1961, courtesy of Rosen).

6. PR, Jr., to Marilyn Robeson, May 5, 10, 1961; ER to Marilyn Robeson, May 31, 1961; ER to Diana Loesser, May 29, 1961—all in RA. Between medical duties, Essie kept busy writing articles and doing occasional broadcasts over Radio Afrika (Moscow). The mss. of her articles—including “Cuba Libre,” full of praise for Castro’s revolution—are in RA. “So every dog has his day,” Essie wrote Freda Diamond (May 14, 1961, RA) in summary of her numerous activities—the phrase suggestive of psychological gratification beyond mere article-writing. To add to her pleasure, she received word in Aug. that the GDR had awarded her the Clara Zetkin Medal in honor of her “great merits in the struggle for peace.” “I am very proud of it,” she wrote Peggy Middleton (Rudolf Dolling to ER, Aug. 4, 1961; ER to Middleton, Aug. 17, 1961, RA). She accepted the medal in person two years later (see p. 518).

7. ER to Helen Rosen, June 15, 1961, courtesy of Rosen; Nkrumah to PR, May 10, June 21, 1961, RA; Cheddi Jagan to PR, June 14, 1961, RA; Shirley Du Bois to Freda Diamond, Oct. 9, 1961, courtesy of Diamond. Soon after, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, responding to a letter from Essie, wrote to express his sorrow “to learn of the indisposition of my hero, Paul” (Azikiwe to ER, July 15, 1961, RA). Hearing that Robeson was back at Barveekha, Nkrumah, who was himself on a visit to Moscow, wrote again (“Dear Uncle Paul”) to express regret at not having any room in his schedule to visit him (Nkrumah to PR, July 25, 1961, RA). Predictably, the State Department was displeased when it learned of Nkrumah’s offer of a professorship (Accra Embassy to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, April 5, 26, 1962; Rusk to Accra, April 19, 1962, reporting that Robeson was ill with “a nervous disorder” in Moscow, implying it was unlikely he would be able to assume the appointment). For the return to Moscow: ER to Ruth Gage Colby, July 4, 1961; ER to Shirley Du Bois, July 2, 1961; Du Bois to PR, July 25, 1961; ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, July 7, 1961; ER to Rockmores [May 1961], July 10, 1961—all in RA. In the middle of July, Essie came down with an attack of gallstones and was herself hospitalized for two weeks; deciding against surgery, the doctors put her on a restricted diet (ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, July 29, 1961; ER to Ed Barsky, Aug. 11, 1961—both in RA).

8. ER to Helen and Sam Rosen, July 31, 1961, courtesy of Rosen; ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, Aug. 18, 19, 1961, RA; multiple conversations with Helen Rosen. Alphaeus and Dorothy Hunton also visited the Robesons briefly at Barveekha, along with John Pittman and his wife, Margrit; they had all come to attend the funeral of William Z. Foster in Moscow (ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, Sept. 5, 1961, RA). Shortly before he died, Foster had been at Barveekha for treatment (ER to Freda Diamond, May 14, 1961, RA).

9. ER to Rosens, Sept. 5, 1961, RA; multiple conversations with Helen Rosen. In a letter to family, et al., ER later confirmed that it was Davison’s doctor, Philip Lebon, who had put her in touch with the Priory (ER to family, et al., January 28, 1963, RA).

10. Multiple interviews with Helen Rosen.

11. The comments on Ackner were made to me by Dr. Max Fink, the ECT specialist (at the State University of New York, Stony Brook). Ackner to Perlmutter, Jan. 9, 1964; John Flood to Perlmutter, Jan. 17, 1964; Ackner to Dr. Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963, RA. Of the Priory doctors, Essie (at least in the beginning) was especially keen on John Flood. “HE is our man,” she wrote Helen Rosen enthusiastically. “He is Paul’s choice, and he and Dr. A. [Ackner] are the ONLY ones he talks to” (Dec. 19, 1961, courtesy of Rosen). Although ECT treatment was not so benign a procedure then as currently, Helen Rosen says that Paul was “always highly sedated before being given one and afterwards remembered nothing” (multiple interviews with Rosen). That Robeson did suffer at least some short-term memory problems from the ECT treatments is confirmed in ER to Helen Rosen, Dec. 14, 19, 1961, courtesy of Rosen. Apparently Robeson also got at least a few insulin treatments (ER to Rosens and Rubens, Oct. 11, 1962, courtesy of Rosen). Dr. Robert Millman and Dr. Theodore Tyberg helped me to evaluate Robeson’s general medical history. Two phone conversations (June 1985) with Dr. Max Fink, of SUNY, Stony Brook, helped clarify the ECT specifics. “Attitudes today are different towards ECT,” Fink said, “but not dosage particularly.” Fink added, in a follow-up letter to me of July 4, 1986, that “in today’s classification, the history and description of Paul Robeson’s condition would most likely fit that of a patient with a delusional depressive disorder, probably bipolar disorder—for which condition convulsive therapy remains the most effective treatment.” The most recent reviews of the literature on ECT are Raymond R. Crowe, “Electroconvulsive Therapy—A Current Perspective,” New England Journal of Medicine (July 19, 1984); Philip G. Janicak, et al., “Efficacy of ECT: A Meta-Analysis,” American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1985; Richard Abrams, Electroconvulsive Therapy (Oxford 1988); A. J. Frances and R. E. Hales, eds., Review of Psychiatry (APA, 1988), pp. 431–532. The current debate is conveniently summarized in “Electroconvulsive Therapy: An Exchange,” The New York Review of Books, May 30, 1985, in which William H. Nelson argues for the conclusion that “ECT is clearly superior to all other available forms of treatment of severe depression” and is especially impressive in achieving results with patients who had previously failed to respond to drug or psychological therapy. Nelson cites a survey of three thousand randomly selected psychiatrists (Task Force Report #14: Electroconvulsive Therapy [APA Press, 1978]) in support of his claim that two-thirds share his favorable disposition to ECT, and only 2 percent totally oppose the treatment. He acknowledged, though, that ECT “remains a controversial treatment,” and in answering him Marilyn Rice and Israel Rosenfield reiterate the opposing view that “proper testing” (in Rosenfield’s words) will eventually reveal that ECT treatment does produce permanent brain damage even though it is useful in treating severe depression. According to Dr. Max Fink, the arguments presented by Rice and Rosenfield “have been assessed repeatedly, and rejected; the latest is by the 1985 NIH Consensus Conference on Electroconvulsive Therapy” (Fink to me, July 4, 1986). Even today, according to Fink, the “efficacy rate” for a condition like Robeson’s is higher with convulsive therapy (greater than 75 percent in controlled studies) than with an alternative drug regimen (“The combination of an antidepressant drug like imipramine or amitriptyline and an antipsychotic drug like perphenazine or fluphenazine” has an efficacy rate of less than 65 percent). As regards psychotherapy, a major study released in the spring of 1986 concludes that some forms are as effective as drugs in treating depression (The New York Times, May 14, 1986)—an option not used with PR except peripherally in 1965. The study, however, is based on a small sample and involves ambulatory, non-psychotic, and mildly depressed individuals; at the time he was admitted to the Priory, Robeson’s illness was more acute. According to Dr. Max Fink (letter to me, July 4, 1986), “There is no study suggesting that any form of psychotherapy is even moderately successful with patients with bipolar disorder, or with major depressive disorders with delusions.” For a less positive view on ECT than Fink’s (though it cites him as a leading authority), see the popularized account in Mark S. Gold, The Good News About Depression (Villard Books, 1987), especially pp. 231–32. Gold’s exultant listing of the promising new drug therapies currently available makes for poignant reading in relation to the limited treatment options in Robeson’s day.

12. PR, Jr., believes that the shock treatments and drug therapies at the Priory were a part of “a deliberate attempt to ‘neutralize’ Robeson, traceable to the CIA and its British counterpart MI-5,” but no direct evidence has surfaced to substantiate this conclusion. PR, Jr.’s views were expressed to me in multiple conversations and in his ms. comments. For more on this issue, see note 27, p. 747. A number of Essie’s friends have suggested to me that although she may have acted imperfectly, she did so with Paul’s interests foremost in her mind.

13. From the limited records available to him, Dr. Max Fink concluded that the treatment Ackner prescribed “seems to have been entirely appropriate for the time. ECT was the most effective treatment for Robeson’s condition” (phone interviews; letter of July 4, 1986). The Priory doctors did attempt to treat Robeson with many of the drugs then available—including Paratlin, Nardil, Tofranil, Tryptizol, Marsalid, and Meprobamate. Marsalid was a new, well-regarded drug, since replaced in the medical arsenal because it can cause liver-function disturbances, as indeed it did with Robeson. He also got the standard side effects of dry mouth and breathing difficulties from Tofranil and Tryptizol. In the words of Dr. John Flood, “the only treatment which had any effect, albeit temporary, was ECT” (Flood to Perlmutter, Jan. 17, 1964, RA). Ackner’s comparable phrase, “without much benefit,” is in Ackner to Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963, RA. That Robeson derived some immediate (but not lasting) benefit from ECT treatment is documented in ER’s letters to Sam and Helen Rosen, Dec. 20, 1961, Feb. 19, 26, March 1, 5, Nov. 27, 1962, courtesy of Rosen.

14. Multiple interviews with Rosen.

15. ER to Rose Rubin, Oct. 5, 1961; ER to Peggy Ashcroft, Oct. 12, 1961; ER to Freda Diamond, Oct. 13, 1961; Rockmore to ER, no date (Oct. 1?), 1961, carbon to PR, Jr., along with note about “furious,” Oct. 11, 1961; ER to Rockmore, Oct. 15, 29, 1961—all in RA; ER to Revels Cayton, Dec. 24, 1961, courtesy of Cayton. John Abt, the lawyer for the CPUSA, had been allowed to visit PR, and this fact, plus the account of Robeson’s debilitated condition Abt gave on his return to the States, partly accounted for the Rockmores’ concern and anger.

16. ER to PR, Jr., Oct. 5, 7, 13, 29, 30, 1961; Shirley Du Bois to ER, Oct. 29, 1961—all in RA. In her Oct. 30 letter to PR, Jr., Essie reported that she and Big Paul had watched Martin Luther King, Jr., on the TV program “Face to Face”; she thought King “very good, but … a bit on the quiet side … a bit uninspired.…” As an example of Essie’s “upbeat” accounts, the unusually detailed “REPORT” (four typed pages, RA) for Oct. 12–13, 1961, begins with how she found Big Paul “with relief nurse in garden on bench, happy, welcoming,” continues with his discussing the unsuitability of John Gielgud for the role of Othello (Zeffirelli’s production had just opened, with Peggy Ashcroft playing Emilia), then has PR having a “nice chat” with a woman who approached them (she turned out to be the first wife of Beerbohm Tree), and ends with her expressing some slight concern about his inability to sleep and the high dose of medication being given him at night.

