Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century
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RAH, letter to Harlan Ellison, 07/27/66.
RAH, letter to Mary Collin, 03/04/63.
RAH, prefatory material in Expanded Universe, 452.
Primitive versions of the water bed had been in existence since at least 1844, and a water bed is mentioned in H. G. Wells’s When the Sleeper Wakes. The matter is explored in Kate Gladstone: “Water Beds, Pre-Heinlein: An Investigation,” The Heinlein Journal, No. 15 (July 2004), 3–4.
RAH, letter to John Zube, 10/08/71.
“Notes on Case of R. A. Heinlein” [by same], Lieutenant (JG) U.S.N., 01/11/34, preserved in Heinlein’s naval jacket, RAH Archive, UCSC.
Leslyn Heinlein, letter to John W. Campbell, 11/27/41.
First name not given in Heinlein’s notes.
In all of Heinlein’s many mentions of Dr. Howard in correspondence, and even on Dr. Howard’s formal statement of Heinlein’s case to the naval board, no first name is given.
“Report from Doctor Howard, January 20th 1934” in Robert Heinlein’s naval jacket, RAH Archive, UCSC.
Letter to RAH from U.S. Naval Unit, Fitzsimmons General Hospital re: Change of status to sick in hospital, dated 03/05/34; RAH’s endorsement is dated the same date. RAH Naval Jacket, RAH Archive, UCSC.
Heinlein never recorded how he met Cornog. A recent biography of John Whiteside (or “Jack”) Parsons, Strange Angel, by George Pendle, suggests Cornog and Heinlein may have met at a nudist colony in Denver; however, Cornog’s oral history at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library states firmly that he met Heinlein at the downtown Athletic Club in Denver while Heinlein, in uniform, was judging a chess match.
Order in RAH’s naval jacket, RAH Archive, UCSC.
R. N. S. Clark, letter to Leslyn and Robert Heinlein, 06/17/46.
There is no documentation as to how Heinlein learned of the lodes’ availability or how he came to enter into the arrangement. However, given that Pendergast men had been arrested in Denver on at least two occasions since 1931, the inference that someone in the Pendergast organization might have been looking for someone with a clean reputation to front for him is at least colorable; otherwise, it is hard to imagine how Heinlein might have run across this opportunity on his own.
See, for example, RAH’s interview by Alfred Bester in Publishers Weekly ( July 2, 1973), 44.
The lawyer’s name is not given in Heinlein’s surviving correspondence, though there was no particular mystery about him; possibly the name was given in correspondence that was destroyed in Heinlein’s first great housecleaning in 1947.
McCullough, Truman.
The Colorado State records have no holdings for the Sophie and Shively Lodes, though they are shown on claim mines: the records are organized by mining company rather than by name of the lode.
RAH, letter to Rip van Ronkel, 05/04/49.
The fact that Heinlein held the exploitation rights only temporarily (the bond) and through a lease, a private arrangement with the then owner of the claims, makes it more difficult to locate any records. The arrangement is simply not reflected in the state’s record-keeping.
Rex Ivar Heinlein, letter to RAH, 08/03/53.
RAH, draft letter to Tom Eaton, 12/12/73.
RAH, letter to Rip van Ronkel, 05/04/49.
McCullough, Truman, 200–201.
Heinlein’s naval jacket, RAH Archive, UCSC; see also RAH, letter to Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, 06/20/73.
RAH, letter to Jack Parkman, 03/16/57.
The 1934 California Voter Registration records show them at 905 La Salle, which would be in Inglewood, near the present site of the Los Angeles Airport, but this seems to be an error, as they were receiving mail in West Hollywood by August 30, 1934.
Virginia Heinlein, letter to George Warren, 03/09/79.
For Cal Tech being Heinlein’s first choice and UCLA his second, see Leon Stover’s letter to Virginia Heinlein, 05/25/89.
Research in UCLA records by Robert James, Ph.D., communicated to the author in personal conversation, 2000.
RAH, letter to Bill Corson, 02/20/48.
RAH, letter to Damon Knight, 01/19/57.
RAH, letter to Dr. Zimmerman, 08/01/73; see also RAH, letter to Damon Knight, 01/19/57.
