Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  I’m convinced that if I should return to America—I’d never get out again—within any time that was pertinent. Even that would be thinkable—in the light of the way I felt—but I’m also convinced they’ll not rest until they’ve gone much further. In one way I would welcome the struggle, if my closest allies could understand my point of view.

  For I’ll get off the plane calling the Pentagon, etc. the bastards they are—the upholders of Fascism & Nazism the world over—and dangerous to all of human-kind. If that’s Treason—let’s have it out.

  But I’m not prepared to come back to “retire” from the scene & keep my mouth shut, etc.

  If there’s any crowd I can’t take its those guys who gave me such a bad time over all those years—and my very pride would never let them get hold of me again.

  For I’m one Negro, who means to take some one or I hope “some over” with me of the “enemy” if I must go.

  Sounds a little “cloak & dagger”—but really—the “double talk” about the Negro question in America—and the way its “swallowed” by Negroes themselves—is just too awful to behold.

  So feeling that way where can one go—I still play with Canada [but he feared, as he had written Clara earlier, that HUAC “might try to reach into Canada” after him]—they might refuse me entry or demand I do concerts under a regular Impresario.… The West Indies seems to be out. They’re making a deal with the “Big Boys” in Washington & wouldn’t trust them.

  Maybe Cuba will be in the picture once the relations are again normalized—I shall certainly get there at some time—normal relations or not.

  But Canada seems the best bet.…

  Am planning to work at television, recordings etc—but with no heart in it. But I’ll work—because the money is there—and I’m sure I’ll need it.

  Sure all will go well because I’ve really turned into a “Pro” and if it must be done—it must be done.… Will come up into the “World” again & start swinging—

  In two follow-up letters he reassured Clara that he was feeling “much better” and cautioned her not to take his earlier, “very discouraging epistle too literally”; he even felt more optimistic politically: “Kennedy seems to be at least realistic and some of the people around him are decent. Let’s hope.”69

  Clara took Paul’s reassurances in stride, but Helen Rosen did not. She, too, received an uncharacteristically lengthy letter from Paul, ten days after the one he had written to Clara:

  I’ve been feeling very “down” but feel much better now and see some daylight.… From television (we get Kennedy’s television interviews etc.) things seem to have taken not a bad turn. No one can be too optimistic but someone’s got to face reality.… The Negro group seems to be moving way ahead according to their own light. Revels sent me a marvellous tape of a Negro gathering or conference of … middle-class Negroes on the Coast.

  The conference treated … questions precisely from that point of view. “We are middle class trying to integrate—and all must aid us—as for these ‘Peasants’ from the South—They embarrass us—but we must get them to understand that this is our not their day.”

  As Revels said on the tape—nothing could be franker.

  As a matter of fact—this seems to me most “American” at this juncture.… It’s not easy to see this firm basic turn in Negro life—which is clearest to me.

  They see themselves as Ambassadors to Africa etc.—and helping America win “cold war”—& minds of men etc. And there seems no way to really function in the Negro Community without real “Red-Baiting”—even now. If not “baiting” a deep refusal to be caught anywhere in the deep “left.”

  Weaver (Housing) case is typical [Robert C. Weaver; under Kennedy, he became the first black to head a major federal agency, Housing and Home Finance].

  And of course this is so more or less for the whole country. Castro & Cuba seem to have “cut across” some areas—But again that’s across the Borders.

  This makes difficult the “coming over for a time” which might be possible in a truly “artistic” setting or at least if one would or could “pipe down” for a while.

  Quite frankly—the day is long gone for any quiet “double-talk” or reticence, I feel—so being as realistic as possible—I see hanging in for a while here but eventually looking Eastward near & far. We’ll see.

  If the tension subsides as well it might—then there’s a different story. Hope so.

  As far as our conversation [Helen had been in London briefly in early February to recuperate from an illness she contracted while in Africa], you have a right, certainly to see things as you always do—very realistically—But there are others who will for better or for worse pursue their lifelong direction—especially at this historic moment of Real Triumph over much of the World whatever the domestic Picture.

  And the whole history of America—certainly testifies to the need of that advanced group—whatever the difficulties involved.