17. ER to Rockmores, Oct. 29, 1961 (Gracie Fields); ER to Freda Diamond, Dec. 24, 1961—both in RA; ER to Helen Rosen, Dec. 8, 19, 1961, courtesy of Rosen.

18. ER to Helen Rosen, Dec. 8, 1961 (courtesy of Rosen).

19. PR, Jr., ms. comments (suicidal); interview with Harry Francis, 1971, cassette courtesy of PR, Jr.

20. ER to Helen Rosen, Nov. 18 (two letters, same date), Dec. 24, 1961, courtesy of Rosen.

21. ER to Sam and Helen Rosen, Feb. 9, 1962, courtesy of Helen Rosen.

22. ER to Rosens, Feb. 11 (Robinson), 19, 26, March 1, 5, 1962, courtesy of Rosen; ER to Marian Forsythe (with copies to PR, Jr., the Rosens, and Bob Rockmore), March 16, 1962; also a note from PR to Marian, March 1, 1962, reassuring her that he was “feeling much, much better”—both courtesy of Paulina Forsythe; PR to Clara and Bob Rockmore, March 1, 1962, courtesy of Clara Rockmore.

23. Interview with Katzenstein, July 26, 1986; Ackner to Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963; ER to Janet Jagan, Feb. 5, 1962; ER to Larry Brown, Oct. 3, 1962—all in RA; Andy to Larry Brown, Nov. 19, 1962, NYPL/Schm: Brown. Hearing from Charles Howard about his visit to Paul, Ralph Bunche wrote Essie a note saying how sorry he was “to learn that Paul is incapacitated.… Although over the years Paul and I have not seen eye to eye on political matters, I have great affection for him and I send him warm personal regards.” ER wrote back how “VERY pleased” Paul was “to have your warm greetings” (Bunche to ER, Aug. 22, 1962; ER to Bunche, Aug. 25, 1962, RA).

24. ER to Helen Rosen, Dec. 4, 14, 1961; ER to Rosens, April 10, 1962; ER to Rosens and Rubens, Oct. 11, 1962 (Larry’s music, last visit)—all courtesy of Helen Rosen. PR’s public tribute to Brown was during his Aug. 30, 1949, Rockland Palace speech (tape, RA). When Louise Bransten was in London in late 1961, she also was allowed to visit.

25. ER to “Dear Friends,” March 24, 1962 (soliciting greetings), MSRC: Murphy. The many letters, cards, and telegrams are in RA; Nkrumah’s letter is dated April 3, 1962; Helen Rosen’s comment on the phone call is in Helen Rosen to PR, April 9, 1962, RA. They also named a new youth singing club in the GDR for Robeson (Deckert to PR, Aug. 17, 1962; PR to Deckert, Aug. 25, 1962, RA). The black militant Julian Mayfield wrote a glowing tribute to him in the Ghana Evening News, April 18, 1962. Nkrumah continued with his efforts to entice Robeson to settle down in Ghana, as Shirley and W. E. B. Du Bois had done (they were joined by Dorothy and Alphaeus Hunton in the spring of 1962 to work with Du Bois on the Encyclopedia Africana, sponsored by the Ghana Academy of Sciences [Hunton to Robesons, May 14, 1962, RA]). To meet Paul’s needs, Nkrumah converted his original offer of a chair at the University of Ghana to a visiting professorship, but, although Paul willingly and gratefully agreed to have his name associated with the university, he made it clear (through Essie) that he had no idea whether he would again be able to work, and if so how much. It was a deep sorrow to him. (E. C. Quist-Therson, secretary to Nkrumah, to PR, April 10, 1962; ER to Nkrumah, March 4, May 24, 1962—all in RA). He was then invited to become an honorary fellow of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana (Thomas Hodgkin to PR, Dec. 11, 1962; ER to Hodgkin, Feb. 17, 1963—both in RA).

Essie was unable to get back to work on the two books (one on the Congo, the other on politics) she had hoped to write, but between visits to the Priory she kept her hand in. She participated in the birthday rally for the Daily Worker (reading a few words of greeting from Paul), maintained an active political correspondence with Janet Jagan on developments in British Guiana, with Russian friends about the possible translation and publication of her work (Boris Polevoi had become editor-in-chief of the magazine Youth, and Mikhail Kotov assisted from several angles), and in the fall of 1962 covered the Commonwealth prime-ministers’ conference for the Associated Negro Press, deeply engaged by the British debate over Common Market versus Commonwealth. (Daily Worker: George Matthews, editor, to ER, Feb. 9, March 1, 1962, RA; London Daily Worker, March 5, 1962; PR’s brief remarks to the rally are in RA. British Guiana: ER to Jagan, Feb. 3, April 13, Aug. 27, 1962; Jagan to ER, July 2, 1962. Russia: ER to Kotov, Feb. 19, June 22, 1962. Commonwealth Conference: ER to Larry Brown, Oct. 3, 1962; ER to Freda Diamond, Oct. 26, 1962; ER to Indira Gandhi, September 19, 1962; ER to Nehru, September 19, 1962—all in RA.)

26. ER to Rosens, May 10, 27, June 20, 1962; ER to Helen Rosen, May 31, 1962 (rise in PR’s spirits)—all courtesy of Rosen. William Wolff to PR, May 14, 1962; Hille to PR, June 4, 1962; PR’s brief ms. of Hille greetings and also the preface to George Cunelli’s book, Voice No Mystery (dated July 19, 1962, and, judging from the style, written by Essie)—all in RA. A dozen years later Cunelli’s book had still not been published. The way Cunelli explained it to Robeson, “The publishers … put some obstacles in my way, asking diminished admiration for Soviet achievements in visual art and vocal problems, and could I ask my past pupil, Laurence Olivier, to write a Preface instead of Paul Robeson. I refuse this opportunist proposition” (Cunelli to PR, June 3, 1974, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe). Essie thought that writing the preface to the book had been important in getting Paul a labor permit (ER to Rosens and Rubens, Oct. 11, 1962, courtesy of Rosen).

27. FBI New York 100-25857-4379, March 5, 1962 (Key Figure); FBI Main 100-12304-641 (passing). Robeson was finally deleted from the Key Figures list at the New York Office in January 1963. As early as April 1961, shortly after PR’s suicide attempt, an FBI memo speculated that “the death of Robeson would be much publicized … his name and past history would be highlighted … in propagandizing on behalf of the international communist movement” (FBI Main 100-12304-621).

Both in print and in private discussion, PR, Jr., has strenuously argued the possibility that the U.S. government deliberately “neutralized” his father, perhaps by slipping him the hallucinogen BZ (which the United States is on record as using elsewhere) in Moscow in March 1961, perhaps by playing a role in the course his medical treatment took, particularly in the administering of a protracted series of ECT. I have done everything I could think of—including a lawsuit against the FBI for the release of Robeson files denied me under the Freedom of Information Act—to unearth the evidence that would allow for a conclusion one way or the other on PR, Jr.’s speculations. So many of the government documents forwarded to me under the FOIA (or extracted by lawsuit) are inked over that I have found it impossible to say for sure that there is nothing to his charges (especially since PR’s Priory records are apparently lost; after a prolonged search, the deputy hospital director informed me that she was unable to locate the “relevant medical notes.” [Alison Boyle to me, March 29, 1988]). So little of even a circumstantial nature has surfaced to support PR, Jr.’s case that I have had to draw the conclusion, tentative though it must remain for now, that the case is unproved.

28. ER to the Rosens; ER to the Rockmores; ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn—all May 27, 1962, RA. The Rockmores were on their way to the U.S.S.R. and were able to visit with Paul—separately, to avoid undue strain—three times at the Priory and four times at the flat. Essie reported to the Rosens (May 27, 1962, RA) that before they came “He had been going down toward depression.… I think the stimulation of their visit postponed the depression, arrested it.… After they left on the Monday, he slowly went down.” Dr. Ackner agreed that he was “way down.” He had begun ECT again on May 19 (the last previous treatment had been April 19), and in the following week he got ECT three times, the series of eleven (for a total to date of thirty-five) extending through October 15, 1962 (Ackner to Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963). It was not unusual in those days to have repeated courses of ECT. On this round, he came out of the first three treatments at “a much higher level” (according to Essie), but he almost always did improve immediately afterward, only to relapse once again. Essie asked the Rockmores to report fully to the Rosens, “and to Pauli fully, but cautiously.” PR, Jr.’s own health was much improved, but still not entirely secure. “Have had my own little ups and downs but the average has been steadily up,” he wrote his father on April 4, 1962 (RA); seven months later he was still reporting “feeling pretty good these days.… I’m getting stronger and more confident quite rapidly. I was not upset too much even by the events of the last couple of weeks [the Cuban missile crisis].… I seem to be well on my way now and getting steadily stronger and more confident” (PR, Jr., to ER and PR, Nov. 4, 1962, RA).

29. ER to John Abt and Ben Davis, Jr., July 13, 1962; Bailey to ER, July 10, 1962; American Embassy to State Department, July 12, 1962, along with ER’s affidavit—all in RA. FBI Main 100-12304-657.

30. ER to John Abt and Ben Davis, Jr., July 13, 1962, RA. According to an FBI report, Robeson was additionally upset at this time by PR, Jr.’s alleged “expulsion” from the CPUSA (Director to SAC Chicago, Jan. 3, 1963, FBI Main 100-12304-[illegible]).

31. Abt to Robesons, July 17, 1962, RA. Robeson once again managed a trip to the U.S. Embassy to sign, this time supported by Essie, Harry Francis, and the British lawyer D. N. Pritt.

32. ER to Rosens, May 27, 1962 (“hopeless”); ER to Mikhail Kotov, June 22, 1962 (“wither away”); Helen Rosen to PR, April 9, 1962 (planned trip); ER to Sam Rosen, Sept. 1, 1962; ER to Judy Ruben, Sept. 1, 1962; ER to Freda Diamond, Aug. 25, 1962 (“end of nightmare”)—all in RA. Helen Rosen told me that in her actual presence she never heard Paul threaten suicide. Dr. Ackner thought Robeson was “morbidly preoccupied about his inability to sleep and about his loss of weight” (Ackner to Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963, RA). The Daily Herald, Oct. 26, 1962, reported Harold Davison “hotly” denying the rumor that Robeson had decided to retire; all he had to do, Davison is quoted as saying, is “to slow down his pace a little,” and he had “a great deal of artistry” left “to offer the world.” At just this time, Peggy Middleton was writing Cedric Belfrage, “Paul is still in and out of his nursing home. I have had tea with him. That’s all I can say without being depressing” (Oct. 13, 1962, courtesy of Belfrage).

