Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  30. ER to Rosens, March 14, 1959 (courtesy of Rosen); ER to family, Feb. 28, March 4, 1959, ER to Rosens, March 1959, RA; News Chronicle, March 10, 1959; Daily Herald, March 10, 1959. Time magazine (March 24, 1959), predictably sardonic when discussing PR, commented that he had had “predictable praise” for the Kremlin Hospital. Essie was so enthusiastic about Soviet medicine that she wrote an article on it (“Robesons Participate (As Patients) in Soviet Medicine,” ms. in RA), taking special care to point out that medical care in Russia was free and that some of their doctors had been women.

  31. For more on Andy, see pp. 478, 496 and note 61, p. 617. Interview with Andrew Faulds, Sept. 7, 1982 (PR, Jr., participating); Faulds to me, Oct. 30, 1984. Faulds credits Robeson with having inspired his own subsequent career as a member of Parliament. Watching the Oct. 1959 election returns on television, Faulds bemoaned the return of the Conservatives to power. “Paul made a very simple observation in that very rich voice of his, saying something like ‘You have no right to complain about these things, because you are not politically involved!’ And I thought, ‘My God, he’s absolutely right.’” The very next day Faulds joined the Stratford-on-Avon Labour Party and was later elected to Parliament.

  32. London Times, Manchester Guardian, Daily Herald, Evening Dispatch, Daily Mirror, The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, News Chronicle, Daily Express, Daily Mail—all April 8–12, 1959; The New Statesman, April 18, 1959; The Tatler, April 22, 1959. According to Sylvia Schwartz (interview, Jan. 16, 1983), PR found Mary Ure “cold” and did not enjoy acting opposite her. Nor did he have high opinions of Richardson and Wanamaker, although, typically, he barely alluded (even in private) to his discontent with them.

  33. ER to Freda Diamond, April 18, 1959, RA; multiple interviews with Helen Rosen (in one she said, “He did Othello on sheer guts,” it being her feeling that he “was never quite the same” after his 1955 prostate operation. “It had done something to his psyche, upset his feeling of … strength or invulnerability or something”). Peggy Ashcroft to me, Aug. 28, 1984, enclosing the memoir she was kind enough to write for me, which includes her impressions of the 1959 Othello. A note from Vanessa Redgrave, apparently written to PR on opening night, is in RA: “… We are all very proud and thrilled that you are with us playing Othello.” Among Robeson’s other opening-night messages were telegrams from Olivier, Gielgud, Edith Evans, Sean O’Casey, and a number of voices from his past:’André Van Gyseghem, Turner Layton—and his Rutgers sweetheart, Gerry Bledsoe. Alphaeus Hunton was among those in the audience on opening night and wrote an article about it (Hunton to George Murphy, Jr., April 9, 1959, enclosing typescript of article, MSRC: Murphy).

  34. RA contains a typed list, apparently made by ER, of PR’s schedule on a near-daily basis, along with a few words of comment by her. In an interview in The New York Times (April 26, 1985), Roy Dotrice recalls occasional baseball games between the Stratford players and a nearby U.S. Air Force base, Robeson playing first base. ER to Freda Diamond, April 18, May 8, July 21, Sept. 17, 1959, RA; Report of SA New York, Nov. 16, 1959, FBI Main 100-12304-689-? (illegible) (separation). Shirley Graham wrote up her enthralled impressions of PR as Othello in an article that appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier (June 20, 1959); she had seen the 1930 Othello and “beyond all question” thought his performance at Stratford superior. In her ms. reminiscences of PR in the PR Archiv, GDR, she recalled Paul’s going up to London with the Du Boises on a train the morning after they had seen him in Othello. Besieged during the ride by fans and well-wishers, Robeson turned toward Du Bois and said, “Now I want you to meet a really great man,” and then “boomed on about Du Bois.”

  35. ER to Katanian, May 17, 1959, RA; interview with Ashcroft, Sept. 9, 1982 (PR, Jr., participating); Ashcroft Memoir. A painful knee—stumbling at the theater, he reactivated an old football injury—added to his discomfort. When, several months later, PR and Ashcroft appeared together at the Youth Theatre Festival in Bristol, Ashcroft remembers “again being amazed at the rapturous acclaim that he had from the young people. It was quite marvelous.” That same season at Stratford—before the appearance at Bristol—Robeson agreed to join Ashcroft at a poetry reading for the Apollo Society, which she had started in 1943, with Larry Brown accompanying them; she remembers that Paul read “marvelously”—“he surprised by his mastery of so many other poets—Byron, Blake, Browning, etc.”

