Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  Larry Brown, who had known Paul for over thirty-five years, was allowed to drop by two or three times, but he was not in the best of shape himself, and Essie had grown impatient with what she felt was his lachrymose passivity. When the Home Office refused Larry a labor permit, he “talked about THE END, suicide, wept, and said he’d go to Paris.” But (as Essie wrote the Rosens), “I said a four-letter word in disgust, and it shook him. He said, well, what then? … I told him he had never written down most of his stuff, that he owed it to the RACE, what with all this Rock and Roll, and other corruptions out of which people were making fortunes, and still he kept putting off writing down the original, wonderful, historic stuff. He was definitely jolted … gave up the liquor … and bought some manuscript paper.” When it came time for him to return to the States, Larry wanted to see Paul for a last time. Essie hesitated, but finally decided that if he didn’t get to say goodbye he “would feel badly” and “wouldn’t know how to explain at home, etc.” So she arranged a half-hour visit, and Larry was “gratified.” He lived for nearly another decade back in the States, short of funds, reliant on friends, never able to commit most of his music to paper. If, on their last visit, Paul had been too unwell to summon up appropriate words of farewell, he had at least once, when introducing Larry to an audience back in 1949, done so publicly: “… he’s here tonight, and he’s with me all the time. And I can’t ever tell him—I try to tell him once in a while, never sort of face to face, but to audiences like you, who love him, that I know our lives have been close. He knows how I feel—that as long as I can sing a note, as long as we’re going along, we’re going to be there together.”24

  Though the world left Paul alone, it had not entirely forgotten him. His sixty-fourth birthday, on April 9, 1962, brought greetings and letters both from old friends and from distant admirers. And from Kwame Nkrumah came a touching invitation to Ghana: “It is impossible not to flourish in this land of sunshine and friendliness and, as one of our truly dear friends, you will receive an abundance of both.” (“One of the greatest anxieties and frustrations Paul has,” Essie wrote Nkrumah, “is that he has not yet been to Africa.”) Helen called from New York, thrilled that his voice sounded “so deep and quiet,” and the East European, Chinese, and Cuban legations, as well as the Movement for Colonial Freedom, all sent their “warm fraternal greetings.”25

  Perhaps encouraged by the loving response to his birthday, Paul began to take a more consistent interest in things, to read a little, and occasionally to discuss events (“When he is depressed,” Dr. Ackner wrote in a report, “he loses all interest in the question of Negro rights and segregation in the U.S.A., but when he becomes more cheerful he regains his interest”). He was able to approve the draft Essie drew up for him of a brief preface to a book on singing, and in his own hand he sent a few lines of greeting to Waldemar Hille, who had accompanied him for some of his West Coast concerts. More promising still, Robeson was able to go in person to the U.S. Embassy when the renewal of his passport once again threatened to become an issue.26

  The FBI had continued to keep Robeson on its Key Figures and Top Functionaries list, though aware of his debilitated condition—indeed, its agents had been alerted that his “passing” would be “exploited” by the “international communist movement.” When the Robesons applied to have their passports renewed, what could have been a routine matter was prolonged to the point of harassment. Well aware that without a valid passport Robeson could not renew his residence permit in England (which was also due to expire shortly) and that a forced departure from England at this stage of his recovery could prove ruinous, the State Department had no scruples about jeopardizing his life. No evidence has come to light suggesting that agencies of the U.S. government were directly complicitous—as his son has long maintained was probable—in the breakdown of Robeson’s health, but once it did deteriorate, they proved perfectly willing to assist in its further decline.27

  Essie took advantage of the presence of Clara and Bob Rockmore in London for help in bringing Paul by car to the U.S. Embassy so he could make application in person, as required, for the passport. Harry Francis and Harold Davison met them at the door to the Embassy, providing—as Essie reported to the Rosens—“a feeling of great security.” And all the clerks, with the exception of the consul, were British, and “most sympathetic and interested.” The American passport consul, Helen Bailey, turned out to be a Robeson fan and was “very considerate” (she reported to her superiors that “he appeared to be a very frail and subdued old man”). Essie had made a trial run to the Embassy the week before to make sure no unforeseen obstacles would develop, and the applications were quickly filed without a hitch. The preliminaries successfully navigated, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went home to await the passports.28

  They did not come. What arrived instead, six weeks after application had been made at the Embassy, was notification from Helen Bailey that the State Department had decided to invoke Section 6 of the Subversive Activities Control Act—which denied the right of any member of a Communist organization to apply for a passport. The Robesons were requested to submit sworn statements indicating whether they were or were not members of the CPUSA currently or at any time in the preceding twelve months. Furious, Essie dashed off to the Embassy in a cab. “Sheer harassment,” she angrily told a startled and embarrassed Helen Bailey: the State Department, the FBI, and everybody else knew perfectly well that they were not Party members. She herself immediately swore an affidavit to that effect: “I hereby state categorically and without reservation whatsoever that I am not now, and never have been, in all my life a member of any Communist Party in the United States, or in any other country. Never!”29