33. ER to family, et al., Jan. 28, 1963, RA; Middleton to Belfrage, Jan. 27, 1963, courtesy of Belfrage.

34. ER to Rosens, Feb. 5, March 27, 1963, courtesy of Rosen; ER to Clara Rockmore, Feb. 17, March 19, 1963, RA; PR to Clara Rockmore, March 18, May 30, 1963, courtesy of Clara Rockmore. In his May 30 letter to Clara, PR wrote to her as if for the first time about Rockmore (“Just heard today about our beloved Bobby”), sadly suggesting his confused state of mind.

35. ER to Clara Rockmore, March 19, 1963; “Dear Dear Friends,” March 17, 1963—both in RA.

36. The many letters and telegrams of greetings on his sixty-fifth birthday are in RA. Walter Ulbricht of the GDR was one of those who cabled good wishes, and Paul signed a thank-you letter Essie composed in response (PR to Ulbricht, June 2, 1963, RA). Among the other celebrations was a Radio East Berlin broadcast, an article on him by Martha Dodd (“‘I Am A Folk-Singer’: Paul Robeson,” ms. in RA) in the Cuban paper Hoy, and a radio talk in Ghana by Reba Lewis (transcript in RA). ER to Helen Rosen, April 7, 1963, courtesy of Rosen (“so angry”); ER to Freda Diamond, April 27, 1963 (“damn thing”), RA.

37. The National Insider, Jan. 6, 13, 1963. The FBI gave some thought to using the articles in its Counterintelligence Program, but abandoned the idea: the Insider was too obviously a sleaze publication, the articles themselves contained too much “anti-American sentiment on the racial issue,” and no confirming evidence of Robeson’s supposed change of heart could be found (FBI New York 100-25857-4407, 4408). The Pittsburgh Courier (Jan. 26, 1963) was among the publications reprinting the rumor of Robeson’s break with Russia (as filtered through the syndicated labor columnist Victor Reisel). In Europe, Le Figaro published the story on May 2, 1963, but was swiftly rebutted by the Communist paper L’Humanité on May 3 (FBI Main 100-12304-677).

38. ER to PR, Jr., et al., April 28, 1963; Pritt to ER, May 2, 1963; PR, Jr., to ER, May 17, 1963—all in RA. ER’s draft and final statement are also in RA. Claude A. Barnett to ER, May 29, 1963, and ANP release are in CHS: Barnett; Middleton to Belfrage, “Christmas ’63,” courtesy of Belfrage. ER ms. in RA (further statement); Time, Sept. 6, 1963 (“Eslandic”).

It was around this same time, curiously, that Alfred Knopf asked Carl Van Vechten to have a look at a proposal he’d received for a biography of PR: “I think it a very poor idea myself, but I am, as always, willing to sit at the feet of the master.” Van Vechten read the proposal and wrote Knopf, “I see no point in a book about Paul Robeson now unless James Baldwin can be persuaded to write it. He would assuredly take an intransigent point of view and might even attack Robeson. Anyway anything Baldwin writes sells and is read.” Knopf wrote back, “I certainly wouldn’t want to chance a book on Robeson by Baldwin. In fact, as I wrote you, I wasn’t very keen myself about the whole idea, and I gather that you are not exactly excited.” The idea died there. (The proposal was submitted in a memo to Knopf from H. Cantor on Dec. 26, 1962; Knopf to Van Vechten, Dec. 27, 1962, Jan. 2, 1963; Van Vechten to Knopf, Dec. 29, 1962, all in UT: Knopf.)

39. Middleton to Belfrage, Aug. 7, 1963, courtesy of Belfrage; ER to Kotov, June 22, 1962, RA; ER to? (no salutation or date; [Oct. 1962?]) (reporters at Priory), courtesy of Helen Rosen. In regard to the missile crisis, Essie had herself written, “I have always been glad that Castro is a Man what takes no tea for the fever, as we Negroes say” (ER to Rosens and Rubens, Nov. 1, 1962, courtesy of Helen Rosen).

40. Peggy Middleton to Cedric Belfrage, Aug. 7, Sept. 4, 1963, and “Christmas ’63,” courtesy of Belfrage. In the Aug. 7 letter she wrote, “… I have broken through at last and he will be going elsewhere soon. I could write a book about all this.… The whole thing is a kind of 20th Century nightmare.” Middleton claimed that the Priory had been so “interested in the mind that they do not notice what is happening to the body” and had been indifferent to Paul’s “physical state.” Helen Rosen considers that untrue: Paul had regular and frequent physical examinations—though perhaps the results were not sufficiently attended. Interview with Micki Hurwitt (PR, Jr., participating), May 14, 1982; interview with Cedric and Mary Belfrage, May 29, 1984; ER to Rosens, June 27, July 14, 1963 (Hurwitt), courtesy of Helen Rosen. Hurwitt was very drawn to Essie, finding her charming, accomplished, and complex, a “feminist,” a “woman of great pride who had her own interests and wouldn’t take any shit of certain kinds from Paul,” though she was entirely willing to front for him and protect him: she was willing to “be ‘a dragon’ so he could be his beautiful self.”

41. Middleton to Belfrage, Aug. 7, Sept. 4, 1963, courtesy of Belfrage; interview with Hurwitt, May 14, 1982; interview with Katzenstein, July 26, 1986. Dr. Ackner had used paraldehyde in Feb. 1962, after Robeson became “very depressed,” in order to put him “on modified narcosis for three days”; he interspersed the paraldehyde with sodium amytal. He also prescribed paraldehyde for sleeping, believing that “the combination which appeared to benefit him most was “Paraldehyde drachms 3 with Nembutal gr. 3 and Largactil mg. 100-(Ackner to Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963, RA).

42. Middleton to Belfrage, Sept. 4, 1963, courtesy of Belfrage.

43. Sunday Telegraph, Aug. 25, 1963; interview with Diana Loesser, July 29, 1986.

44. ER to Marie Seton, Sept. 12, 1963, courtesy of Seton; interview with Hurwitt, May 14, 1982; typed ms. of Essie’s “Kidnapped!! A True Short Story,” RA, serialized in The Afro-American, Nov. 2, 9, 16, 1963. Hurwitt remembers that Nick Price went to the apartment first and brought the key back to her, reversing Essie’s version in “Kidnapped”; I have gone with Essie’s version because it was written immediately afterward, whereas the Hurwitt interview took place twenty years later; the discrepancy, in any case, is not over a significant point; on all major elements in the story the three accounts are in agreement. Hurwitt recalled that at least one of the Priory doctors was hostile to Paul’s removal, sarcastically asking her, “What will you do if a man of that size goes berserk on the plane?” Nick Price was the son of Branson Price, an expatriate left-wing American woman who had known Paul during the Progressive Party campaign.

45. ER, “Kidnapped,” RA; interview with Hurwitt, May 14, 1982; ER to Marie Seton, Sept. 12, 1963, courtesy of Seton; Punch, Sept. 4, 1963.

46. ER, “Kidnapped,” RA; interview with Hurwitt, May 14, 1982; ER to Seton, Sept. 12, 1963, courtesy of Seton.

47. ER, “Kidnapped,” RA; ER to Seton, Sept. 12, 1963, courtesy of Seton. The New York Times, in fact, carried a more restrained account than appeared in much of the British press, quoting Harry Francis to the effect that it was “sheer nonsense” to talk of Robeson’s being “smuggled” out (Aug. 26, 1963). In contrast, the Daily Sketch talked of a “deepening” mystery, and the Daily Mirror headlined “Rumors of Plot” (both Aug. 26, 1963). The New York Daily News, on the other hand, matched British sensationalism with its statement (Aug. 30, 1963) that “some of us suspect Paul Robeson never again will emerge from behind the Iron Curtain.” The FBI was more cautious in evaluating the rumors, deciding to let the whole matter “die [a] natural death” (FBI Main 100-12304-309, 310). USIA London reported to USIA Washington on Aug. 30, 1963, that “The Embassy’s Legal Attaché says he has no evidence whatsoever that Robeson had changed his views about Communism or had a desire to recant” (FBI Main 100-12304-240).

48. ER, “Kidnapped,” RA; interview with Hurwitt, May 14, 1982; ER to Seton, Sept. 12, 1963, courtesy of Seton; Telegraph, Aug. 26, 1963. In a second Telegraph article (Aug. 27, 1963), Osman quoted a GDR Peace Council spokesman to the effect that Robeson had come for a thorough medical examination. He also revealed that John Peet had been on the Polish Airways flight to East Berlin. Peet was a former British journalist who had “gone over” to the GDR more than a decade earlier and edited the English-language Democratic German Report. A few days after the flight, Peet sent Essie an extract from The New Statesman of Aug. 30 which hurtfully took her to task for refusing to cooperate with the press and for creating “a mountain of suspicion and mistrust out of what may have been only a mole-hill of gossip,” thereby injuring “her husband’s reputation and his life’s cause” (Peet to ER, Aug. 31, 1963, RA). Harry Francis wrote a lengthy response to The New Statesman (Sept. 2, 1963), denying that PR’s illness was in any degree linked to his purported “discovery” of racial discrimination within the U.S.S.R. When Robeson returned to Europe in 1958, Francis wrote, “it was clear that he was already a sick man,” and he had then proceeded to overtax himself further in Othello (“I personally feared that he was due for a crack-up in health before the end of that year”), compounded by a difficult tour of Australia during which “he found himself in argument, often quite violent, with sections of the Australian press who showed themselves to be even less subtle than their counterparts in Britain.” Robert G. Spivak wrote an article in the New York Herald Tribune that tried to keep alive the flames of suspicion, both about Robeson’s “disillusionment” and his “kidnapping,” and quoted the West Indian actor Edric Connor as yet another voice of doubt (for more on Connor and PR, see note 12, p. 686, and note 16, p. 725.

49. Interview with Dr. Katzenstein, July 26, 1986. For a detailed discussion of the recent literature on ECT, see note 11 of this chapter. Curiously, Dr. Katzenstein (who was a clinical psychologist, not a physician) does not seem, in his sessions with PR, to have encouraged him to talk about his private life. In our interview, Katzenstein told me, “I didn’t even go into too much on personal questions,” and he had never even heard the names of Clara or Bob Rockmore. (However, PR did tell Katzenstein that he and Lena Horne had been “in love.” For more on Home and PR, see note 31, p. 675.) Katzenstein further said, remarkably, that he did not know that Robeson had had a breakdown in 1956, although he claims that Robeson did “always answer” his questions about political matters: “I didn’t see any evidence of his having ‘disloyal’ thoughts about the Soviet Union. On the contrary, he immediately became angry if anybody thought this sort of thing.”

