by Leslie Brody
115 My gratitude to Kevin Starr for drawing the waterfront so beautifully in Embattled Dreams, California in War and Peace, 1940-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
115 “Gee Decc, Don’t be sick anymore” RT to JM, 24 March 1943, OSU.
115 “only source of real pleasure and sustenance”: JM, AFOC, 45.
115 “Poor Mrs. Romilly”: JM, AFOC, 51.
115 “ruined . . . took advantage of me”: JM, AFOC, 46.
116 “The office here”: JM to Muv, 16 March 1943, OSU.
116 “inflation down”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 36.
117 “She’d been restless and come … too soon”: Doris (Dobby) Brin Walker, interview with author, August 2007.
117 “I feel that in my job here”: JM to Muv, 28 June 1943, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 99.
117 “real connection”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 12.
118 “marry you and move”: JM, AFOC, 52.
CHAPTER 12
120 “You will be v. surprised”: JM to Muv, 28 June 1943, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 111.
120 “would probably have”: JM to Muv, 21 July 1943, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 112.
121 “some errands”: JM, AFOC, 57.
121 “profuse apologies”: JM, AFOC, 57.
122 “Why do you want to become a citizen?” JM, AFOC, 63.
122 “endearingly childish”: JM, interview, Portrait of a Muckraker.
122 “bizarre . . . a joke”: Ibid.
122 “So I can join the Communist Party”: JM, AFOC, 63.
122 “too much levity toward the Left”: Pele deLappe, interview by author, October 2008.
123 “pop the question”: JM, AFOC, 63.
123 “Would you be interested in joining the Communist Party?” Doris (Dobby) Brin Walker, interview by author, August 2007.
123 “We thought you’d never ask”: JM, AFOC, 63.
123 “It was indeed a matter of conform or get out”: JM, AFOC, 67.
124 “bores and misfits in our organization”: JM, AFOC, 66.
124 “enchanted by the flesh and blood Communists”: JM, AFOC, 66.
124 “conversion to Communism was not”: JM, AFOC, 16.
124 “We didn’t do anything terribly subversive”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 30.
125 “dead tired from the round . . . three in the morning”: JM, AFOC, 71.
126 “locked the doors, pulled down the blinds”: JM, AFOC, 59.
126 “Fancy Little D being a beauty!” JM, AFOC, 33.
127 “Dear Cousin Winston”: JM to Churchill, 24 November 1943, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 114-115.
CHAPTER 13
131 “Upside,” said Viorst, “Bob had married”: Judith Viorst, e-mail to author, 27 February 2008.
131 “was rather put out when I married”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 12.
131 “demanded a lot from the people around her.”: Edith Treuhaft, interview by author, February 2008.
131 “luftmensch”: Ibid.
132 “so New York-ish”: Ibid.
132 “coveted prize of a lifetime”: JM, AFOC, 75
133 “a leggy female who”: deLappe, A Passionate Journey, 36.
133 “with more seriousness and concern”: Lerner, Fireweed, 264.
134 “had the luckiest childhood”: JM, interview, in Introduction to Interview with Jessica Mitford, ed. deLappe, San Francisco State University Labor Archives.
134 “raise hackles . . . she ever would”: Pele deLappe, interview by author, October 2006.
135 “Marvelous . . . for the delegates”: JM, AFOC, 96.
135 “busy, busy, busy”: JM, AFOC, 88.
135 “ticket sales . . . publicity”: JM, AFOC, 88.
135 “a general air of mystery”: JM, AFOC, 85.
135 “Petaluma”: JM, AFOC, 86.
135 “comrades in Petaluma” ”: JM, AFOC, 87.
135 “broiled or fried?” JM, AFOC, 87.
136 “Just to send you my love”: Lovell, The Sisters, 386.
137 “life drawing class for retired longshoremen” ”: Pele deLappe, interview by author, October 2008.
137 “he was puzzled”: RT to Aranka Treuhaft, 7 November 1944, OSU.
137 “We’re very much worried”: RT to Aranka Treuhaft, 3 December 1944, OSU.
137 “Decca loves them”: RT to Aranka Treuhaft, 30 November 1944, OSU.
137 “attorney in Reno and can”: Ibid.
138 “the goal of socialism”: JM, AFOC, 64.
138 “secretly disappointed that”: JM, AFOC, 65.
139 “Did I feel we were automatons”: JM, AFOC, 66.
140 “Have you noted”: NM to JM, 15 November, 1968, TM-LBSS, 521.
