Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  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 Lyn
ch, 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 Ja
y 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).