According to Micki Hurwitt, “One of the first things that Katzenstein said to me in regard to the ECT Paul had been given was, ‘They would never have done this to him in the States’” (interview, May 14, 1982). According to PR, Jr. (in conversations with me), the Soviet team of doctors, led by Dr. Snezhnevsky, had also said, in 1961, that ECT was not indicated in PR’s case. Dr. Larry Kerson, the last neurologist to treat Robeson (in Philadelphia, 1974–75), and cautious in general about the use of ECT, believes there is a possibility—no more than that—that the ECT treatment given Robeson may have accelerated a degenerative process that might have happened anyway. Even so, Kerson agrees that, given the state of the art in 1961, ECT would have been the logical treatment choice for Robeson (phone interview, March 1987).

50. ER to Dorothy and Alphaeus Hunton, Oct. 5, 1963; ER to Shirley Du Bois, Oct. 5, 1963; ER to Freda Diamond, Nov. 5, 1963; Elliott Hurwitt to ER, Sept. 20, 1963—all in RA; multiple interviews with Helen Rosen (Sam’s reaction); ER to Helen Rosen, Oct. 4, 15, 1963, courtesy of Rosen. Micki Hurwitt (interview, May 14, 1982) was impressed that the Buch doctors believed Paul when he said he couldn’t sleep; in the Priory they had told him he was “morbidly preoccupied” with the issue, and in fact slept more than he thought he did (Ackner to Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963, RA).

A lengthy, remarkably detailed report on Robeson is contained in Dr. Baumann to Dr. Barsky, Dec. 14, 1963, RA (the report is in German; Michael Lipson translated it for me). Among its findings, the report refers to “heart activity” being in “the normal range,” but “Hemodynamically, there is a much-too-low rate of recuperation of the heart” and some limited “myocardial damage.” The Buch doctors treated the heart problem with Ceglunat (Lanatosid C) and also, “for improvement of myocardial metabolism,” injections of Atriphos and Vitamin B₁₂; “the tendency to (Hyptomie) responded well to pholedrin medication 30 g.” They treated his intestinal difficulties with prednisone and a broad range of antibiotics. “The checkup rectoscopy showed clear improvement.”

For PR’s sleeping problem, the doctors at Buch began “autogenous training,” with “great emphasis” on the patient’s maintaining a set daily schedule, including daily massage, gymnastic exercises, a walk morning and afternoon, as well as a one-and-a-half-hour nap at noon; PR “responded well at first, so that it was possible with the help of this technique to bring about four to six hours of sleep per night. Further lengthening of sleeping time proved difficult.”

As for Paget’s disease, the contemporary (1986) medical textbooks (supported by Dr. Lawrence Mass, Dr. Theodore Tyberg, Dr. Robert Millman, and other physicians I questioned on the matter) do not list any psychiatric consequences resulting from the disease. Yet the Buch clinicians, in apparent disagreement, concluded in PR’s case, “Even the sleep disturbances and the past circumstance of attacks of depression could be seen as results of this disease.” In our personal interview (July 26, 1986), however, Dr. Katzenstein confirmed the view of my American medical consultants that the Paget’s finding was strictly secondary and had no psychiatric significance.

The Buch doctors made only one other formal comment on Robeson’s psychological state: “This altogether intelligent, sensitive, and strong-willed patient, at a time of life in which purely for reasons of age a certain lessening of his capacities was natural, suffered a serious psychological trauma as a result of a suite of extremely burdensome circumstances [that] … brought with it a diminished capacity for achievement and for self-consciousness, and in its wake led to a suite of psychological crises”—in other words, a social rather than an organic explanation for Robeson’s problems. The difficulty with that explanation lies in its all-encompassing vagueness and in its inability to account for the renewed onset of psychological problems at a time when his artistic outlets had once more been restored. The Buch clinicians felt that Robeson made “relatively good progress” in his “general psychological condition” through Librium treatment (“Depressive tendencies were no longer present as often, and the patient once again began to take an interested part in the events of his environment”), and recommended that Librium be continued “for some time,” in combination with “intensive psychotherapeutic conversations.” The latter never became part of PR’s treatment, though in 1965–66 he did occasionally (perhaps half a dozen times in all) talk with the New York psychiatrist Dr. Ari Kiev (see pp. 533–34)

Katzenstein also told Sam Rosen that PR had Paget’s. Seeming to confirm that such a diagnosis was made, Peggy Middleton wrote Cedric Belfrage, “As I always, admittedly only intuitively, insisted, it has turned out to be a physical defect,” adding, “the prognosis is not good. I suppose he could live quite a while, but he is a shadow of the man he was, both physically and mentally, or perhaps I should say spiritually, because he is quite sane, but so tired mentally that sustained conversation is difficult for him.” Middleton relayed the gist of a phone call she had had the day before with Harry Francis in which “we both said to each other how we wished we had been more successful earlier … to have saved Paul the 58 [four more than the 54 listed by Ackner] shock treatments and all the unnecessary medication”; but Essie had been entirely in control, and neither Peggy, who had questioned the treatment, nor Harry, who apparently had not, had had any real influence over her (Middleton to Belfrage, “Christmas ’63,” courtesy of Belfrage). Dr. Perlmutter’s notes provide additional confirmation of the diagnosis of Paget’s disease; when admitting PR to Gracie Square Hospital in June 1965, Perlmutter wrote on his chart: “… also has Paget’s disease of the skull” (Gracie Square Hospital records, courtesy of PR, Jr.).

51. ER to the Huntons, Oct. 5, 1963; ER to Shirley Du Bois, Oct. 5, 1963; ER to Freda Diamond, Nov. 5, 1963; ER to Colin Sweet, Nov. 15, 1963; ER to family, Nov. 18, 1963—all in RA; ER to family, Nov. 16, 21, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe. Harry Francis also told me that Dr. Katzenstein had said PR would have to live quietly (untaped interview, Aug. 30, 1982). Neues Deutschland, Sept. 7, 1963 (Zetkin “peace” medal).

According to Dr. Katzenstein, Essie had earlier sensed that her illness was terminal, and the feeling was confirmed when the Buch clinicians decided not to operate on her. According to Ursula (Mrs.) Katzenstein, Paul “wasn’t concerned with Essie’s problems”; he didn’t want to believe she was seriously ill, because “his physical well-being depended on her.” Essie wrote in a similar vein to the family: “First, he was a bit scared when I went down, but fortunately he missed the worst part.… After that I was able to maintain a cheerful front while he was in my room.… By the time he was disarmed and relieved, I began really to feel better.… What is really encouraging, he began to wait on me.… All very new for him. And he seemed to really take an interest, and enjoy being useful, without any reminder. It was sweet, and quite a departure” (ER to family, Sept. 23, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe). The Katzensteins were amazed when one day Essie casually took out the breast prosthesis she’d recently gotten and showed it off to them, delighting in how good it looked and how well it was made (interview with the Katzensteins, July 26, 1986).

While in the GDR, Essie also stayed busy with writing and putting in occasional public appearances. One especially notable one was a seminar on “The Negro and the USA” that she led at Humboldt University. Taking advantage of the presence in East Berlin of Helen and Scott Nearing, Kay Cole (wife of Lester Cole, the blacklisted writer, and herself active in Women Strike for Peace), Rev. Stephen Fritchman, and Earl Dickerson, she formed a panel that ran for nearly three hours and was apparently a great success (“… Scott got up and delivered a BLAST about the oligarchy of money and power and the takeover by Fascism of everything, including the means of communication, Etc!!! Boy, Oh Boy, he just stood up and blasted, with no introduction, no anything, militant, fighting, terrific” [ER to family, Dec. 5, 1963, RA]) (interview with Earl Dickerson, July 2, 1986).

52. Interviews with Katzenstein (July 26, 1986) and Diana Loesser (July 29, 1986); ER to family, Nov. 18, 1963, RA; ER to family, Oct. 27, Nov. 2, 16, 21, 26, Dec. 1, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe. He also had a brief phone interview with Sovietskaya Rossiya (April 31, 1963). Back in 1954 PR had recorded a song for Joris Ivens’s film The Song of the Rivers, with a score by Shostakovich, lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, screenplay and commentary by Vladimir Pozner (Pozner to PR, July 22, 1954; PR to Pozner, telegram, July 27, 1954, NYPL/Schm: PR).

53. Interviews with Kay Pankey, July 26, 1986, and Ollie Harrington, July 29, 1986; PR to Aubrey Pankey, May 24, 1963; ER to Pankeys, Nov. 6, 30, 1963—courtesy of Kay Pankey. For more on PR and the Pankeys, see pp. 358, 426. Dr. Katzenstein confirms that, although PR talked little, he “understood fully” (interview, July 26, 1986).

54. ER to family, Nov. 18, 1963, RA; ER to family, Nov. 16, 21, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe.

55. PR to Ben Robeson, Nov. 10, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe; interview with Dr. Katzenstein, July 26, 1986; ER to family, Nov. 18, 1963, RA; ER to family, Nov. 16, 21, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe. Paul and Essie had watched the March on Washington on television (ER to George Murphy, Jr., Oct. 4, 1963, MSRC: Murphy).

56. ER to family, Nov. 18, 1963, RA. Essie strongly implied that letters seconding the opinion of the doctors were needed from family and friends. Responding to ER’s query whether Paul would be “accepted” back in the States, George Murphy, Jr., suggested he could profitably busy himself in two ways: working to establish a repertory theater in Harlem and helping to set up a Du Bois Foundation (Murphy to ER, Dec. 7, 1963, RA). Katzenstein advised him against making public appearances but, recognizing Paul’s need to feel useful, suggested he “might be visited for strategy and advice” (interview with Katzenstein, July 26, 1986).

57. ER to family, Dec. 5, 7, 13, 1963, RA; interview with Katzenstein, July 26, 1986. On Dec. 15, two days before the Robesons left the GDR, the Katzensteins had them to dinner to celebrate Essie’s birthday. In their guest book that night, Robeson wrote, “… And thanks so much for taking me into your lovely family—integrating me, so to speak.…” At the bottom of the page he added, “Thanks so much. Grateful remembrances. All best possible” (guest book courtesy of Katzensteins). Even while at the Priory, Robeson had sometimes talked about wanting to go home (ER to Rosens, May 17, 1963, courtesy of Helen Rosen), and had once appended a note to one of Essie’s letters to Helen: “I’m terribly lonely and miss home” (ER to Helen Rosen, May 31, 1963, courtesy of Rosen).