  It remains a source of deep wonder to me that these folk are there—in every corner of the world—and in much worse conditions than the U. States. But there they are—and when a Cuba suddenly?? erupts—the Patience & Labor seem well worth the effort.

  However one individual or the other views these things—modern history has evolved this ideology and that group to actualize the theory. And pretty well they’re doing as I said before.70

  Paul’s political comments, though in spots even more enigmatic than usual, didn’t seem any cause for alarm to Helen (much as she regretted his seeming change of mind about coming home, as she had long advised and as he had seemed on the verge of doing). But the comments he made, both in the long letter and in shorter follow-up notes, on his emotional state did arouse her active concern. “Terribly lonely,” he wrote, “but just doing the best I can. Have altogether failed to find friends over here. Guess I’m to blame—but also a little ‘set’ in ‘ways’ I guess.” Soon after that downcast note, he wrote twice in one day to reassure her (as he had Clara) that he was “feeling fine” again; since he rarely wrote at all, this heightened rather than diminished Helen’s concern, especially since he added: “I can’t wait to see Sam again. He’s so sweet about me—and so disturbed when I’m raging and ranting. Both he and you are right—It means some ‘inner’ disturbance—But know that I ‘dig’ into it without ‘mercy’—and come up at last with the ‘needed’ adjustment.” He closed a note of February 24 with words that sounded suspiciously manic, however tender: “‘Thank you Lord.’ Thank you! … Thank you Lord! for such a lovely family [the Rosens] and you thank them too for taking me in.… I do love you—adore you—cherish you—”71

  Relying on her own well-honed instincts, Helen concluded that Paul was in emotional trouble. She first told her fears to Sam, and then the two of them contacted Paul, Jr., and also Ed Barsky, the left-wing doctor whose medical partner, Morris Perlmutter, had treated both Essie and Paul. The four of them huddled. Helen explained her strong conviction that Paul was having serious difficulty and should come home, and it was decided she should go over to London and check on his state of mind firsthand. She did, a few weeks later, and seeing him convinced her more than ever that in fact he did desperately want to return to the States but did not feel well enough. She did everything she could to persuade him to follow his inclinations. Essie, however, was adamantly opposed to a return and, realizing the purpose of Helen’s mission, did her considerable best to keep them apart. They managed, toward the end of Helen’s visit, to spend an afternoon alone together in the apartment of Andy (Robeson’s valet and friend). The next day Helen arrived at the Connaught Street flat by prearrangement for lunch, only to be told that Paul had left by plane for Moscow. Essie was “jubilant” and Helen “stunned”—to this day, she says, she “doesn’t understand what happened,” doesn’t know whether Paul, on sudden impulse, took off for his planned trip to Moscow earlier than he had originally intended, whether Essie played any role in encouraging that impulse (and, if so, how—by
getting some of his Moscow friends, like Boris Polevoi or Mikhail Kotov of the Soviet Peace Committee to call? by promising a return to the States after the Moscow trip?).72

  On Paul’s arrival in Moscow, the Soviet press reported him busy and happy (“The telephone rang constantly.… Robeson smiled and clapped his hands in astonishment. He wanted to be everywhere”). The editorial staff of Izvestia consulted with him; he dined at the Grand Hotel; he conferred about radio and TV appearances; Georgi Zhukov, chairman of the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, welcomed him on a visit to the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, and Zavadsky of the Mossovet Theater invited him to play Othello. On the night of March 23 Paul and Essie talked by phone. They chatted about plans and friends: Essie reported that Peggy Ashcroft was asking if he would be available for a poetry reading with her; Paul reported that Galya and Boris Lifanov’s baby had been ill. Essie wrote him the next day to say how pleased she was that he “sounded so happy on the telephone, it must be good news all round.”73

  On March 27 Essie had another call from Moscow. Paul had slashed his wrists.