142 “What could possibly”: JM, AFOC, 149.
142 “concrete upper lip”: JM to Aranka Treuhaft, fall 1957, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 172.
143 “what a criminal thing”: JM to Muv, 21 May 1946, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 125.
143 “At what price?” NM to Diana, 25 May 1946, NM, Love from Nancy, 165.
CHAPTER 14
145 “Gallstones, Gruesome, Sewer & Odious”: JM, AFOC, 98.
145 “looked on as dangerous reds.”: Pele deLappe, interview by author, October 2006.
146 “5 big doses of castor oil”: JM to Aranka, 21 October 1943, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 126-127.
146 “the tidal wave of washing”: JM, AFOC, 103.
146 “For a few depressing months”: JM, AFOC, 103.
147 “Housework is highly unproductive”: JM, AFOC, 104.
147 “patronizingly stupid”: Lerner, Fireweed, 262.
148 “at once immensely excited”: JM, AFOC, 150.
148 “You’re supposed to start at the top and go down”: Marge Frantz, interview by author, July 2007. This is a frequently told JM story. Peter Sussmann also records it in Decca.
148 “set us all to shrieking”: JM, AFOC, 151.
148 “wonderful & very pretty”: JM, interview, Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 9 August 1977.
148 “like a musical comedy stage set”: Ibid.
148 “absolutely bent on friendship: Ibid.
149 “Wicked Aunt Diana”: Dinky, interview by author, May 2006.
150 “strange and childish: JM, AFOC, 154.
150 “wonderful”: Pryce-Jones, Unity Mitford, 270.
151 “opening ‘a restaurant with an Italian partner’”: Waugh, The Loved One, 17.
151 “non-Jewish-motherishness”: JM, AFOC, 153.
151 “What a pity. But of course”: JM, AFOC, 153.
151 “How can you do this to me?” ”: JM, AFOC, 154.
153 “desirability, of overthrowing the government”: Alien Registration Act or Smith Act of 1940.
153 “was quite unchanged”: Lovell, The Sisters, 413.
154 “Purulent Meningitis, Cerebral Abscess, Old gun-shot wound”: Pryce-Jones, Unity Mitford, 276.
154 “But it always seemed to me”: JM, H & R, 274.
CHAPTER 15
155 “Two policemen would get”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 46.
155 “sickening number of similar cases”: Ibid.
156 “Nobody made Decca do anything”: Doris (Dobby) Brin Walker, interview by author, August 2007.
157 “mesmeric ability to wring the last ounce”: JM, AFOC, 105.
157 “grinding down on people”: Pele deLappe, interview by author, August 2007.
157 “there was nobody in the [police] department”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 45.
157 “Thugs in Uniform”: JM, AFOC, 108.
157 “hard to describe adequately the monstrous beastliness”: JM, AFOC, 108.
158 “Do you know T-Bone?” JM, AFOC, 122.
158 “a singularly glib, smooth-tongued individual”: JM, AFOC, 109.
158 “the first time in the history”: JM, AFOC, 111.
158 “some degree of truth”: JM, AFOC, 111.
159 “cooperated with the CRC”: JM, AFOC, 112.
159 linking civ
il rights and subversion: Nora Sayre brilliantly covers this in Previous Convictions.
159 “Decca scooted down to the address”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 48.
159 “few and far between”: Ibid., 47.
160 “a source of nagging irritation”: Fursland, Jessica Mitford, 148.
160 “Get to work, you lazy good-for-nothing”: JM, AFOC, 140.
161 “I sent my son to Harvard”: JM, AFOC, 142.
161 “Oh Decca”: JM, AFOC, 143.
CHAPTER 16
163 “a conspiracy so immense” . . . “the most evil, monstrous conspiracy”: Thanks to Cecil Belfrage for first putting these side by side in American Inquisition, 119.
164 “crazy as a bedbug”: Durr and Barnard, Outside the Magic Circle, 206.
164 “scared the United States”: Ibid.
164 “You couldn’t go to a church meeting”: Ibid., 202.
164 “You couldn’t possibly have guessed”: Lillian Hellman, Scoundrel Time, 75.
164 “Skin-color blindness”: Belfrage, American Inquisition, 131.
164 “If someone insists that”: Sayre, Previous Convictions, 267.
164 “Here we were blaming Russia for being a totalitarian dictatorship”: Barnard, Outside the Magic Circle, 284.
166 “Subversive nature”: JM, Why I Live Where I Live, OSU.