CHAPTER 25 ATTEMPTED RENEWAL (1964–1965)

1. New York Post, New York Daily News, The New York Times, all Dec. 23, 1963. The New York Herald Tribune characterized Essie as a “hovering shield” (Dec. 23, 1963), and described PR as suf fering “a physical breakdown” as the result of “a severe circulatory condition” (Dec. 20, 1963).

2. New York Amsterdam News, Jan. 4, 1964; Post, News, and Times—all Dec. 23, 1963; F. G. Dutton to Mailliard, Jan. 23, 1964, RA; FBI Main 100-12304-674, 691 (press); FBI New York 100-25857-4453.

3. New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 25, 1963. The Journal-American made similar remarks.

4. Paul Jarrico letter in Herald Tribune, Paris ed., Dec. 28, 1963; Pittsburgh Courier, Jan. 11, 1964 (J. A. Rogers); Joseph North in The Worker, Jan. 5, 1964, also protested the Trib editorial; ER to Davison, Sept. 7, 1964, RA. The ms. of a brief tribute to Du Bois, dated Aug. 29 (which the Robesons sent Shirley Du Bois), is in RA.

5. Interview with Perlmutter, March 7, 1983; Perlmutter to Ackner, June 15, 1964 (drugs), and nearly identical letter to Dr. Baumann at the Buch Clinic, same date, RA. Requests for interviews are in William Longgood to PR, Jan. 7, 8, 1964; Allan Morrison (Johnson Publishing) to PR, Sept. 8, 1964; Bob Lucas to PR, June 14, 1964 (saying Life was interested)—all in RA. He also got an invitation from the Student Council at Rutgers to speak (Leo Ribuffo to PR, Feb. 3, 1964, RA).

6. ER to George Murphy, Jr., Jan. 31, May 31, 1964, MSRC: Murphy; Multiple interviews with Freda Diamond. Rockmore had made money for PR in the stock market and had assured him, “your finances are in such a condition that if you decided to take it easy … you can get by without too much effort” (Rockmore to PR, Sept. 22, 1961, RA). Multiple interviews with Marilyn Robeson; ER to “Joe and Mary” North, March 5, 1964; ER to Loessers, Sept. 6, 1964, PR Archiv, GDR. Helen Rosen and Marilyn Robeson had spent a week, along with two cleaning men, scouring the Jumel house; unoccupied for years, it had been filthy.

7. ER to George Murphy, Jr., March 4, 1964, RA. Murphy had had dinner with the Robesons soon after their return and wrote his brother Carl, publisher of The Afro-American, “Carl, Paul is a sick man!” and suggested that an interview in The Afro-American, whenever Paul felt able, might help to perk him up (GM, Jr., to CM, Dec. 31, 1963; GM, Jr., to ER, Jan. 18, 1964, MSRC: Murphy). Essie’s tribute to Du Bois was printed in the San Francisco Sun Reporter, March 7, 1964, and favorably commented on in the press (Philadelphia Afro-American, March 7, 1964) and by friends (Herbert Bibertnan to Robesons, Feb. 24, 1964, RA). The FBI also monitored the Du Bois event (FBI New York 100-25857-4531).

8. ER to George Murphy, Jr., May 21, June 2, 1964 (baseball), MSRC: Murphy; ER to Ben Davis, Jr., March 7, 1964, courtesy of Nina Goodman (Mrs. Ben Davis, Jr.); Aptheker to ER, April 21, 25, 1964, RA; National Guardian, March 28, 1964; ER to Claude Barnett. June 1, 1964, CHS: Barnett (Marian). When the British Peace Committee, through Harry Francis, arranged a concert in honor of Paul, and The Worker celebrated its anniversary, Essie wrote out messages of greetings for Paul to sign (Harry Francis to ER, Jan. 20, Feb. 12, 18, 28, March 26, 1964, RA; the messages are in RA). At the Guardian luncheon Essie had strong praise for the current civil-rights struggle, a theme she often sounded in her articles, particularly in “Long Hot Summer” and “Dialogue Between White and Black Americans at the Town Hall” (typed mss. in RA). She was sympathetic to the radical wing of the movement and defended Malcolm X for talking about the need for self-defense (“What could be more reasonable?” she wrote Carlton Goodlett [April 1, 1964, RA], “What with all the dogs, and bombs, and dynamite around!”). During the four months at the Buch Clinic, Essie had also completed a new book, tentatively entitled Determined to Be an American, but it was turned down by U.S. publishers (Walter Bradbury, Harper & Row, to ER, April 14, 1964, RA). In July, Essie went to London to cover the Commonwealth meetings; her articles on them are in RA. After seeing Josephine Baker’s show one night, Essie went backstage for a chat. “Surrounded by practically all of New York, when she heard my name she left everybody, backed me into a corner and said: My Dear, how is our Paul? Bless her. I gave her our phone number and address and she was on the telephone bright and early.… She talked with Paul.… [He] was VERY pleased and touched” (ER to Goodlett, May 1, 1964, RA). All the doctors Perlmutter contacted responded with pleasure to the news of Robeson’s improvement: copies of letters from Drs. Snezhnevsky, Ackner, and Katzenstein are in RA; Dr. Baumann wrote the Robesons, “It also gives me pleasure to hear that Paul is doing quite well again and that the process of healing that we set under way here has made continual progress since then” (Sept. 18, 1964, RA, translated from the German by Michael Lipson).

9. A copy of Perlmutter’s medical records is in RA; interview with Perlmutter, March 7, 1983. ER to George Murphy, Jr., March 4, 1964 (“feels he isn’t”); ER to Bass, May 24, 1964 (limited energy); ER to Kotov, June 14, 1964 (idleness); ER to “Dear Dear Friend,” Sept. 19, 1964 (reduced medication)—all in RA; ER to Rosens, April 10, 1964, courtesy Rosen.

10. An account of PR’s appearance at the Davis funeral is in The Worker, Sept. 1, 1964. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had also recently died; though she and Robeson were not close, shortly before her death she had written an admiring column about him (The Worker, April 19, 1964) and he in turn sent a message on the occasion of a memorial tribute to her (Grace Hutchins to PR, Sept. 30, 1964, RA). New York Amsterdam News, Sept. 5, 1964 (scene at funeral); the typescript of PR’s brief eulogy is in RA.

11. The typed ms. of PR’s statement to the black press (dated Aug. 28, 1964) is in RA. Several black papers reprinted the statement, including the Sun-Reporter, the New York Amsterdam News, and The Afro-American (both on Sept. 5, 1964). Essie had wanted to hold a press conference exclusively for the black press, with the socialist press and maybe “a Tass man” included, but Paul decided on issuing a statement instead (ER to family, Sept. 23, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe).

12. Rinzler to PR, June 23, Nov. 16, 1964; Rinzler to ER, April 27, June 3, 1965; ER to Rinzler, May 5, 1965; ER to “Dear Dear Friend,” Sept. 19, 1964; ER to Harold Davison, Sept. 7, 1964—all in RA; phone interview with Alan Rinzler, May 5, 1986; interview with Earl Robinson, Aug. 17, 1986.

13. ER to George Murphy, Jr. (appended to copy of ER to Clifford McKay, Nov. 16, 1964), MSRC: Murphy. Copy of Perlmutter’s medical notes on PR in RA, as is the typescript of PR’s Carnegie Hall remarks; Richard Morford (executive director of American-Soviet Friendship), Nov. 6, 24, 1964; Joe North to PR, Oct. 8, 1964; Joe North to ER, Oct. 8, 1964 (Lawson); The Worker, Nov. 16 (Carnegie), 22 (Lawson), 1964; Lawson to Robesons, Nov. 29, 1964: ER to Kotov, Nov. 22, 1964—all in RA. Predictably, the FBI was also present at the Carnegie Hall event (FBI New York 100-25857-4608).

14. Copy of Perlmutter’s medical notes on PR are in RA; ER to Kotov, Nov. 22, 1964, RA (“exhausted”);John Henrik Clarke (associate editor of Freedomways) to PR, Oct. 6, 1964, RA. The seven-page typescript of PR’s article on Du Bois—by far the most extensive writing he had attempted in some time—is in RA. Esther Jackson to PR, March 25, 1965, RA; New York Amsterdam Nevis, April 10, 1965 (ovation). In PR’s own hand is the brief statement he wrote for American Dialog, the replacement for Mainstream (which had folded in Aug. 1963), edited by his friend Joseph North; in the statement Robeson hailed “the gallant new chapter in American history” written by the recent Selma-to-Montgomery March (American Dialog, May-June 1965). Yet another death in this period was that of Lil Landau, a close associate of Vito Marcantonio’s and friendly with the Robesons since Progressive Party days; the ms. of ER’s brief tribute to her, dated March 6, 1965, is in RA.

15. The arrangements for Claudia Jones’s funeral produced some incidental friction. Her associate, A. Manchanda (“Manu”), publicly announced that Robeson had agreed to serve as honorary chairman of the memorial committee, when in fact he had not. Harry Francis was indignant about Manchanda’s role (Francis to Robesons, Jan. 18, 1965; Francis to Manchanda, Jan. 17, 1965; “Manu” to Robesons, Jan. 20, 1965 [misdated 1964]—all in RA, along with a transcript of PR’s tape recording). On the Hansberry funeral: The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, both Jan. 17, 1965, plus PR’s brief eulogy, partly written in his hand, RA. ER had put Hansberry’s mother in touch with Hubert Delany for legal advice and had visited Lorraine in the hospital twice during her last days (ER to George Murphy, Jr., Dec. 24, 1964, MSRC: Murphy. PR in early 1965 also put in a surprise appearance at the Jan. 15 Statler-Hilton dinner to mark the double celebration of Alexander Trachtenberg’s eightieth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of International Publishers, which he had founded (National Guardian, Jan. 23, 1965; James S. Allen [president of International Publishers] to PR, Jan. 6, 18, 1965; ms. of PR’s tribute, partly in his hand—all RA). The FBI also attended (FBI New York 100-25857-4635). Several weeks later PR spoke briefly at a party to raise money for the Upper West Side W. E. B. Du Bois Club, a Marxist youth group of the New Left (Frieder to PR, Feb. 6, March 1, 1965, RA).

