Returning from Europe and Africa late in December 1953, Yergan was not under attack in the opposition press in South Africa for his stance on the Defiance Campaign. Volunteer-in-chief and ANC Youth League president Nelson Mandela then said of him:
I was struck by the fact that Mr Yergan made no attempt to meet the Non-European leaders and discuss the Defiance campaign with them direct. He came to this country to study the campaign, yet all his impressions were second hand or gleaned from newspapers which cannot speak for the campaign.
His visit to South Africa seemed to me to be very suspicious and Africans are asking if he didn’t come here on a mission for the US government. He said not a word of condemnation of the racial policies of the Malan Government which, from a man professing to be active in his people’s struggles in his country, seemed to us very strange. His warning to us in our activities sounded far more like the warnings of a US government spokesman than from a Negro participating in any movement for Negro rights.54
But this was only a prelude to the response Yergan received when an interview he did for U.S. News and World Report reached the newsstands on May 1, 1953. Entitled “Africa: Next Goal of Communists,” the piece was a sweeping reprise of his most recent tour. But no part of the interview attracted attention like the sections dealing with South Africa. Although critical of apartheid, Yergan emphasized the dangers communism posed to Africa. In a survey of several regions of the continent, Yergan showed himself generally well informed regarding currents of opinion and processes of democratic struggle underway in Northern, Western, Eastern, and Southern Africa. But his take on South Africa drew fire. Readers replied to it almost immediately, from the United States and from South Africa itself. Within days of its appearance, long-time anticommunist NAACP leader Walter White wrote India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru, and Central Intelligence Agency director Allen Dulles about it; a Baltimore Afro-American editorial denounced it; Paul Robeson’s Freedom scored it, and the Communist Party’s Daily Worker savaged it.55 Even Max’s old acquaintance and sometime correspondent Z. K. Matthews refuted him.56 Indeed, few local or international Black leaders now countenanced Yergan’s perspective. Matthews was quoted in a New York Negro weekly as having rebutted, “Yergan is very much mistaken,” adding,
This is a moral and not an arithmetical problem. There have been terrific struggles in America for instance, despite the Negro’s minority status. And in the last 20 years, the Negro’s position has improved—but not because of a decline in numbers.57
Matthews went even further in a later interview done for Paul Robe-son’s Freedom, saying,
During his long stay in the Union of South Africa, [Yergan] had little or no first hand contact with African political organizations such as the African National Congress. To my knowledge he first made contact with an African political organization in 1936 when he attended some meetings of the AAC. This was shortly before he returned to the US, where as the world knows, he was one of the foundation members and the executive secretary of the Council on African Affairs. Through that organization he maintained contact with the Union of South Africa until he broke with that organization.58
Slightly more than a fortnight after the U.S. News piece, a far more obscure quotation from Yergan appeared in a place that was nevertheless of considerable significance. On the heels of a stopover in the Belgian Congo, Yergan was cited in the prosettler Katanga mining periodical, Bulletin de l’Association des Intérêts Coloniaux Belges, as having said, “the Belgians have focused in the Congo, on economic development and seek to satisfy the basic needs of the indigenous workers.” Yet, by disregarding African rights, “they might have committed an error.”59 As in his criticism of apartheid while Max admonished his hosts, more evident was his overall acquiescence in the Belgian Colonial Association’s view of the situation and the fact that his voice was used to add credence to their position.