  Paul was another matter. He had always refused to sign any “non-Communist” affidavit, viewing it as an intolerable abridgment of his constitutional rights. Ill though he was, he again refused to sign—“no matter what,” Essie reported; with the Party in disintegration at home, he felt “very strongly that he won’t let anybody down, especially now that they are under pressure.” What to do? Essie hit on a clever strategy. She wrote immediately to John Abt and Ben Davis, Jr., and enlisted their help in persuading him to sign. “Remembering his still very belligerent conscience and principles,” she wrote them, “he MAY be persuaded” on their say-so. She added for emphasis that “he is frantic with worry about it. He will begin all that persecution complex all over again, and with reason, which was distantly related to his illness. I hate to think of what will happen.…”30

  John Abt (speaking for Ben Davis as well) came up with exactly what was needed. “We unanimously and emphatically recommend,” he at once wrote back, “that Paul sign the requested affidavit.” He spelled out the reasons. There could not possibly be any legal consequences for Paul; the affidavit only required him to swear that he had not been a CPUSA member for the past year and was not one currently; since he had been abroad for four years that was “a simple, self-evident, and unassailable truth.” (By implication, Abt was suggesting the oath might have been assailable if interpreted to cover a previous period—because, as in the past, someone could always be found to swear, for financial or political considerations, that Robeson, or anyone else, had been a Party member earlier). As for the moral and political implications of signing the “non-Communist” oath, Abt provided a soothing if not entirely persuasive rationale. Paul, he argued, had done his share: his “long, heroic and successful fight for a passport” had made travel possible “for hundreds of people.” But the Supreme Court decision ordering the CPUSA to register, and the authorization under the McCarran Act to deny passports to CP members, had pushed the legal battle to a different level: it had now become a struggle by admitted CP members to prove their constitutional right to a passport nonetheless, a struggle already commenced by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Herbert Aptheker. “Paul’s strong right arm is still needed for a host of battles, but the second round of the passport fight is not one of them.” Abt ignored the point�
�one Robeson himself had always stressed—that to sign a “non-Communist” affidavit was automatically to compromise constitutionally guaranteed rights. But, reassured by Abt that “if we had any reservations … we would not hesitate to say so,” Paul finally agreed to sign. He and Essie were issued new passports forthwith.31

  Despite the resolution of the passport problem, Robeson’s spirits began to sink again. He talked of his own condition as “hopeless”; given the repetitive ups and downs, he “didn’t see how he could ever recover, [and] just expected to wither away.” The return of the Rosens in late summer temporarily improved his mood. Accompanied by their daughter Judy, her husband, Al Ruben, and their two young children—all of whom adored “Beep” (their private nickname for him, based on the initials for Big Paul, B.P.)—the Rosens stayed in London for several days and interspersed a number of short visits with Beep. Helen managed to spend some time alone with him; she reported to the others that he had been “very communicative” and had smiled often. His terrible bouts of sleeplessness eased somewhat: for several nights in a row he was able to forgo a second dose of Seconal when he awoke after a few hours. Essie began to hope against hope—and for public consumption to predict yet again—that “we are nearing the end of this nightmare, and in a month, or two at the most, he will be really well again.…”32

  A few additional people were allowed to come for brief visits. Philip Lebon (Harold Davison’s doctor, and the man who had put Essie in touch with the Priory) got his first look at Paul in many months, and Essie reported excitedly that he had succeeded in engaging Paul in animated talk about music, even leading him to sing a few excerpts to illustrate a point: “It was rather thrilling to see him first really interested and enjoying himself, then participating, then contributing.” Essie’s friend Peggy Middleton went to the Connaught Square flat for tea while Paul was there. “He seemed better than he had been for two years,” she wrote Cedric Belfrage. “He had never since the collapse been able to talk about world situations and people or in fact to talk to me for more than 5 minutes. This time we gossiped for almost an hour and I felt happy about it and he seemed gay and made jokes.… Essie felt the breakthrough had been made.…”33

  Four days later he was back in the Priory, heading down into another low. On top of that setback came the shocking news of Bob Rockmore’s sudden death from a heart attack. Essie could not decide how to tell Paul, and the doctors suggested she wait. It wasn’t until a month later, in mid-March 1963, when he was once again on an up cycle, that she felt able to risk it. Hearing the news, he “just put his head down, put his hand over his eyes, and went RIGHT DOWN,” Essie reported to Clara. He just sat there, sad and apathetic until—at least as Essie told it—she said “very firmly: No, YOU, dont just sit there, DO SOMETHING. Write NOW to Clara, and send your love and sympathy. Hold her hand by mail. Bobby would like that.… And I gave him a pad and pen, and addressed and stamped an envelope for him, then went back to my knitting. After another hour, he picked up the pen and said: What shall I write? I said write what is in your heart and in your mind, period. So he did. And I sealed and mailed it on the way home.… After he wrote the letter he immediately felt better, because he had done something constructive. On Sunday he was fine, but sad. But he didn’t DESCEND, if you know what I mean.” Paul’s note to Clara that day was simplicity itself: “Do so wish I were with you to talk and talk and talk. It seems I could write pages and pages about what dear Bobby meant to me.…” Two months later, writing to her again, Paul struck a more inclusive, elegiac note: “Seems such a strange world already.… I’ll do the best I can.…”34

