Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  That same “exploitation,” according to the Embassy, continued the following day at Robeson’s public concert—his first in the U.S.S.R. in nine years—in the Lenin Sports Stadium, with eighteen thousand people filling it to capacity. The event was televised, and Robeson was shown as “visibly affected” by his reception, weeping openly, and, immediately after being introduced, bursting into the Russian patriotic song “Shiroka Strana Moya Rodnaya” (“My Broad Native Land”), singing twice the refrain, “I know no other land where people breathe so free,” opening his arms wide to the audience in a bear-hug embrace. Next came all the old favorites—“Ol’ Man River,” “Joe Hill,” “John Brown’s Body”—followed by folk songs from many lands and a little speech in which he thanked the Russian people for the strength they had given him and his family to persevere, promising that “the fight for freedom goes on” (“He did not specify what freedom or whose,” the Washington Post acidly wrote—almost alone among the American press in reporting to the States on Robeson’s Soviet reception).9

  The morning of August 19 was spent (according to Essie’s summary account) “with the Negroes in Moscow, who came in a body to the hotel to greet and welcome Paul.” That afternoon they left by jet for Uzbekistan, in Soviet Central Asia, to attend the opening of the International Festival of Films of African and Asian Peoples. “We were literally laden with flowers,” Essie wrote of their welcome, “staggering happily under their bulk.… When our motorcycle escort stopped momentarily so that the way could be cleared, people peered into the car and the shout went up … ‘Pol Robeson is here!’ And crowds seemed to materialize out of nowhere to shout ‘Preevyet!’ Welcome.”10

  But it was not all cheers and flowers. The heat in Tashkent was brutal, with clouds of flies everywhere. Vasily Katanian, a film director, came out with a crew to make a documentary on Robeson and found him “prostrate from heat and exhaustion … glumly silent,” pouring sweat. Katanian accompanied the Robesons the following day to visit a famous local collective farm outside the city headed by Khamrakul Tursunkulov. The roadway out was primitive, and (according to Katanian) they arrived two and a half hours late, “absolutely beat from bouncing over the potholes through the dust and heat,” while their hosts, dressed in full welcoming regalia, melted in the sun. Tursunkulov, who was deaf, kept forgetting Robeson’s name. Raising his glass to propose a toast to “our best friend, that dear man whom we have known so long and loved so well,” Tursunkulov was forced to pause, lean down to Katanian, and ask, “What’s his name?” Pleased with having finally managed to navigate the first attempt, Tursunkulov later proposed another toast—only to forget Robeson’s name a second time. After they returned to Tashkent, the Robesons had to sit in a stuffy film-festival hall watching “unbearable two-reel Indonesian films that were dubbed in Uzbek.” Regaining his spirits somewhat in the cool of the evening, Robeson enjoyed an official supper and even did “a strangely quiet, simple, dignified Asian jitterbug” with one of the dancers. The next day he was down with a fever and had to go to bed.11

  His cold did not improve, but the schedule was relentless (“This is a rat race,” Essie wrote home, “a marvelous one, mind you, but very very hectic”). After arriving by jet at Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the Robesons decided to continue straight to Sochi to get some rest, but the Georgian Minister of Culture came out to the Tbilisi airfield to insist they stop over in the capital for two days, as originally planned, saying, “There can be no discussion that you just fly past us.” Robeson “sleepily, but decisively” refused, and Essie flashed her bright smile while saying no (“You know me when I put my big foot down, especially wearing my Murray Space shoes”). At Sochi, exhausted, Robeson did little for three days except sleep and let himself be filmed in various positions of relaxation. Then, on August 26, still accompanied by Katanian’s camera crew, they boarded a steamship to Yalta for a leisurely cruise along the Black Sea coast.12