The two articles showed a willingness to be critical but an overwhelming acceptance of the authority of colonial and minority rule in Africa as something that still remained legitimate. While this view might have appeared defensible before 1945, by 1953 it had become passé. Increasingly, those accepting the status quo were only those able to earn something from it. Yergan’s views continued to bring responses from both African-Americans and Africans who had known him at earlier stages in his life. A Yergan defense of segregationist James F. Byrnes added fuel to the fire.60 While conservative columnist George Sokolsky found much to admire in the new Yergan,61 NAACP leader Walter F. White felt otherwise:
A final word about Dr. Yergan. I have known him well and personally during many years. I knew him when he first went out to Africa as a YMCA missionary. I knew him when he worked intimately with the Communists and deplored his decision to cast his lot with them. I knew him when at last he broke with them and welcomed his return to the democratic fold. Although I have by no means always agreed with him I had refrained from any public attack upon him until last May when his indefensible article of Malanism in SA was published in US News and World Report. This was too much for me. I may add that practically the entire Negro press and other Negro spokesmen condemned that article, many of them in much harsher language than I used. I am sorry to see that you were inveigled into a total distortion of both the basis and the facts of my criticism of him.62
By late August, Yergan had written another New York Times letter a week after South African prime minister and apartheid theoretician D. F. Malan had used its pages to make the case for “separate development.” Yergan responded to Malan by writing that his suggestions for “an African charter” were “significant in their implications.” In his view,
Everything depends upon the spirit and the imagination with which consultation is undertaken and the willingness to apply the lessons of contemporary history. The more serious issues in Africa have come into existence w/in a comparatively short space of time. W/ the possible exception of SA, nowhere are the roots of the difficulties extraordinarily deep. Change and adjustment are still possible to make new history in that continent in which all may rejoice. In Tanganyika, Belgian Congo, Uganda, Gold Coast and Nigeria and the Transkeian area of South Africa, to mention but a few areas, there is solid achievement to impart confidence for the future.63
Yergan’s new stance brought criticism not only from the Communist Party64 but also from a range of mainstream African-American leaders and spurred a detailed retort from Walter Sisulu:
In so far as South Africa is concerned, Dr Yergan apart from justifying the suppressive policy of the Nationalist government towards the non-Europeans, has either deliberately distorted the true position to suit his special mission or he has accepted in toto a statement from Government officials. He alleges that the Government among other things is faced with the task of suppressing Communism. The suppression of Communism includes this in South Africa: “any scheme which aims at bringing about any political, industrial, social or economic change within the Union by the promotion of disturbance or disorder, by unlawful acts or omissions or threats.” (See Section 1(b) Suppression of Communism Act, 1950).65
Sisulu and ANC colleague Nelson Mandela had been in attendance at a Yergan public address in Johannesburg during the Defiance Campaign in 1952. Each had found the address brilliant until Yergan reached the subject of communism. In an interview Sisulu also recalled that Yergan had attempted to talk the Congress Alliance out of undertaking the endeavor.66
In November Yergan embarked upon a five-month round-the-world tour lasting through March as he and spouse Lena Halpern visited Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Siam, Burma, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, France, and the United Kingdom.
By spring of 1954, James Burnham, George Schuyler, and Yergan resigned from the Congress of Cultural Freedom. In June Schuyler ran the first of three installments of Max’s travels, entitled “Finds World Curious about American Negroes,” in the Pittsburgh Courier.67 In early November Yergan’s early mentor and guide through
India and into the offices of the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Phelps Stokes funds, Edward Clark Carter, died.68
Bandung, April 18–24, 1955
Between April 18 and 24, 1955, with both Justice Department and Central Intelligence Agency officials still looking over his shoulder, having retained his passport, Yergan attended the landmark Bandung Asian-African Conference in Indonesia. Bandung was one of the defining moments of the nascent “Nonaligned” movement then taking shape in the former and late colonial world. Led by India’s magnetic prime minister, Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru, this alliance of non-Western territories and newly independent nations struggled to assert an identity separate and distinct from that imposed upon them by the greater powers of the capitalist West and socialist East. But how was this to be done? Those intermediate territories lying between East and West wanted to carve out a niche capacious enough to permit them to find a feasible arrangement with the more ardent Cold Warriors upon whom they had to rely politically and economically. Those who strove toward this goal risked the West’s rancor, among them Nehru, Egypt’s revolutionary coup d’état leader, General Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Indonesia’s own president, Ahmed Sukarno.