166 “days of the Truman-McCarthy”: Ibid.
166 “a mutual enmity that flourished”: JM, AFOC, 121.
166 “That mike wasn’t put there for you”: JM, AFOC, 121.
166 “best Aranka hat”: JM, AFOC, 124.
167 “her face contorted”: AFOC, 125.
167 “That pinko Treuhaft outsmarted me this time!”: Ibid.
167 “Could you possibly ring up the”: JM to Muv, 25 June 1950, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 135.
168 “I believe there is now a very”: JM to Muv, 20 August 1950, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 137.
168 “empathized with us as members”: Horne, Communist Front? 19.
169 “a perfect foil for Decc”: Dinky, interview by author, February 2010.
169 “sparkplugs”: JM to Maya Angelou, 9 August 1980, in Decca, ed. Sussman.
170 “the realities of Mississippi”: JM, AFOC, 163.
170 “one of the bravest people”: JM to Muv, 23 September 1951, in Decca, ed. Sussman.
171 “challenge the rape myth that every” . . . “white womanhood.”: JM (as Decca Treuhaft), “The Case of Willie McGee: A Fact Sheet Prepared by the Civil Rights Congress,” 1951.
171 “concentration camp of the mind”: JM, AFOC, 178.
171 “the real sacrificers . . . rollicking jolly”: JM, AFOC, 166.
171 “the Youth Comrade”: JM, AFOC, 166.
172 “were the whole delegation”: JM, AFOC, 172.
172 “the Youth Comrade said not a word”: JM, AFOC, 166.
173 “murky eloquence”: JM, AFOC, 182.
173 “McGee and the woman”: JM, AFOC, 182.
173 “We drove a total of 7700 miles”: JM to Muv, 2 April 1951, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 139.
174 “would end in a massacre”: JM, AFOC, 186.
174 “Tell the People the real reason”: JM, AFOC, 194.
CHAPTER 17
175 “not a good time in which to stand trial”: Trumbo, Time of the Toad, 92.
175 “Do you think Treuhaft really wants”: JM, AFOC, 216.
176 “hard-drinking, paranoid, dyspeptic”: Starr, Embattled Dreams, 301.
176 “the grand inquisitor of California”: Ibid., 303.
177 “the privilege could not be invoked”: JM, AFOC, 200.
177 “unfriendly Witnesses”: JM, AFOC, 213.
177 “Should I end up behind bars”: JM, AFOC, 200.
177 “She was absolutely terrified.”: Dinky, interview by author, January, 2007.
177 “Have you ever heard of or read”: JM, AFOC, 202.
178 “Are you . . . a member of the Communist Party?” JM, AFOC, 202.
178 “irksome”: JM, AFOC, 202.
178 “I refuse to answer on the ground”: JM, AFOC, 202.
178 “Are you a member of the Berkeley Tenants Club?” JM, AFOC, 203.
178 “bastion of posh conservatism”: JM, AFOC, 203.
178 “This witness is totally uncooperative”: JM, AFOC, 203.
178 “You got them so rattled they forgot to ask for the CRC records”: JM, AFOC, 203.
178 “Do tell her to come . . . few days off”: JM to Muv, 23 September 1951, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 141.
179 “Poor Nicholas got arrested”: JM to Muv, 6 June 1952, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 142.
179 “The only trouble was Benjamin”: Ibid.
179 “what it was always accused of doing”: Belfrage, American Inquisition, 163.
180 “might not have believed the country was becoming fascist” Maas, Looking Back on a Life in the Left, 65.
181 “back in the Hons’ Cupboard”: JM, AFOC, 158.
181 “fortress mentality”: JM, AFOC, 116.
182 “little suburban house”: Debo to Diana, 8 February 1952, in TM-LBSS, ed. Mosley, 277.
182 “rather sweet”: Ibid.
182 “she is heaven”: Ibid.
182 “Although they couldn’t quite”: JM to Muv, 6 June 1952, OSU.
183 “CP fashion . . . in which one indicates”: JM, AFOC, 158.
183 “herself and Andrew, dressed in ducal”: JM, AFOC, 159.
184 “stood idly by watching the scene”: JM, AFOC, 129.
184 “throwing garbage and other things”: Albion Monitor, 9 October 1995, www.monitornet/monitor.