  At Yalta, Robeson revived. The government rest house, Orianda, with its elegant cuisine, luxurious suites, and an elevator down to the sea, became home for two weeks. He made a few side trips, including a visit to Chekhov’s house (where, according to Katanian, “Paul looked with disinterest at all of the memorabilia,” but which Paul later diplomatically told the Moscow News he had found “awe-inspiring and heart-warming”). He and Essie spent a little time with the British journalist Paul Delmer, and with Sally and Rockwell Kent, who were passing through (Sally Kent thought him decidedly out of sorts—he “couldn’t sit still or stop talking,” full of uncharacteristic boasting about his own achievements). The Yalta doctors ordered more rest, so the Robesons mostly sat about while the film crew memorialized them. Katanian had to fend off the constant interference of Raisa Timofeyevna, wife of Mikhailov, the Soviet Minister of Culture. She objected to the suggestion that Ilya Ehrenburg write the film script (“No, he lisps”) and tried to persuade Katanian to film Robeson in a variety of artificial settings (discussing sports with athletes, discussing production schedules with workers, etc.).13

  Katanian held his ground against Timofeyevna, but one day nearly had his comeuppance. On the spur of the moment the Robesons were asked to come to the nearby Khrushchev lodge, where the Premier, his family, and assorted officials were vacationing. They joined a lively and informal group to watch a volleyball game in progress (at one point Khrushchev called out to a Cabinet minister who had missed several plays, “We will support the minister, but he should play better!”). When the Pravda correspondent began shooting the scene with his camera, a distraught Katanian realized belatedly that his camera equipment was sitting back in the hotel at Yalta (“I might as well lie down and die”). Mikhailov and Raisa Timofeyevna were aghast: “What do you mean we won’t have Nikita Sergeyevich in our picture?” The situation was saved a few days later when Khrushchev invited the Robesons to dinner and the camera crew was allowed to tag along. Paul and Essie were driven for half an hour to a hunting lodge in the hills above Yalta, where they were greeted by the Khrushchevs, the Voroshilovs, the Mikoyans, Tupolev (the airplane designer), and others, and then proceeded in a line of cars up to a further retreat another twenty minutes into the hills. There they met the rest of the company—the current “leaders of the German, Italian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian governments and their wives, and in some cases, their children” (as Essie described the gathering in a letter home)—and went out on a shooting party (“Kadar won the shooting, bringing down every single bird. He is quiet, a very nice friendly gentle man”). At dinner, toasts were made all around—Paul’s was so moving, Essie reported, that it produced tears—and then the Robesons were returned by car to Orianda.14

  After leaving Yalta on September 12, they spent two final days in Moscow, making appearances and seeing Essie’s brother Frank Goode, who had remained in the Soviet Union. Then they returned to London to prepare for a three-month concert tour of Britain, with Larry Brown accompanying and Bruno Raikin as soloist. As in the past, Robeson could do no wrong in the British provinces. But this time, at age sixty, the tour took its toll. After every concert, as Raikin remembers it, Robeson would swear he was going to give up singing. “I’m a nervous wreck,” he told Raikin, who decided not only that Robeson’s voice had deteriorated—to be expected in a performer of his age—but also that “he wasn’t as happy a person, as fulfilled a person, as he had been in 1949.”15

  Robeson refrained from making political comments during the tour, though he continued to sprinkle his concerts with talk—this time almost exclusively talk about the universality of folk music. The chief exception came at the start of the tour, when he told reporters that he felt so much at home in London, and so pleased to be among people anxious to hear him, that he planned to make the city his headquarters, traveling back and forth to the United States as the occasion warranted. He stressed that this did not mean he was “deserting the country of my birth,” yet The New York Times, picking up the remark, headlined a story, “Robeson to Quit U.S. for London”�
�and other American papers followed suit. Essie tried to smooth the waters, fearful that black America, especially, would take umbrage. “Paul says a man may live and work in many countries,” she wrote Carl Murphy, president of the Afro-American newspaper chain and Robeson’s chief supporter in the black press, “but a man’s HOME is where his family is, where his people are, and where his roots are. All these, for Paul, are in the United States. Period.” Murphy wrote back to reassure her that “None of us took seriously press reports that he had or would make his permanent home in England.”16