It was thus a shrewd move on Nehru’s part to frame Bandung as an opportunity for the “Coloured Peoples of the World” to assemble as a bloc, without direct interference from White Europe, whose imperial and colonial past and present practice were tainted by race-driven policies—the nonaligned nations decrying the Western powers—along with their Warsaw Pact rivals. Western responses to Nehru’s lockout, which they saw as a cynical ploy, were almost universally negative and typically condescending. John Foster Dulles, for example, referred to it as a “so-called Asian-African Conference.” The principal beneficiary of Nehru’s race-conscious remedy was the People’s Republic of China, embodied by Vice Premier Chou en-Lai. Chou exhibited superior diplomatic skills, surprising many with his charm, restraint, and humility. This unexpectedly flexible performance reassured fearful disciples of the liberal democratic West, who saw communism as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and were eager to voice these anxieties. Within this context Bandung had unprecedented meaning for the Nonaligned.
Among those in attendance were not only Third World leaders and delegations but African-American observers as well, including Richard Wright, Adam Clayton Powell Jr.—and Max Yergan. Wright discussed his reactions in The Color Curtain. Though this work did not mention Yergan by name, it alluded to positions taken by both of the former People’s Voice associates.69 Powell was interviewed in the April 29, 1955, issue of U.S. News and World Report. Yergan’s analysis appeared in the same periodical, in its June 3, 1955, edition. Yergan distinguished his position from that of one-time colleague Congressman Powell in a discourse sometimes subtle in its criticism of those with different views. Max’s interviewer began by asking if he, as an American Negro, felt that color was “enough” at Bandung “to bind the nonwhite nations together in a bloc.” He then replied,
I certainly do not think so; quite the contrary. I think the Conference proved the accidental and superficial importance of color. President Sukarno of Indonesia and some of the other speakers suggested that Asia and Africa could be united on the basis of color. But Asia and Africa did not unite at the Conference. When it came down to fundamental issues, each delegation looked at the problem from the viewpoint of national interest, and this was a conference very largely of colored peoples.70
Two weeks after the newsstand appearance of Yergan’s June 3 U.S. News interview, on June 17, 1955, the Council on African Affairs announced its forced dissolution, due to the cumulative effects of unrelenting U.S. government harassment. If there was a payoff for Max’s cooperation in helping achieve that outcome, it was not immediately apparent in the internal security traffic that continued to circulate within the Justice Department about him. A scant fortnight after the CAA’s demise, this Yergan-inspired memo passed between J. Edgar Hoover and Assistant Attorney General William F. Tompkins:
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
July 1 1955
William F. Tompkins, Assistant Attorney General
WFT:BA:dbm
Internal Security Division
146-7-51-1119
Typed: 6/28/55
MAX YERGAN
SECURITY MATTER — C
PERJURY
This is with reference to your memorandum of June 21, 1955 in which you stated that the Central Intelligence Agency has contacted the subject regarding foreign intelligence matters and has requested that you furnish them any information which may bear on their relationship with him.
Under these circumstances this Division has no objection to the Central Intelligence Agency being informed that prosecution of Yergan for a violation of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 1621 is under consideration.
cc: Records
Alvey (2 copies to FBI)
A few months later, this memo was placed in Yergan’s file:
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified-Date 1/3/83
Pursuant to 28 C.F.R. 17.26
George W. Calhoun
Office Memorandum • UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO: File
DATE: January 16, 1956
FROM: Francis E. Jordan
FEJ:ali
SUBJECT: Max Yergan
146-7-51-1119
CONFIDENTIAL
On December 20, 1955 Mr. Robert D. Johnson of the Passport Office, Department of State, telephoned the writer to inquire whether the Department of Justice wanted the restriction retained concerning subject’s passport. The writer advised Mr. Johnson he would consult with his superiors, and would then notify him of the Department’s recommendation.