16. Conversations with PR, Jr. Malcolm X’s comment on Robeson is quoted in The Afro-American, Nov. 30, 1963; the occasion was an attack Malcolm was making on Jackie Robinson for having criticized the Muslims, during which he alluded to Robinson’s earlier assault on Robeson. Essie wrote a sympathetic account of Malcolm X’s funeral (The Afro-American, March 16, 1965), though it’s possible to read hostility toward the Muslims in general in a cryptic comment she makes about them in a letter to Henry Winston (Dec. 12, 1964, RA); moreover, she had earlier written the Rosens that she found Muslim influence in the United States “very frightening.… Brother, it’s bad enough with the Arabs!!” (ER to Rosens, May 6, 1963, courtesy of Helen Rosen.) RA contains the typescript of an interview with PR by Jack O’Dell and Esther Jackson, editors of Freedomways, in which Robeson is described as having “great respect” for the Muslims’ “emphasis on the development of economic power among Negroes, discipline, responsibility and pride.” But according to PR, Jr., who was present at the interview, the editors of Freedomways added so much extraneous material that, in consultation with his father, PR, Jr., denied permission for the interview to be published.

There are several other versions (besides PR, Jr.’s) of the Muslims’ approach to Robeson. According to an article in the Amsterdam News (May 1, 1965) reporting the Freedomways salute to Robeson on April 22, Ossie Davis recalled in front of the audience that Malcolm X “had asked him after Miss Hansberry’s funeral to help arrange a meeting with Mr. Robeson whom Malcolm had come to admire.” Davis repeated the same version in his interview with Sterner. According to Chuck Moseley and Homer Sadler, Robeson’s bodyguards during his May-June 1965 trip to California, a delegation from the Muslims came to them with greetings from Elijah Muhammad as well as an invitation to meet (interview with Moseley and Sadler [PR, Jr., participating], May 3, 1982).

17. Davis/Baldwin/Killens to Jessica Smith, March 3, 1965, MSRC: Smith Papers; Young to Ossie Davis, April 6, 1965; Lawson to Freedomways, April 7, 1965; Wilkins to Davis, April 8, 1965; Susskind to Freedomways, April 2, 1965—all in RA.

18. The program for the Americana Hotel salute is in RA. The fullest accounts of the event are in The Worker, May 2, 1965; the Amsterdam News, May 1, 1965 (audience four-fifths white); and Charles P. Howard in the Washington Afro-American, May 8, 1965. Among the transcribed speeches and greetings in RA is a letter hailing Robeson’s “enormous courage and his complete devotion to his fellowmen” signed by fifty members of the House of Commons (Julius Silverman, the organizer, to PR, April 3, 1965), as well as congratulatory messages from Compton MacKenzie, Benjamin Britten, Stefan Heym, Cedric Belfrage, Konstantin Simonov—and PR’s Somerville classmate Hazel Ericson (Dodge). Rev. Walter Fauntroy, at his June 4, 1965, commencement address at Howard University, praised Robeson as a “cultural giant,” though declaring, “He holds political views that are unpalatable to all of us” (the address was sent by Elizabeth Cardozo to ER, July 10, 1965, RA). In the seven hundred tapes and transcripts about the civil-rights movement at Howard University, there is not a single mention of Robeson—a devastating gauge of the generation gap. James Farmer records being taken to meet Robeson at his home in 1965, and inviting him to attend some CORE rallies. When he didn’t, Farmer checked back and asked why: “Jim,” Robeson purportedly said, “I felt that you had enough problems without being embarrassed by my presence” (James Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart [Arbor House, 1985], p. 297).

19. The text of PR’s speech is in RA. The FBI, having long since decided that Freedomways (to say nothing of Robeson) was avowedly Marxist, conducted a “physical surveillance” of the Americana (FBI New York 100-25857-4704). PR’s remarks, along with the speeches by Hope R. Stevens and John Lewis, were published in the Summer 1965 issue of Freedomways; the editors excerpted PR’s comments.

20. Joe North to Robesons, n.d., RA (“inspiring”); Norma Rogers to PR, May 6, 1965, RA (“memorable”); phone interview with Alan Rinzler, May 5, 1986; Liberator, June 1965. The quote from Azikiwe is in a letter to Alphaeus Hunton (Feb. 25, 1958, RA), which was apparently passed on to PR. In a letter to PR himself—the salutation is “My dear Hero”—Azikiwe expressed the fear that “we are now on the verge of realising our dreams, and I do hope that we shall not have dreamt and fought in vain. I say this because as I near my 54th milestone I begin to become disillusioned and I begin to appreciate the aphorism: things are not always what they seem” (Aug. 23, 1958, RA).

21. Multiple conversations with PR, Jr.; interviews with Alice Childress, Sept. 19, 1983, Oct. 9, 1984.

22. ER to Rosens, May 19, 1965, courtesy of Helen Rosen; ER to family, May 19, 1965, RA; Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1965; People’s World, May 22, 1965; the ms. of PR’s speech at the church is in RA—it was also recorded; interview with Chuck Moseley and Homer Sadler (PR, Jr., participating), May 3, 1982. Essie also gave a short speech (Morning Freiheit, May 27, 1965). Frankie Lee Sims had been treasurer of the Los Angeles Negro Labor Council in the early fifties, and her husband, George Sims, had been active in the AFL Carpenters Local; both were devout Baptists (Freedom, Dec. 1952). In Dorothy Healey’s view, to rely on Fritchman and his church as sponsors for Robeson’s one major appearance was tantamount to admitting that he had failed to “get a major black response.… You do that when it’s your last refuge and you have to show a big audience, and there’s no question he would … pack the church … but it wouldn’t be packed with black people” (interview, April 1982). Geri Branton (interview, April 2, 1982) confirms that he was not enthusiastically received “in the white or the black community.”

23. Interviews (PR, Jr., participating) with Geri Branton. April 2, 1982; Dorothy Healey, April 1982; Rose Perry, April 27, 1982. According to Essie, Gus Hall was brought to the Simses’ house for a visit by Bill Taylor only “after respectfully obtaining permission … didn’t stay long. Nice visit … All cordial” (ER to family, May 31, 1965, RA). Some of Essie’s protectiveness seemed justified when the local Peekskill informer (see p. 371) reappeared in California. Somehow he had ingratiated himself with George and Frankie Lee Sims, and they recommended him to Robeson, who immediately remembered him and refused to get in a car he was driving (interviews with Helen Rosen).

24. ER to family, May 19, 1965, RA. In that letter, Essie reported that Paul had been induced to sing by a woman in the audience who said “she would like to hear Paul sing 8 bars of Go Down Moses. Paul laughed, hesitated, then said, ‘O.K., I’ll try. I don’t know if it will come out, but I’ll try’. He then proceeded to sing it right through, beautifully, really beautifully, and the people went wild, and then the lady got up and said: ‘I just wanted to prove to you that you could do it’. And Paul said, ‘Well, you did!’ And the people were delighted.”

25. ER to family, May 31, 1965, RA; multiple conversations with PR, Jr; phone interviews with Ruby Silverstone, Feb. 23, March 1, 1987.

26. Phone interviews with Ruby Silverstone, Feb. 23, March 1, 1987; ER to family, May 31, 1965. Transcripts of Robeson’s various brief remarks at People’s World, etc., are in RA.

27. Multiple conversations with PR, Jr. The June 4 Salute to Paul Robeson came off despite his absence and was well attended and enthusiastic (Alvah Bessie to PR, June 6, 1965; James Herndon [chairman] to ER. June 30, July 19, 1965; Mary Helen Jones to ER, July 7, 1965; ER to Herndon, July 8, 1965—all in RA; San Francisco Sun Reporter, May 22, June 12, 1965; Canadian Tribune, July 19, 1965, reprinting Alvah Bessie’s tribute). On June 13 a Musical Tribute to Robeson also came off as planned, sponsored by the San Francisco Negro Historical and Cultural Society; Ethel Ray Nance, who had been an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, was the chair of the library committee (the program is in RA; Sun Reporter, June 12, 1965).

28. It is Paul, Jr.’s belief that in the days preceding the Gracie Square admission Kline had prescribed amphetamines for his father, which were discontinued only because PR, disliking their effect, refused to take them. Dr. Kline had agreed to turn his records on PR over to me, having previously denied to Paul, Jr., that he still had them, but his sudden death intervened. In the absence of those records, the possibility of amphetamines’ being used can be neither confirmed nor denied. Perlmutter to PR, Jr., Oct. 31, 1979 (referral to Kline); interview with Pearlmutter, March 7, 1983; Gracie Square Hospital records (all courtesy of PR, Jr.) for the quotes about “scissors” and “difficulty,” recorded by a Dr. Robins when he took PR’s history from Essie on the day of admission. In his first entry under “Progress Notes” in the Gracie Square records, Perlmutter refers to the suicide attempt of the previous evening as having been made “with a double-edged razor blade.”

29. The physicians’ reports and the nurses’ comments are all from the Gracie Square Hospital records, courtesy of PR, Jr.

30. In the nurses’ notes for June 19, 1965 (Gracie Square Hospital), R.N. Paul Jones recorded, “He said many people felt that he was taking an active part in left wing organizations and this turned them against him.”

31. Interview with Dr. Alfred Katzenstein (Buch Clinic), July 26, 1986. Dr. Katzenstein’s view that Robeson should have had intensive psychotherapy immediately following his ECT treatments—indeed, his view that ECT is only useful when done in conjunction with analysis—is not shared by most ECT specialists (see note 11, pp. 743–44). At any rate, Robeson never had rigorous psychoanalytic treatment.

32. Interview with Dr. Ari Kiev, Dec. 14, 1982; follow-up phone discussion, Nov. 1, 1986; Du Bois, Negro Digest, March 1950.

33. Interview with Dr. Ari Kiev, Dec. 14, 1982; follow-up phone discussion, Nov. 1, 1986.

34. Ibid.

35. Essie’s medical records are in RA; multiple conversations with PR, Jr., and with Helen Rosen.

36. Multiple conversations with Helen Rosen.

37. Multiple conversations with Helen Rosen and with PR, Jr.; Gracie Square Hospital records, courtesy of PR, Jr.; interview with Dr. Ari Kiev, Dec. 14, 1982. PR, Jr., ms. comments. Apparently Robeson was no longer on Librium, though it is not clear when he was taken off. Since that medication had worked so well, its withdrawal could alone account for his deterioration.

38. Physicians’ reports and nurses’ notes are part of the Gracie Square Hospital records, courtesy of PR, Jr.; Essie’s medical records are in RA.