184 “‘Get out nigger or we’ll burn your house down’”: People’s Daily World, 7 March 1952, quoted in Jovanka Beckles, “The Gary Family of Richmond: Fighting for Equality and Standing for Their Rights (1952),” 22 September 2008, www.smartvoter.org/2008/11/04/ca/cc/vote/beckles_j/paper2.html, 5.
184 “with a petition signed by him and twenty-one other neighbors”: Beckles, “The Gary Family of Richmond,” 8.
184 “we wanted to take credit”: JM, AFOC, 131.
CHAPTER 18
186 “thousands and thousands of people”: Bernstein, Loyalties, 102.
187 “After a cold two weeks”: deLappe, Passionate Journey, 44.
187 “every intellectual called”: Albert Einstein, quoted in Leonard Buder, “‘Refuse to Testify’ Einstein Advises Intellectuals Called in by Congress,” New York Times, 12 June 1953
188 “give the kids extra care”: JM to Aranka, 5 December 1953, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 146.
188 “The most strongminded”: JM to Muv, 5 December 1953, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 143.
188 “served up more than 300 names”: JM, AFOC, 207.
188 “Are you accompanied by counsel?” RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 98.
189 “You’ll have to submit that”: Ibid., 99.
189 “I am answering . . . whether I had counsel”: JM, AFOC, 214.
189 “What a shameful thing it was”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 99.
189 “determined to reveal through his testimony”: JM, AFOC, 213.
189 “Everyone was breathless”: Aranka, 5 December 1953, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 146.
189 “there was terrific cheering & applause”: Ibid.
189 “The Day’s Stormiest”: Sussman, Decca, 105.
190 “escaped by her wits”: Marge Frantz, interview by author, July 2007.
190 “narrow escape”: Katie Edwards, interview by author, December 2006.
191 “it was bloody uncomfortable”: Bettin Aptheker, interview by author, August, 2008.
191 “So I told him to hurry up”: Kathy Kahn, e-mail to author, 23 November 2008.
191 “puzzled over the rape story too”: Peter Sussman to author, e-mail to author, 21 November 2008.
191 “I could hardly pry my eyes”: Sussman, Decca, xiv.
192 “frightfully unfair”: JM to NM, 6 October 1954, in TM-LBSS, ed. Mosley, 278.
192 “outlook i
s gloomy”: JM to Muv, [no date] February 1954, OSU.
192 “ring up Cousin Winston & tell him”: JM to Muv, February 1954, OSU.
192 “Winston Churchill’s sister-in-law”: Ibid.
192 “Thinking to give her a little news”: JM to Muv, 25 October 1954, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 149.
193 “Nature, nature”: Doris (Dobby) Brin Walker, interview by author, August 2007.
193 “The tide here seems to be turning”: JM to Muv, March 1954, OSU.
194 “perhaps in the next few years”: JM to Muv, February 1954, OSU.
194 “beastly Un-American Committee”: JM to Muv, 23 June 1954, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 147.
194 “He’s not in jail now”: RT and Larsen, Robert E. Treuhaft, 89.
CHAPTER 19
195 “Nicky has a paper route”: Dinky to Aranka Treuhaft, 15 February 1955, OSU.
195 “If Mrs. Treuhaft was home more, this wouldn’t have happened”: Dinky, interview by author, January 2007.
195 “Bob was in one room . . . they couldn’t talk to one another”: Ibid.
195 “darling mother Nicholas”: JM to Muv, 16 February 1955, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 149.
196 “Darling Muv, . . . He didn’t suffer”: JM to Muv, 23 February 1955, in Decca, ed. Sussman, 149.
196 “never got a cent . . . No Price Nick”: Pele deLappe, interview by author, October 2007.
197 “unexpressed unhappiness”: JM to Aranka Treuhaft, February 1955, OSU.
197 “The only way we can possibly”: JM to Aranka Treuhaft, 7 March 1955, OSU.
197 “if you’d let them”: Ibid.
198 “magic document[s]”: JM, AFOC, 221.
198 “unbelievable and stunning as winning the Irish Sweepstakes”: Ibid.
198 “was longing to stay as long as possible”: Fursland, Jessica Mitford, 153.
198 “at the discontented age of seventeen”: JM, AFOC, 223.
200 “There were no tears on the trip”: Dinky, interview by author, January, 2007.
200 “the half remembered English countryside”: JM, AFOC, 227.
200 “one of the happiest moments of my life”: Muv to JM, 26 March 1956, OSU.
200 “There was something rather amazing”: Fursland, Jessica Mitford, 156.
201 “Sent dirty banknotes to Harrods’”: Lovell, 439.