Since the writer had knowledge that the Yergan matter was being reviewed by the Subversive Activities Section for a possible perjury indictment, he telephoned, later the same day, Brandon Alvey, Head of the Perjury and Fraud Unit. This was done to enable the writer to fully apprise his superiors of the status of the perjury review.
Mr. Alvey advised that the review had not been completed and would not be for another two weeks. He stated that in his opinion, the case against Yergan was “weak,” and that he, personally, did not want to at this time go on record as recommending such a prosecution. He elaborated by saying that after one of his subordinates had completed the review he, personally, was going to recommend further investigation by the Bureau.
The writer explained to him Mr. Johnson’s request, and asked if, in his opinion, we could advise Mr. Johnson by Thursday, December 29, 1955. Mr. Alvey replied he would attempt to have a recommendation by that date, but he did not believe it possible.
On Thursday, December 28, 1955, Mr. Alvey advised it would not be possible to have his recommendation for several weeks. On December 28, 1955, the writer telephoned William E. Foley, Executive Assistant to William F. Tompkins, Assistant Attorney General, Internal Security Division, to acquaint him with the facts and ask his recommendation. He advised the writer to notify Mr. Johnson that the Department was not recommending that the restriction be removed nor that it be retained, but any action taken by them would be solely within their discretion.
On Thursday, December 29, 1955 the writer telephoned Mr. Johnson’s office and left a message for Mr. Johnson to call him, since at that time Mr. Johnson was out of his office. Mr. Johnson telephoned the writer on Tuesday, January 3, 1956, and the writer advised him according to Mr. Foley’s instructions.
Declassified Date 6/3/83
Pursuant to C.F.R. 17 .26
George W. Calhoun
During the first three weeks of December 1957, Yergan and his spouse, Lena Halpern, visited the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. Then Yergan spent several days in the Republic of South Africa after leaving Halpern at the Rhodesian border in the Victoria Falls Hotel, citing “obvious reasons” for taking this course. While the visit was ostensibly undertaken under private auspices, Max’s presence attracted consular attention, on several fronts. The most
evident stimulus for this interest was the increasingly sensitive racial climate of the Federation, where the pressure of rising nationalist sentiment was beginning to rock the three constituents of the alliance, the Rhodesias (Northern and Southern) and Nyasaland. Each had vigorous nationalist movements, and Yergan’s arrival brought in its train questions about his views on these militant movements, their leaders and followers.
While in Rhodesia Yergan and Halpern paid a courtesy call on the acting consul general in the American Embassy. Staying at the Meikles Hotel, they held talks with two members of the African petit-bourgeoisie, Lawrence Vambe, editor-in-chief of African Newspapers, Ltd., and a recent returnee from a U.S. study tour, and Herbert Chitepo, the pioneer Black lawyer in the Federation and later a pivotal figure in the nationalist movement. Yergan had already met with Kenneth Kaunda, then general secretary of the Northern Rhodesia branch of the African National Congress, and the six African members of Parliament in the Federation. He had also spoken with Federation prime minister, Sir Roy Welensky and Southern Rhodesian prime minister Garfield Todd. But it was within the context of the encounter with Vambe and Chitepo that the essence of the Rhodesian struggle could be glimpsed. Synopses of their exchanges were captured by a U.S. embassy official. Quoted at length, they give texture to Yergan’s presence and its larger historical significance:
Two conversations of the Yergans with Africans, in which the reporting officer participated, are of some interest. One was with Mr Herbert Chitepo, the Federation’s only African lawyer, in his offices in the Advocate Chambers in a downtown Salisbury office building. (They could not, of course, meet at the Yergans’ hotel or any of the public places in Salisbury.) The other was with Lawrence Vambe. The conversations represented contrasting strains in African thinking with Mr Chitepo sounding bitter, disillusioned, and offering no constructive suggestions; and Mr Vambe, while expressing concern over increasing tensions, indicating that he still has faith in the basic good sense and decency of most Europeans in the Federation and in the possibility of making “partnership” a reality through persistent rational negotiation and compromise.
Max Yergan Page 32