  CHAPTER 24

  Broken Health

  (1961–1964)

  They couldn’t tell Essie much when she arrived in Moscow. There had been a noisy party in Paul’s hotel room the night before; at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. students had still been asking for his autograph; he had retreated into an inner room. His translator, Irina, had found him in the bathroom, his wrists slashed with a razor blade. (Two years later Robeson told a doctor treating him in the GDR that in Moscow “people whose parents or whose relatives were in jail had approached him—‘Can’t you help me?’—this sort of thing had put him into conflict.”) Who had been at the party? When had Paul slashed his wrists? At what hour did Irina discover him? How close was Paul to death? All this remained unanswered (as much of it still is) when Paul, Jr., arrived in Moscow a few days later. Deeply suspicious, he sought a logical explanation from officials. Some of the guests, he was told, “were not Soviet people”—enough innuendo to feed his suspicions but not to clarify them. If there was anything mysterious, or possibly sinister, in the circumstances surrounding Robeson’s attempted suicide, those who had had recent contact with him provided scant elucidation. Harry Francis expressed surprise that Robeson had left London without a word to him. Ivor Montagu, who had by chance ended up on the same plane to Moscow with Robeson, recalled his surprise at the sudden agitation he had shown during the flight—earlier he had seemed “fine”—when a Good Samaritan sitting behind him (and a stranger to Robeson) had offered him his overcoat against the cold weather.1

  A team of Soviet doctors headed by Dr. Snezhnevsky offered the diagnosis “depressive paranoic psychosis generated by an involutional form of arteriosclerosis,” and prescribed Largactyl and Nosinan, commonly used tranquilizers. According to Paul, Jr., the doctors told him that his father “had been so paranoid when first admitted that he thought they were spies and were going to kill him, and was yelling that Essie was a spy, too. For the first few days that Essie tried to visit him, Paul wouldn’t see her.” By the time, Paul, Jr., saw his father, Robeson was able to converse with clarity. But he chose, as was his style with matters of deepest import, to say nearly nothing. Paul, Jr., later ventured to ask him why he had done it; the guarded, mysterious answer he got—according to Paul, Jr.—was that “someone close to me had done irreparable damage to the U.S.S.R.”2

  A rumor has persisted, alternately, that Robeson himself had become disillusioned with the Soviet Union. But those who knew him best stoutly deny that intepretation, and, indeed, scant evidence has surfaced to support it. Robeson’s disillusion, such as it was, was not with the U.S.S.R. per se but with the way the world worked, its refusal to adhere to a historical process that had seemed predetermined. His sense of blighted hopes, personal and historic, is readily documented, but was generalized—not reducible to any specific disappointment with Soviet policy or development. Robeson’s forlorn sense of loss was more encompassing, and one contributing factor may well have been “chemical”—a bipolar depressive disorder that fed on political events and largely expressed itself through them but was finally more than their sum. On the other hand, without the accumulated pressures of government harassment and worldly disappointments, any underlying depressive tendency might never have become manifest. Further, almost anyone subject to the kinds of pressures Robeson was—even without an organic “predisposition”—might have become susceptible to breakdown. It may well be that all Robeson himself knew about his deepening sense of malaise was what, accompanied by tears, he had once told his Chicago friend Sam Parks: his moorings had slipped—abroad he now felt himself a stranger in unfamiliar territory, at home he felt himself bypassed by a civil-rights movement he had done so much to forge.3

  Paul, Jr., continued to search for clues to corroborate his own view that his father had been “neutralized” by malignant unknowns, possibly CIA agents, at the “wild party” preceding the suicide attempt. He used his connections within the CPUSA to gain access to someone on the Soviet Central Committee and to a representative from the Security Division; his frantic pursuit produced only circumstantial clues, but did dangerously increase his own level of anxiety. Twelve days after arriving in Moscow, he himself broke down. Terror-stricken, hallucinating, he heaved a huge chair through the plate-glass windows of his hotel room and nearly threw himself after it. Himself hospitalized, in his view a second victim of those responsible for his father’s collapse, he assigned the same cause to his own: chemical poisoning by the CIA.4