  On October 11 Robeson took part in a historic service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Church officials departed from custom and authorized a collection for a South African defense fund and then broke further with tradition by inviting Robeson to give a half-hour recital during Evensong—the first time either a secular artist or a black would sing in the cathedral. Four thousand people, including many nonwhites, crammed into an Evensong service that ordinarily drew four to five hundred. Standing where John Wycliff had been tried for heresy and Bishop Tyndale’s New Testament had been publicly burned, Robeson read the First Lesson, “… and let there be war no more.” After the sermon, he returned twice to the lectern to sing spirituals, with Larry Brown accompanying. Peggy Middleton, who sat with Essie in the first row, afterward wrote that “there were tears on many faces” at the poignancy of the occasion and the compassion and nobility of Robeson’s presentation. The London papers widely reported the event as a historic one.17

  When Paul went back on tour, Essie returned to the United States for two weeks to cover the UN General Assembly sessions and to consider renting out the Jumel Terrace house (but in fact she did not). In December she flew to Accra to attend the All African People’s Conference, about which she did a syndicated series of articles for the Associated Negro Press. Back in London, she and Paul attended a party for Krishna Menon, had tea with Nan Pandit at the Indian Embassy, and dined with Marie Seton to celebrate the publication of her book about Paul. In between, they collected clothes and packed for a trip to Prague, Moscow, and India scheduled to begin on December 23.18

  When word got out that Robeson was planning to visit India, Val Washington, a black member of the Republican national committee, got on the phone to Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter. He relayed to Herter the concern voiced by P. Chakravarty (a UN delegate from India and also permanent secretary of the Congress Party) that the Indian Communists were planning to lay “great stress” on Robeson’s trip and to acclaim him “as the greatest and most important negro leader in the United States.” Chakravarty had further told Val Washington that Robeson would “do great damage among the darker Indians if [he] gets away with the kind of propaganda he wants, allowing the already powerful Communist Party in India to attract still more converts.” Chakravarty “wondered,” Val Washington reported to Herter, “if there were not steps we could take to counteract the impact of Robeson’s visit.” Herter replied that he “would look into the matter immediately.”19

  Picking up on the concern, U.S. Ambassador to India Ellsworth Bunker let it be known that Robeson’s visit, like the celebration of his sixtieth birthday which had preceded it, would not be viewed kindly in the United States. The U.S. Information Agency sent out material on Robeson “for discreet but widespread placement with Indian newspapermen,” emphasizing that “he was not being persecuted as a champion of the Negro.” Bunker reported to Secretary of State Dulles that he had told American officials in India to boycott any political function in which Robeson was involved but advised that “a few official Americans be permitted to attend Robeson concerts”—“to walk out unobtrusively,” however, should Robeson indulge in any “tirade against U.S. and American democracy.” Dulles telegraphed back, “Assume walkout would be extreme last resort since publicity gain for Robeson resulting from publicized walkout would be considerable and possibly detrimental U.S. interests.” One heavily censored CIA dispatch contained suggestions on how to prevent Robeson’s forthcoming visit from being used as an occasion for attempting to desegregate a local swimming pool.20

  Ultimately, and for other reasons entirely, Robeson’s trip to India did not come off. On the day the Robesons were due to leave London, Essie, packing up Paul’s suitcases, went to get his passport—and discovered it was lost. She spent hours searching the flat without finding it, and became “panic-stricken”—a rare state for the unflappable Essie. She decided to wake Paul. He took the news calmly, called Harold Davison to see if he had forgotten to return the passport (he hadn’t) after taking it to secure a work permit. Paul then helped Essie search the flat again, without success. By then it was time to leave for Prague, where Paul was booked for television and radio performances on Christmas Eve. They telephoned Prague for advice and were told to forget the passport and to try to make it through. British Immigration officials at the London airport cooperated, letting them board the plane after hearing their tale of woe.21

  Then, an hour into the flight, fog descended, closing the Prague airport and forcing the plane to land in Zurich. Swiss Immigration agreed to let the Robesons spend the night, but by the next morning the fog had thickened and all airports in Czechoslovakia were shut down. Getting on one of the few planes leaving for London, they landed—after a hair-raising trip—at Southend, outside London. Immigration officials recognized Paul and gave him an emergency entrance permit. The next day Essie took the flat apart room by room, drawer by drawer, file by file—and finally found the precious passport. She sat down in the middle of the floor and cried. On December 29 the weather cleared and the Robesons—too late for his engagements in Prague—took off by jet, along with Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham, for Moscow. Du Bois, aged ninety, had also gotten his passport back and had begun to travel extensively. When he had arrived in England (where he and Shirley had stayed for a time with the Robesons) in August 1958, the Daily Worker had reported that Du Bois viewed “his own persecution with a calm detachment. But as he speaks of Paul Robeson his face becomes angry. ‘What they have done to Paul has been the most cruel thing I have ever seen,’ he said.”22