  In the hope of accelerating his progress, Essie decided to orchestrate plans for his approaching sixty-fifth birthday in order to ensure an enthusiastic response. She mailed out a form letter (“Dear Dear Friends”) soliciting greetings (“I would like him to receive an avalanche of Birthday Cards”) and even outlining the sentiments she wanted expressed: “… wish him health and happiness, say you are so glad to hear that he is recovering and thank him for his example and courage and integrity during a very tough period.… Knowledge that he is remembered and understood … will be a major contribution to his permanent recovery, which seems to be in the very near future.” Paul would have been horrified at the letter, having all his life avoided any crass bid for attention. But crassness did produce the desired avalanche.35

  On the day of his sixty-fifth birthday, April 9, 1963, Essie was able to take a small mountain of congratulatory messages and presents out to the Priory. But Paul’s reaction was not at all what she had anticipated. The more he read the letters, the more agitated he became, until finally, pushing them aside, he angrily got up and started shouting about the demands being made on him. People were beginning to expect too much from him again—writing that they hoped he would return to Australia, sing again in Prague, speak here there and everywhere—didn’t they understand he would never sing again, never return again, never see any of them again? Essie tried to quiet him: “People didn’t want him to do a damn thing at the moment, except to get well,” she insisted. You don’t understand, he shot back, “I’ll never be well.… I’ll just sit in a corner … until maybe something can happen to me like happened to Bobby [Rockmore], and that will be fine. Or maybe some sympathetic understanding doctor will give me something.” “He was so angry,” she reported to Helen Rosen. Essie told Dr. Ackner what had happened. “Not to worry,” Ackner purportedly told her, “it’s all a part of the picture.… He cant go too far back now, just setbacks temporarily.”36

  The birthday hurdle over—if not quite cleared—Essie promptly turned to the next task: replying to spreading reports that Paul had become disillusioned with the U.S.S.R. In its fullest form, the rumor had appeared in January 1963 as a two-part article purported to have been written by Robeson himself in a fly-by-night sheet called The National Insider. The style of the articles wasn’t remotely close to Robeson’s own, and the content was almost comically foreign to his actual history (“… at times I have been a Socialist and a Fascist.… [My father’s sermons] were really powerful, but none of them appealed to the intellect. Most of the congregation didn’t really have any intellect to begin with”). Yet, as farfetched as the articles were, and as disreputable as the publication in which they appeared was, the section in which Robeson purportedly rejected Soviet-style Communism (though not the dream of a classless society) was reprinted in Le Figaro and then picked up elsewhere. It therefore required rebuttal.37

  Essie drafted a reply and sent it off for comment and correction to Paul, Jr., Ben Davis, D. N. Pritt, Lloyd Brown, Harry Francis (and through him John Gollan, head of the CP in Great Britain), Carlton Goodlett of the peace movement, and Alexander Soldatov, the Soviet Ambassador to Britain. She made revisions according to their suggestions—particularly Pritt’s—and got off a strong statement, under her own name, denouncing the articles as “pure fabrication” and declaring that “None of us has seen any indication that ‘he has changed his political views’ in any way, as has been alleged in the articles. On the contrary, there has been no interruption in his warm friendship and close contact with our Soviet and Socialist friends.” (In a letter to Cedric Belfrage, Peggy Middleton provided a private gloss on that view: “… so far as I know Paul has never repudiated the SU, but I can well believe he said something angry and incoherent that got misconstrued. Essie says that he does.”) The Associated Negro Press issued a release based on Essie’s statement, and for the moment the matter died, neither the original allegations nor the denial receiving widespread circulation. (Several months later, Essie released a further statement in Paul’s name calling talk of his recantation “completely absurd”; Time announced that “The phrasing sounded suspiciously Eslandic.”)38

  By then, Essie had become fierce about press intrusions. She “still treats the whole thing [the illness] as confidential,” Peggy Middleton wrote Cedric Belfrage in bemusement. And Essie herself wrote Mikhail Kotov in the U.S.S.R. that the press had be
come a “serious worry” to her. She was not merely being her usual overprotective self, for at one point in late 1962 reporters had actually come out to the Priory to try to get a statement from Paul about Castro; the authorities at the institution had effectively blocked access, and Paul himself had had no idea a press hunt for him had been on. But now, in mid-1963, with more than two years having passed since his collapse in Moscow, the newspapers (according to Essie) had decided to renew their efforts “to smoke Paul out, interview him, and see exactly what was what.” Their only real interest, she felt, was in whether he had changed his political views, and she “determined NOT to permit” a question that “would so infuriate him, and offend him … I dare not risk his cursing them out.” In the summer of 1963, however, a confrontation with the press appeared imminent when Essie decided to make a shift in Paul’s medical treatment.39