39. Physician reports and nurses’ notes are from Gracie Square Hospital records, courtesy of PR, Jr. Dr. Kiev has indicated (in follow-up conversations of Nov. 11, 1986, and June 11, 1987) that, although it was contrary to his usual practice to put a patient on Valium and Thorazine, he felt the combination was indicated in Robeson’s case. Thorazine, then and since, is the most widely used of the major tranquilizers, and the amount Robeson got was below the recommended dosage. He received no more than three hundred milligrams on any one day (and probably less), while for “Hospitalized Patients: Acutely Agitated, Manic, or Disturbed,” the Physicians’ Desk Reference suggests that “500 mg. a day is generally sufficient” and “gradual increases to 2,000 mg. a day or more may be necessary” (PDR [Medical Economics Oradell, 1987], p. 1934). Moreover, the dosages used in clinical practices tend to run higher than what are generally viewed as the conservative estimates of the PDR.

40. Multiple conversations with PR, Jr.

41. Nachtigall’s report, along with the other medical data, is in the Gracie Square Hospital records, courtesy of PR, Jr.; multiple conversations with Helen Rosen and with PR.Jr.; confirming phone interview with Richard Nachtigall, March 10, 1987.

42. University Hospital (NYU) medical records, courtesy of PR, Jr. In my interview with him (March 7, 1983), Dr. Perlmutter confirmed that “some toxic reaction to the medication” apparently did play a role. He reiterated, too, that, after the complications from pneumonia and drug toxicity were resolved, Robeson’s degenerative arteriosclerosis may have remained a complicating organic factor in his continuing depression. In a phone interview (March 10, 1987) with Dr. Nachtigall, he confirmed his earlier view that Robeson’s high fever was a response to the combination of drugs he had been given. He also said, “It is theoretically possible that brain damage could result from such a high fever reaction,” but “doubted very much” that had been the case with Robeson.

43. ER to Franz Loesser, Oct. 23, 1965, PR Archiv, GDR (“What happened?”); multiple conversations with PR, Jr.; ER’s statement is in RA; New York Journal-American, Oct. 18, 1965; New York World-Telegram and The New York Times, Oct. 19, 1965; the Presbyterian and University hospital records are in RA. In the weeks before Robeson disappeared he had been to Dr. Perlmutter’s office for a checkup and Perlmutter had increased his Valium dosage (Perlmutter’s medical records on Robeson, copy in RA); conceivably, the higher dosage contributed to his confusion.

44. Essie’s medical records are in RA; multiple conversations with PR, Jr. The two fullest newspaper obits are: The New York Times, Dec. 14, 1965, and National Guardian, Dec. 18, 1965. Freedomways (Fourth Quarter 1965) put out a special supplement, “Tribute to Eslanda Robeson,” containing selections from her writings and reminiscences from friends (including the comments of Ruth Gage Colby, Essie’s U.N. friend). Essie died intestate; a statement in Surrogate’s Court to that effect, dated Feb. 18, 1966, and signed by PR, Sr., is in RA, which also contains many letters of condolence. Shortly before she died, Essie wrote to Peggy Middleton in London asking her to clean out the Connaught Square flat. Reporting on that to Cedric Belfrage, Middleton went on to make this mysterious comment: “I suspect I shall find that the housekeeper has been told to burn the letters. I’m not in favour of muck-raking biographies, but I somehow feel that all that stuff ought not to be destroyed. I’ll take a bet that it is though … I should be reluctant myself to set fire to it” (Middleton to Belfrage, Oct. 4, 1965, courtesy of Belfrage). Middleton may have been referring to letters from women to Essie that Paul, Jr., told me he destroyed because he considered them to be love letters.

When near death, Essie had still managed, in the last few months of her life, not only to arrange for the disposition of the London Connaught Square flat, but also to convey approval for the formal establishment of a Paul Robeson Archiv in the GDR (ER to Harold Davison, Oct. 2, 1965; Peggy Middleton to Marilyn Robeson, Aug. 1, 1965; ER to Dr. Ossinger, Nov. 14, 1965; Diana Loesser to ER, Aug. 30, 1965; Victor Grossman to PR, Dec. 24, 1965; Alfred Katzenstein to PR, April 2, 1965—all in RA; Peggy Middleton to Cedric Belfrage, Oct. 4, Dec. 29, 1965, courtesy of Belfrage [Middle-ton, Harry Francis, and D. N. Pritt were suggested by ER as the English nominees for the Archiv committee; Middlelon favored linking Robeson and Du Bois in one archive]).

CHAPTER 26 FINAL YEARS (1966–1976)

1. According to Mrs. Gertrude Cunningham, a family relative who lived across the street, Paulina “was furious at all the attention Marian gave to her brother” (interview, Aug. 17, 1982).

2. Lee Lurie to Harold Davison, Jan. 7, 1966 (“pretty rough”); Marian Forsythe to Lurie, Jan. 12, 18, plus an undated letter, 1966—all in RA; Marian to Larry Brown, undated Christmas card (1965?); letter, Jan. 12, 1966—both NYPL/Schm: Brown.

3. Multiple conversations with Helen Rosen, with PR, Jr., and, separately, with Marilyn Robeson; interview with James Aronson, May 31, 1983; Carl Marzani to PR, March 25, 1966, RA; interview with Marzani, March 11, 1986 (“laid out”).

4. George B. Murphy, Jr., to PR, Dec. 2, 1966 (Patterson); WilliamJ. McKenna, Jr., to PR, Oct. 27, 1966 (Rutgers); Thomas McDonough to PR, Nov. 30, 1966 (film); A. Philip Randolph to PR, June 22, 1966; Dr. Karel Duda to PR, Oct. 18, 1966 (Czechoslovak Ambassador); PR, Jr., to Duda, Oct. 26, 1966—all in RA. The FBI comment is in a Dec. 8, 1966, New York Office report, no file number; also FBI New York 100-25857-477 for New York Office’s furnishing data on Robeson to Philadelphia.

5. Anna Louise Strong to Fritchman, Sept. 20, 1966; Fritchman to PR, Oct. 17, 1966—both in RA. Helen Rosen (in multiple conversations) supports Strong’s view that Robeson was upset over the Sino-Soviet split and leaned toward the Chinese. According to PR, Jr. (multiple conversations), his father told him in London in 1959, “In my head I’m still with the Russians but with my heart I’m with the Chinese”—though PR, Jr., has subsequently insisted, “That was with reference to a specific [unspecified] issue involving the third world, not an overall position.” Yet, when Newsweek printed a rumor in 1963 that Paul had been invited to China and was considering the invitation, Essie reassured the Soviet Ambassador to the GDR that it was “a malicious rumor out of whole cloth, just to aggravate” (ER to family, Nov. 16, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe).

6. Multiple interviews with Marilyn Robeson; Marian Forsythe to Lee Lurie, Nov. 7, 11, 1966; Lurie to Forsythe, Nov. 9, 1966; Alvin I. Goldfarb to John Rockmore, Oct. 20, 1966—all in RA.

7. Marian Forsythe to Lee Lurie, Nov. 7, 1966, April 24, July 2, 1967, RA; the closing statement on the Jumel Terrace sale is also in RA. The piano teacher-friend was Charlotte Turner Bell. She has published an account of her visits that, measured against a variety of other reports, seems exaggeratedly cheerful—e.g., see note 18 (Charlotte Turner Bell, Paul Robeson’s Last Days in Philadelphia [Dorrance & Co., 1986]).

8. Joseph Martindale to PR, Nov. 14, 1967. As late as 1967, Robeson’s picture was absent from the gallery of football players in the Rutgers gym, and when students questioned it, university athletic officials replied that Robeson had failed to send his picture in; besides, “We do not brag about him.” His picture was finally hung in the late sixties, but the university continued to refuse to sponsor him for the National Football Hall of Fame (whose home was at Rutgers). Indeed, the 1950 reference work College Football listed a ten-man All-American team for 1918, omitting Robeson; PR, Jr., “Paul Robeson: Black Warrior,” Freedomways, First Quarter 1971).

9. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Dec. 22, 1967; New York Post, Dec. 23, 1967; FBI 100-38128-162; FBI Main 100-12304 (no file number), December 8, 1967; Middleton to Belfrage, Feb. 1, 1968, courtesy of Belfrage. Visiting him in the hospital, Charles Blockson found Robeson’s “handshake firm and his eyes clear” (interview with Blockson, April 10, 1988). The newspaper accounts of Robeson’s illness prompted a number of letters from fans and friends (all in RA), expressing pleasure at having had some news of him, however unpleasant, and wishing him well.

10. The Worker, April 7, 1968; Patterson’s speech was printed up for distribution by the CPUSA (a copy is in RA), with the appended remarks by Lightfoot and Mitchell. Citation for the establishment of the Paul Robeson Archive in the GDR is in note 44, p. 759.

11. Franz Loesser to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, May 27, 1968 (GDR); Morning Star, March g, 28, April 10, 1968; Stage, March 14, April 10, 1968; the program for the London event is in RA, complete with a list of sponsors, including Oliver Tambo (also O. R. Tambo to June Purdie, Dec. 30, 1967)—all in RA.