  36. Mimeo, “Excerpts of Speech of Paul Robeson,” June 27, 1959 (Gazette), RA; Claudia Jones, “The Robeson Legend,” West Indian Gazette, June 1959; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn to Pettis Perry, Nov. 3, 1958 (“do something”), NYPL/Schm.: Perry Papers; John Ebert to PR and ER, April 21, 1959, RA (Africa Day); Whitney to State Department, telegram, April 23, 1959, no file number (Africa Day); Daily Express, April 20, 1959. At the end of March, PR appeared at a private subscription dinner for the Daily Worker in London (ER to Freda Diamond, March 8, 1959, RA), and also accepted election as vice-president of the British-Soviet Friendship Society (The New York Times, May 11, 1959). Robeson’s private socializing likewise had a considerable admixture of—though it was not confined to—left-wing friends; he lunched, for example, with Miroslav Galuska, the Czechoslovak Ambassador, greeted a group from the Chinese Embassy backstage, and saw Shirley and W. E. B. Du Bois with some frequency, including a dinner in Du Bois’s honor at the Chinese Embassy (outline of daily schedule, RA).

  37. Daily Worker, April 25, 1959; News Chronicle, June 29, 1959; Manchester Guardian, June 29, 1959; Jim Gardner (British Peace Committee) to PR, July 1, 1959; Prague News Letter, June 27, 1959; Josef Ullrich to ER, July 28, 1959; ER to Freda Diamond, July 21, 1959; Heinz Altschul to PR, July 17, 195c)—all in RA; FBI Main 100-12304-575, FBI New York 100-25857-4172; The New York Times, Aug. 4, 11, 1959. While at the festival, PR used the occasion of a visit to the GDR tent to tell reporters that he “believes the future of the whole world rests on socialism” (National Abend, Aug. 4, 1959).

  38. Essie wrote Katanian (June 14, 1959, RA) that in Prague Paul met with his “Soviet friends and had a wonderful time.” The New York Times, Aug. 4, 11, 1959. Inger McCabe Elliott, a member of the American delegation to the Vienna Youth Festival, describes the ongoing conflict within the delegation as a “brawl,” with the anti-Communist “Chicago group” eventually losing out in its struggle to gain control over the election of officers (interview, Oct. 14, 1986). The anti-Communist version can be read in detail in Gloria M. Steinem et al., Report on the Vienna Youth Festival (Cambridge: 1960).

  39. A translation of PR’s interview in Nepszabadsag, Aug. 22, 1959, is in RA; a tape recording of his comments to the Budapest crowd, transcribed by PR, Jr., is also in RA.

  40. The assorted telegrams, memos, and letters involved in this episode are in the FBI files for 1959–60, and too numerous to cite in detail. In the middle of the dispute, and probably further prejudicing his case, PR appeared at a festival sponsored by the Communist newspaper L’Humanité at Meudon, a suburb of Paris (L’Humanité, Sept. 5–7, 1959). The American legate in Paris, on behalf of the FBI, asked for and received help from the Prefecture of Police and the Renseignements Généraux, general-investigative section of the Sûreté Nationale, in gathering information on PR (FBI Main 100-12304-579, 581). The ms. of an essay PR wrote for L’Humanité, mostly on musical theory, is in RA.

  41. ER to Helen Rosen, Oct. 5, 1959; Huw Wheldon (BBC) to PR, April 14, 1959—both in RA; The New Statesman, Nov. 7, 1959; ER to Freda Diamond, Sept. 25, 1959, RA (Menuhin); ER to Mrs. Beard, July 5, 1959, RA (rest); Bill Worsley to PR, Dec. 18, 1959, RA (new series); RA contains dozens of letters from fans about his broadcasts; Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 31, 1959; Daily Worker, Feb. 15, 1960 (reprint of part of PR-Menuhin broadcast). Though the white press did not report on PR’s triumphs (except for Othello), William Weinstone of the New York State CP committee, at its meeting on Nov. 6–7, 1959, in New York City, told the gathering that he had talked to PR on the phone while in Prague and was delighted to report that he was “an immens
e figure” everywhere he went in Europe (FBI New York 100-25857-4204).

  42. ER to Claude Barnett, Oct. 13, 24, Dec. 2, 1959; Barnett to ER, Oct. 21, 1959, CHS: Barnett; ER to Rosens, Oct. 24, 1959; ER to Helen Rosen, Nov. 13, 1959, courtesy of Rosen. Helen Rosen described the “polite” nature of her relationship with ER in our multiple interviews. Only once, she said, did Essie visit them in Katonah—after she had expressed interest in seeing the place “Paul is so fond of.”

  43. ER to Freda Diamond, Nov. 14, Dec. 1, 1959, RA; Glen Byam Shaw to PR, Nov. 26, 1959, RA; PR to Helen Rosen, November 16, 23, 28, 1959, courtesy of Rosen. Robeson’s final performance coincided with Shaw’s retirement as director of Stratford (to be replaced by Peter Hall), and there was a farewell on stage, with all the stars of the hundredth season joining in (Birmingham Post, Nov. 30, 1959).