  New Year’s Eve in Moscow was a formal affair, with engraved invitations to dinner at eleven in the Kremlin. In the tapestry-hung reception room, Khrushchev and other Presidium members greeted the guests, who were then ushered into the marble Georgian Hall, where long tables had been spread for a feast. Robeson spotted Du Bois and Shirley, who were habitually early and already seated. Both men stood up, and as they made their way toward each other, weaving through the crowded tables, people stopped talking to watch them. When they embraced in the middle of the banquet hall, the entire crowd, including Khrushchev, stood and applauded; after a moment of stunned surprise, as if noticing for the first time where they were, Robeson and Du Bois broke into laughter. At exactly five minutes before midnight, Khrushchev proposed a toast, the lights dimmed, and suddenly—as Shirley Du Bois described it—“all around us snow seemed to be falling, the Christmas tree of many colors gleamed, and then far up in the Kremlin tower we heard the solemn, slow striking of the clock.… When the last stroke died away, the orchestra played, all the lights blazed and an array of butlers bearing large, silver trays began plying us with food. Ulanova danced, the Oistrakhs, father and son, played, and when the performing artists appeared together on stage for the finale, two of the opera stars unexpectedly went out into the audience to where Robeson was sitting and led him back up to the stage. The orchestra struck up ‘Fatherland’ and Robeson’s voice ‘boomed out as he led the chorus.’”23

  A few days later Robeson came down with yet another cold. This time there was an added complication: unexplained bouts of dizziness. Simultaneously, Essie began to have uterine bleeding and went in for a curettage. It revealed “an irregular arrangement of cells” that the doctors diagnosed as a “precancerous condition of the mouth of the uterus.” They recommended that she enter the Kremlin Hospital for treatment, but before doing so she persuaded them to let her return to the hote
l to collect her things and to help Paul pack for his scheduled trip to India on January 12. She found him not only feeling a lot worse, but also having failed to call a doctor as he had promised. “I was waiting for you to get home,” he told her—“Can you imagine?!” an indignantly pleased Essie wrote Marie Seton. Essie promptly got a physician to look him over. A consultant was then called in, and the doctors told Paul he had to be hospitalized immediately.24

  He refused. He was scheduled to perform in concert that same day, and in the evening was due to leave for New Delhi; he wanted, characteristically, to honor his commitments. (“Paul has the duty idea in a very bad form,” wrote a disapproving Essie; “he has a very great dread of disappointing people, and once he promises anything, he will do it or drop dead.”) The next day he felt still worse, becoming “frightfully dizzy” whenever he tried to get up. He confessed for the first time to Essie that he had often been dizzy before and had had spots before his eyes at concerts. He also confessed that he had been feeling under “continuing strain,” concerned that he might not be able “to do all the things he finds himself agreeing to do”; the worry “has got him down.” Fearing a stroke, Essie suggested it was “the perfect time for us to step off the merry-go-round, and collect ourselves and re-organize our lives, especially our health.”25

  Another consultant was called in and also insisted that Paul go to the hospital. “Scared,” he “listened meekly” and finally consented. And so, on the morning of January 12, 1959—the day they had intended to leave for India—Paul and Essie were both admitted to the Kremlin Hospital, he into a private room on the fourth floor, she into similar accommodations on the second. When it was announced that Paul would not be performing his scheduled concert that day in Moscow, rumors flew that he had somehow been injured. A crowd gathered at the Metropole Hotel, where the Robesons had been staying, anxiously inquiring about his health, asking what might be done to help, dispersing only after officials reassured them that Robeson was in good hands. Paul cried when told of the crowd’s distress and concern.26