12. In 1968, when a new student-union building was under construction at Rutgers, the Black Student Union asked that it be named in Robeson’s honor. The question was left to a vote of the student body, which defeated the suggestion by a vote of 753 to 478; a second such proposal lost by fewer than two hundred votes (Rutgers Daily Targum, Nov. 15, Dec. 11, 1968). A year later, however, the Paul Robeson Arts and Music Lounge was dedicated in the student building; feeling the event had been allowed to take place without adequate ceremony, the eastern-region branch of Alpha Phi Alpha (Robeson’s fraternity) and the Student Center Board rededicated the lounge in April 1970. In 1971 the Harambee Organization, a black student group at the Newark campus of Rutgers, proposed to the board of governors that the Newark Student Center be named after Robeson; the nomination was supported by thirty-seven other campus and community groups and passed by the Board (Philip Hoggard to PR, March 11, 1970, RA; Daily Home News, April 4, 1970; the New York Amsterdam News, April 18, 1970; Harambee to Board of Governors, Dec. 9, 1971; Karl E. Metzger [Board] to PR, Feb. 15, 1972—both in RA). In 1975 a proposal was made at Rutgers to change the name of Livingston College to Paul Robeson College. The faculty divided on the issue and the proposal was rejected (Rutgers Daily Targum, Nov. 14, Dec. 2, 4, 1975; Rutgers Alumni Magazine, Feb. 1976). Interview with Robert Sherman, March 21, 1983 (WQXR). The CBC broadcast produced hundreds of letters and phone calls, but Paul, Jr., angrily protested it; feeling it was now up to him to protect his father’s public image as well as his personal privacy, he accused the broadcasters (accurately, in my view) with having minimized his father’s contributions to black liberation and the colonial struggle, and with having perpetuated the falsehood that his father had lived in exile from the United States (PR, Jr., to Eleanor Fischer, March 29, May 1, 1971; Eleanor Fischer to PR, Jr., April 16, 1971—all in RA). On the Black Academy of Arts and Letters: C. Eric Lincoln to PR, April 21, 1970; Julia Prettyman to PR, May 14, June 3 (“immeasurable”), 1970—all in RA; NYPL/Schm has the BAAL Papers, and they document the unsuccessful effort to compile a film on PR as part of the awards ceremony, because of the refusal of film companies and network-television news broadcasters to cooperate in releasing material on him (see especially Julia Prettyman to Franz Loesser, June 23, Sept. 4, 1970; NYPL/Schm: BAAL also contains a transcript of the proceedings at the award dinner, along with surrounding correspondence about its preparation). Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Pete Seeger, Mary Travers, and Hattie Winston were among those participating in Local 1199’s tribute to PR (program is in RA; 1199 News, Feb. 1971; Moe Foner [executive secretary] to Lurie, Oct. 25, 1971, RA; interview with Moe Foner, Oct. 24, 1983). At the GDR celebration, planned to coincide with PR’s seventy-third birthday, William L. Patterson made the keynote speech and Angela Davis sent greetings from her prison cell. On the various awards given Robeson 1970–72: Josephine C. Macauley to PR, Feb. 8, 1970 (Negro History); Boston Globe, May 4, 1972 (Black Psychiatrists); Mahlon T. Puryear to PR, Aug. 22, 1972 (Urban League); Junius Griffin to PR, telegram, Nov. 9, 1972 (NAACP)—all in RA. The Ebony article appeared in its Aug. 1972 issue, and The New York Times piece, by Loften Mitchell (a reprint from Equity magazine), on Aug. 6, 1972. Also in the years 1970–72, Dizzy Gillespie presented a Tribute to Paul Robeson and Black Culture in the Princeton University Chapel on Dec. 7, 1971 (Ernest Gordon to PR, Dec. 1, 1971, RA); he was also one of thirty outstanding black instrumentalists and singers given the Ellington Medal in 1972 by Yale in honor of Duke Ellington (The New York Times, Oct. 9, 1972). Actors’ Equity Association passed a resolution setting up a committee to suggest “some suitable recognition” of his work (Fredrick O’Neal to PR, Jr., July 20, 1971, RA), and it eventually decided upon an annual award in his name in recognition of his “commitment to the struggle for a decent world”; as a special tribute, Robeson himself was named the first honoree (Labor Chronicle, June 1974). Columbia Records issued Paul Robeson in Live Performance in the spring of 1971 (Daily World, Nov. 1971).

13. Interviews with Helen Rosen (multiple), Clara Rockmore (March 17, 1984).

14. Interviews with Robert Sherman (March 21, 1983), Sylvia Schwartz (Jan. 16, 1983), Bayard Rustin (March 25, 1983). Rustin had sent greetings to Robeson soon after his return to the States late in 1963, but according to Paul, Jr., his father said he wanted nothing to do with him, that Rustin had become “a stooge for American foreign policy” (multiple conversations with PR, Jr.).

15. Phone interview with Dr. Herbert E. Cohen, March 17, 1987 (Cohen kindly retrieved all of Robeson’s hospital records and read me parts of them, including Dr. Good’s “semivegetative” description); multiple interviews with Helen Rosen; Lee Lurie to Morris Perlmutter, Aug. 27, 1969 (considering shock); Lloyd Brown to Lurie, Sept. 25, 1969—both in RA. Again in 1971, when writing to Robeson’s Soviet friend Katanian, Brown said, “it’s been years since I’ve seen him so happy” (June 22, 1971, RA). During his 1969 hospitalization for depression, The New York Times reported that he was suffering from a heart ailment (Aug. 6, 1969), but the FBI was better informed, describing him as “under psychiatric care because of ‘depression’” (FBI Main 100-12304-721, 724).

16. Marian Forsythe to Lee Lurie, Jan. 23, 1969, Feb. 23, May 5, Dec. 8, 1971, March 26, 1972, RA.

17. Other examples of “good news being trumpeted abroad” about PR’s condition are: the Watkinses to PR, April 12, 1971; Harry Francis to PR, Jr., July 26, 1971—both in RA. The summer of 1972, indeed, was apparently a relatively long “up” period for Robeson, since even Lee Lurie, who knew his actual prognosis well, wrote Harold Davison in London that “at the last visit with Paul Sr., it was heartwarming in the respect that he was almost his old self albeit that his exposure to the public is as yet completely counter-indicated” (July 2, 1971, RA). Evidence that Marian did occasion ally let in an unexpected or uncertified caller is in my interviews with Edith Tiger (June 17, 1985), Hazel Dodge (Nov. 7, 1983), and Theodora Peck (April 8, 1982); also in Percy La Bohne to Marian Forsythe, April 10, 1973, thanking her “for permitting Rosalie to bring me by,” and a postcard from Leila McKenzie to PR, n.d., in which she writes, “Do hope no harm was done to you by my unexpected visit” (the letter and card are courtesy of Paulina Forsythe, plus pictures taken by a Rose Kricheff, showing her sitting with Paul on a couch in Marian’s living room); Louise Oswell to PR, June 29, 1971, also refers to a visit (courtesy of Paulina Forsythe). Occasion ally, an unannounced out-of-town friend of genuine reliability was kept away, the oversight too late to rectify; Chuck Moseley, for example, who had been Robeson’s bodyguard in California, tried unsuccessfully to get through to him while passing through Philadelphia (interview with Moseley and Homer Sadler, May 3, 1982).

18. Interview with Robert Sherman, March 21, 1983; New York Times, April 16, 1973; interview with Edith Tiger, June 17, 1985. A transcript of PR’s taped message is in RA. On the day of his birthday, Marian filled the house with flowers and invited in a number of old friends and relatives (Bell, Last Days, p. 12). Bell’s account of Robeson enjoying “every minute” and “chatting quietly” is contradicted by Gertrude Cunningham’s recollection that she had to grab his hand to prevent him from putting it absentmindedly into the birthday cake (interview with Cunningham, April 1982).

19. The New York Times, April 16, 1973.

20. The large batch of tributes, spoken and written, are in RA, along with the souvenir program of the Carnegie Hall event. Among the many others who expressed their admiration were Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, Zebbediah M. Gamanya (chief representative of FROLIZI, the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe), Jorge Amado, nineteen members of the House of Commons (including Harold Wilson, Roy Jenkins, James Callaghan, Barbara Castle, Denis Healey, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Tom Driberg, Anthony Crosland, and Andrew Faulds), Cesar Chavez, Robert Ryan, Leonard Bernstein, Linus Pauling, Eugene Carson Blake (past president of the National Council of Churches)—and Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (“We often recall your magnificent performance of Othello … and we continue to enjoy your recordings”). The following year the Congressional Black Caucus gave Robeson its Special Award of Merit, and Congressman John Conyers, Jr., from Michigan read into the Congressional Record his remarks at a special salute to PR at a Detroit high school, as well as a Washington Star review of a PBS “Interface” documentary on Robeson’s life (Charles B. Rangel and Walter E. Fauntroy to PR, n.d., RA [Merit]; Conyers to PR, Jr., June 20, 1975, RA; Congressional Record, June 19, 1975).

21. The Rutgers Daily Targum (April 10, 1973) reports “a noted lack of excitement” and a small turnout for the tribute to PR; Branson to PR, March 14, April 10, 1973 (Lincoln); Acklyn Lynch to PR, Jr., May 11, July 14, 1973 (U. Mass.); Allan P. Barron to PR, July 13, 1973 (Black Sports); FBI New York 100-38128-244. The National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame continued to be a holdout to the general trend of honoring Robeson. Rutgers’s president, Edward J. Bloustein, and its head football coach, Dr. John F. Bateman, joined forces in securing a belated Rutgers nomination, but the Hall of Fame continued to turn it down. Bateman protested angrily to Vincent Draddy, chairman of the Hall’s honors committee, and another Robeson supporter, Sam Woldin, carried the protest to Jimmie McDowell, the Hall’s executive director. McDowell’s laconic response was that “Loyalty to America is involved. The National Football Foundation honors men who honor the game and who honor the country” (Bateman to Committee, June 23, 1970; Bateman to Draddy, Sept. 23, 1970; Woldin to Foundation, Oct. 1, 1971; McDowell to Woldin, Oct. 12, 1971; Woldin to McDowell, Oct. 19, 1971—copies in RA; The Afro-American, Dec. 12, 17, 1970). As if to prove its claim that “only” politics and not race was involved in the decision to reject Robeson, the Hall in 1970 elected Bill Willis, a black player from Ohio State, and dug back into the early 1900s to elect an obscure black Minnesota player named Bobby Marshall. The Memorial Concert program for Larry Brown is in RA; the text of PR’s message (a brief, formal tribute) is printed in the Daily World, Feb. 20, 1973. In what was probably his last letter to them, Larry Brown sent Paul and Marian New Year’s “Greetings from God’s Town” [Harlem] and wishing them good health “if you … can get it” (Dec. 29, 1971, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe). Yergan to PR, Nov. 4, 1974, RA.

22. Fritchman to Marian Forsythe, Sept. 28, 1975, enclosing a copy of his remarks about Robeson to the First Unitarian Church, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe; multiple interviews with Freda Diamond; Lloyd L. Brown, “Paul Robeson Today” and “Paul Robeson Rediscovered,” copies in RA.

23. Phone interview with Dr. Herbert E. Cohen, March 17, 1987; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Jan. 23, 1976 (spokesman); multiple conversations with Helen Rosen and with PR, Jr.

24. The headline and editorial are from the New York Amsterdam News, Jan. 31, 1976; the poem from Bil [sic] Brown, enclosed in a letter to Judge George W. Crockett, Nov. 6, 1977, RA. I will not attempt to cite separately the huge number of personal messages and public obituaries collected in RA.

25. New York Amsterdam News, Jan. 31, 1976; Daily World, Jan. 29, 1976; Newsday, Jan. 29, 1976. Gerry Bledsoe and her daughter Geraldine had visited Paul several times at Marian’s specific invitation. She had written Gerry to encourage her to come by, thinking it might stimulate Paul to see old friends from his early years. However, Gerry found him “a sick man,” essentially unresponsive (as described in several letters, 1983–85, from Gerry Bledsoe to me).

26. The full text of the eulogy and tributes is in RA. Both Paul and Eslanda Robeson are buried in Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York.