  44. ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 24–29, 1960, RA. ER to Marilyn and PR, Jr., Jan. 24, 29, 1960, RA; U.S. Embassy in Moscow to State Department, Feb. 18, 1960, FBI Main 100-12304 (no file number).

  Robeson’s appearance at State Ball Bearing Plant # 1 involves an episode of crucial if clouded importance. The State Ball Bearing Plant was where the black American toolmaker Robert Robinson had long worked. Robinson had been a reluctant resident of the U.S.S.R. for decades (see the account in his book Black on Red [Acropolis, 1988]), had known PR since his first visit to the U.S.S.R. in 1934 (see pp. 188–89; note 3, p. 629; notes 7 and 12, pp. 629 and 630; note 53, p. 641; note 17, p. 634), and had unsuccessfully been trying to enlist PR’s assistance in getting out of the Soviet Union (Black on Red, pp. 313–17). In his book Robinson claims that he arranged for Robeson to give a concert at State Ball Bearing Plant #1 in 1961 and he prints two photos of PR at the plant (pp. 315–16) which he dates “July 1961.” But that dating cannot be accurate; in July 1961 PR was confined in poor health at Barveekha Sanitarium. Moreover, the photos show PR with the beard he did have during his January 1960 visit to Moscow but (according to Helen Rosen’s distinct recollection) he was no longer wearing when she saw him in March 1961 in London, just prior to his trip to the U.S.S.R. Since Robinson’s book contains several other serious misdatings (notably on p. 319, where he is off by several years on PR’s vacation meeting with Khrushchev and on his medical treatment in the GDR), I pressed him during our interview (May 18, 1988) about his choice of dates for the PR photograph in his book. Robinson insisted that he dated (with the year, not the month) all his photographs at the time he took them, and the evidence I marshalled above persuaded him only that “July” on the photo might be inaccurate—he continued to insist that the year 1961 was not. However, a photo I found in the Sovfoto Archives (New York) of PR singing at State Ball Bearing Plant #1 is clearly dated “Jan. 1960.”

  The importance of all this is in how it affects an evaluation of the dating and veracity of the additional testimony Robinson offers on PR, both in his book and in our interview. In Black on Red (pp. 318-19) Robinson records his surprise—since he had long since decided that PR was blinkered to the harsh realities of Soviet life—when, during his concert at the ball bearing plant, he included “a mournful song out of the Jewish tradition that decried their persecution through the centuries.” Robeson sang it, in Yiddish, with such “a cry in his voice,” such a seeming “plea to end the beating, berating, and killing of Jews,” that Robinson concluded PR had made a conscious choice to protest Soviet anti-Semitism (a conclusion confirmed in Robinson’s mind after he checked with PR’s interpreter and learned that he had also chosen to sing the Jewish song during several of his other concert appearances in Moscow). A week or so later, according to Robinson, a rumor began to circulate that PR had had “an unpleasant confrontation with Khrushchev.” In our interview, Robinson claimed to have heard the rumor from five different people, none of whom knew each other and all of whom were “within the Party structure.” According to the rumor, Robeson purportedly had asked Khrushchev if stories in the Western press about Soviet anti-Semitism were true, and Khrushchev had purportedly blown up and accused Robeson of trying to meddle in Soviet internal affairs. Robinson claimed as further confirmation of the rumored confrontation the fact that he never again heard Robeson’s records broadcast over Radio Moscow (as they had previously been on a regular twice-weekly basis) and “never read another word about him in the Soviet press.”

  In our interview, Robinson staunchly stood by the accuracy of the content of his account and wavered only insofar as he was willing to say that the Ball Bearing concert (and Robeson’s purported subsequent confrontation with Khrushchev) may have taken place in March rather than in July 1961. If that confrontation did take place in March 1961—though I have found no evidence that PR saw Khrushchev at all on that visit—it might shed some light on PR’s attempted suicide in that month (see p. 498) or his seeming terror when later passing the Soviet Embassy (see p. 502). But as I have argued above, the weight of evidence far more strongly supports the date of January 1960 as the correct one for PR’s appearance at Ball Bearing Plant #1.

  But although the dating of Robinson’s account can be proven unreliable, that does not automatically discredit the content of his testimony. In the present state of the evidence (perhaps more will surface in the future), the accuracy of Robinson’s reporting cannot be definitively gauged. During our interview, I found his manner to be earnest and impassioned, and his memory, though inconsistent, seemed vivid and detailed. But on the other hand, I found portions of his book so heavy-handedly anti-Soviet, and the circumstances surrounding its writing and publication so thick with cloak-and-dagger innuendo, as to suggest some sort of “official” sponsorship.