  Within a few weeks both father and son were doing notably better—playing chess, taking long walks, following (Paul, Sr., reluctantly) the prescription of the Soviet doctors for regularized calisthenics (a prescription Sam Rosen, for one, thought lamentably inadequate). In consultation with Essie—who as always had responded to crisis by redoubling her energies and burying her doubts—they decided to give out minimal information. Even to intimates like his brother Ben, his sister Marian, Helen Rosen, Freda Diamond, and W. E. B. Du Bois, Essie sent the same message (embedded in lighthearted letters otherwise full of casual chitchat and breathless excitement over Yuri Gagarin’s recently completed mission into space): after years of overwork, compounded by “a slight heart attack,” Paul’s health had given way; he had fallen “flat on his face with exhaustion” and his doctors had bedded him down for a long rest; Paul, Jr., had been sent for as a precautionary measure, because of his father’s “heart attack.” As to Paul, Jr.’s own condition, no elaborate word was necessary, since no elaborate rumors had leaked out; not even his wife, Marilyn, was informed of the full extent of his collapse, and his uncle Ben and the others were merely told he had come down with “a stomach upset.” Essie delayed sending out most of her letters for over a month—until Big Paul was feeling well enough to append a few reassuring lines of his own (“Feeling much better. Soon back to normal”), thereby, it was hoped, giving further weight to the official version they had concocted. To those making business or professional inquiries, Essie merely replied that, because of overwork, Robeson’s doctors had insisted on a rest period of several months.5

  And, indeed, within a month of the attempted suicide he was feeling much improved and the doctors were much encouraged. Both Pauls, with Essie in attendance, were transferred to the Barveekha Sanatorium for further rest, and by early May, Paul, Jr., was writing Marilyn that his father was “in a relaxed and even carefree mood,” their shared cottage luxurious, and the surrounding grounds lovely. Essie took advantage of the medical facilities to have a complete checkup of her own, and the doctors found no signs of any recurring cancer. By mid-May, Big Paul was occasionally trying out songs on a piano and was feeling well enough to receive the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S.S.R. for a brief visit. By the end of May, Essie felt able to fly to London to pick up needed clothes, supplies, and typewriter from the flat; when she returned to Barveekha ten days later, she found both men so improved that the do
ctors decided to push forward their discharge dates. Paul, Jr., flew home to the States on June 2, and the following week Essie and Paul, Sr., were allowed to return to London on the promise of a prolonged rest free from commitments.6

  After arriving back at Connaught Square on June 10, Robeson began working for an hour or so a day with Larry Brown on their music (“The Voice sounds unimpaired,” Essie wrote Helen Rosen), and gave some renewed thought to a trip to Africa, bolstered by a personal letter from Kwame Nkrumah inviting him to assume the recently created chair of music and drama at Ghana’s University of Accra (he also got an invitation from Cheddi Jagan to come to British Guiana, in South America, as his personal guest). The good cheer lasted less than two weeks. Robeson’s mood took an abrupt turn downward, and Essie made a split-second decision to get him back into the hospital in Moscow. A worried Shirley Du Bois reported to Freda Diamond that mutual friends had seen Paul “being carried from the plane,” on landing in Moscow, “by two whitecoated male nurses, one on each side.” Essie again put the best face on it to correspondents: they had been “hasty” in returning so soon to London and for caution’s sake had now gone back to Moscow to ensure an absolutely “solid” convalescence. “Hearts are strange things,” she wrote Shirley Du Bois in one of the emblematic lines of her life, “and I respect them.” Hearing of Robeson’s setback, Dr. Du Bois wrote him a charming letter explaining that he had been in Rumania for a month getting (at age ninety-three) rejuvenation treatments from the famed Dr. Asian, but was getting “bored”; he asked Robeson to kiss the stones of Moscow and greet all his friends, announcing himself “fed up” with an “impossible” America and expressing the hope that he would soon see Robeson in Ghana (where Du Bois was shortly to take out citizenship). Essie at first admitted to Paul, Jr., and Marilyn that she was “seriously discouraged,” yet within two weeks was again sounding a positive note (“All is very well now, and on the way UP”). Bob and Clara Rockmore asked Essie, with considerable heat, to let them know “in plain English just what’s what,” promising not to divulge to anyone what they were told. She would not, continuing instead to send chatty, uninformative notes that reaffirmed her ability to keep a confidence—and to enjoy the secondary satisfaction of being in absolute control of an incapacitated Paul.7