  45. PR to Helen Rosen, March 1, 11, 1960, courtesy of Rosen.

  46. Birmingham Post, Feb. 29, 1960; Leicester Mercury, Feb. 24, 1960; Nottingham Evening News, April 7, 1960; Yorkshire Evening News, April 29, 1960 (thin audiences). Rockmore to ER, April 29, 1960 (“expenditure”); PR telegram to Rockmore, July 3, 1960; Rockmore to Harold Davison, May 4, 1960; Davison to Rockmore, March 31, April 29, May 10, June 16, 28, 1960—all in RA.

  47. Daily Worker, March 14, 1960; American Consulate to State Department, May 3, 1960 (May Day; Sterner interview with Stern). The day after he returned to London he participated in a ban-the-bomb rally in Trafalgar Square (Daily Worker, May 16, 1960; the London Times, May 16, 1960; the rally also called for admitting China to the UN). The May Day affair was apparently marred by a poor amplification system (Glasgow Herald, May 2, 1960). Interview with Andrew Faulds (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 7, 1982. Just before leaving on tour, Robeson told a Daily Worker interviewer (Jan. 14, 1960), “I feel I have reached the beginning of another stage in my life.… It is something that reaches beyond art. I feel that a battle has been fought and won. Now I feel that I can relax.” He still had enough political verve to denounce the resurgence of anti-Semitic outrages in West Germany, and the American government for propping up the Adenauer regime.

  48. Interview with Diana Loesser, July 29, 1986; Franz Krahl (Neues Deutschland) to PR, June 22, 1960, FBI Main 100-12304-622; PR to Helen Rosen, May 16, 1960, courtesy of Rosen; Faulds interview (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 7, 1982.

  49. PR to Helen Rosen, March 6, 7, 1960, courtesy of Rosen.

  50. PR to Helen Rosen, May 10, 16, 1960, courtesy of Rosen; FBI New York 100-25857-4248 (“permanent”); Washington Post, June 21, 1960; PR’s speech in Melbourne, Australia, Nov. 1960 (“my folks”), tape courtesy of Lloyd L. Davies.

  51. Earl Robinson to PR, Sept. 12, 1959; Willard Uphaus to Robesons, Nov. 8, 1959, RA; also the positive report in George Murphy, Jr., to ER, Jan. 29, 1961, MSRC: Murphy. PR wrote A. Philip Randolph that he had “avidly followed” plans for the creation of a Negro Trade Union Congress and paid him the conciliatory compliment—despite Randolph’s longstanding and outspoken hostility toward Communism—of having “so wisely led” the Pullman Porters. In the same letter PR applauded the “courageous activity” and “growing unity of Negro and white American Youth in breaking down the totterin
g walls of segregation and discrimination,” and also expressed his pleasure that “all sections of the Negro People” were “drawing together,” despite “some differences of opinion in some spheres, particularly that of International Relations.” Finally, Robeson expressed the poignant hope of being “able to greet you in person in the near future” (PR to Randolph, July 22, 1960, RA). There is no known reply from Randolph.

  52. ER to Freda Diamond, July 17, 1960, RA. In another letter to Freda Diamond (June 27, 1960, RA), ER contrasted the unpromising U.S. scene with developments abroad: “the picture this side looks better and better. War and nuclear policies are being repudiated everywhere, tactfully, but quietly and very firmly. I think the U.S. is going to have to take low. Will be healthy.” PR’s remark on Kennedy is as quoted in the National Guardian, Oct. 1960. In a postelection estimate of Kennedy, John Pittman wrote the Robesons from Moscow: “… he will at least begin by trying to emulate some of FDR’s statesmanship. He will undoubtedly bring many Negroes into the project of ‘saving Africa from communism.’ … Under such a banner, he is sure to have the support of the right-wing labor bureaucracy, including Mr. Randolph” (Pittman to the Robesons, Dec. 10, 1960, RA).

  53. ER to Freda Diamond, June 27, July 7, 17, Aug. 19, 1960; ER to Ruth Gage Colby, Sept. 10, 1960, RA. During the summer PR also completed the second series of ten radio broadcasts and a special Christmas program for the BBC, as well as a long-playing, stereophonic album for EMI (with a fifty-fifty royalty split). Though the trip to Ghana never came off, it involved considerable preliminary planning and correspondence, including letters between ER and President Nkrumah (A. W. Ephson to PR, Feb. 23, March 25, April 6, 23, 1960; K. A. Gbedemah to PR, April 23, 1960; Nkrumah to ER.July 29, Aug. 10, Sept. 7, 1960—all in RA). Hearing of PR’s difficulties in getting his passport renewed, Nkrumah suggested he become a citizen of Ghana—as W. E. B. Du Bois was soon to do.