Heinlein’s letter to Mandelkorn has not been preserved, though Mandelkorn mentions this passage in his undated reply letter written sometime in 1934 or 1935.
Virginia Heinlein, taped interview by Phillip Homer Owenby (1994), Tape 11, Side A. Here Mrs. Heinlein says, “He got a recurrence of TB,” and at various points in correspondence Heinlein said flatly that he had a tubercular relapse then (see, for example, RAH’s letter to Jack Parkman, 03/15/57). But there are no medical records for treatment then, and no ancillary evidence of, say, a trip to the Naval hospital at San Diego at that time. Furthermore, within a very short time, Heinlein was putting a great deal of energy into his political project, which suggests that he did not believe he was having a relapse of TB. Perhaps his “symptoms” were more related to situational stress and insomnia and passed without consequence.
14. Baptism of Fire (pages 173–184)
The great majority of the background information in this chapter about the 1934 California gubernatorial election, the EPIC (End Poverty in California) movement, and Upton Sinclair comes from Greg Mitchell’s magisterial Campaign of the Century (New York: Random House, 1992), which details California and national newspaper and magazine coverage of the campaign on a daily basis. Constant direct citation of facts would be tedious, so citations to this work have been restricted, for the most part, to quotations taken from the book. The chapters on EPIC and related movements in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s The Politics of Upheaval, 1935–1936, vol. 3 of The Age of Roosevelt (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1960, 2003) were also helpful. There are some slight differences between Schlesinger’s treatment and Mitchell’s, and in the case of conflicts, I tended to rely on Mitchell’s fuller treatment. References to the Schlesinger book are given as they occur in the text.
All of Heinlein’s correspondence and personal papers relating to this period of his life and the 1934 California gubernatorial campaign are lost—presumably destroyed in 1947. A small amount of direct information about Heinlein’s participation in this campaign can be gleaned from his handbook for politicians: How to Be a Politician, published in 1992 as Take Back Your Government! These few references allow some reasonable inferences about events Heinlein must have witnessed, even where direct documentation is not available.
Schlesinger, The Politics of Upheaval, 112.
Wells, The World of William Clissold, 180.
Schlesinger, The Politics of Upheaval, 112.
“California Climax,” Time (October 22, 1934), 2.
Upton Sinclair, I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future (1933), quoted in Schlesinger, The Politics of Upheaval, 112.
Schlesinger, The Politics of Upheaval, 100.
Los Angeles Times (August 29, 1934), quoted in Mitchell’s Introduction to The Campaign of the Century, x.
Los Angeles Times, quoted in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 321.
RAH, Take Back Your Government!, 19. The dating to late September is tentative, as Heinlein did not specify the date; but he does note that he was directing the local (West Hollywood and Beverly Hills) Democratic club six weeks later, and if this took place before the election, then his volunteering cannot have taken place later than the last week in September.
Wells, The World of William Clissold, 253.
All documentation of Heinlein’s actual thought processes about this decision has been lost (it was probably burned, along with many other bags of personal correspondence, in 1947), but, a dedicated Wellsian and an American socialistliberal, Heinlein could not have failed to note the irony of Wells’s praise for these antiliberal realtors. His own decision to go into real estate would thus be a blow to reclaim the professional organization for Wellsian managerial socialism.
Such a supposition has the minor virtue of s
uggesting an explanation for such an odd move into a field so far from his normal interests.
RAH, letter to Judith Merril, 11/07/62.
“California Climax,” Time (October 22, 1934), 2, quoted in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 356.
Kyle Palmer, quoted in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 428.
Alderman Jim Pendergast is quoted on page 152 of McCullough’s Truman: “‘I’ve got friends,’ he would say cheerfully. ‘And by the way, that’s all there is to this boss business—friends.’” Jim Pendergast died in 1911, but his personal style in both ward-work and in electioneering persisted through Heinlein’s contact with T. J. Pendergast’s machine, and the grassroots style of Sinclair’s campaign was very compatible. Both the theory and the experience are preserved in How to Be a Politician, written by Heinlein in 1946. See, in particular, chapter 7, on precinct work.
The book was published in 1992 under the title Take Back Your Government! but is presented under its original title in the Virginia Edition (the first hardcover publication of the book, as well).
“Father Coughlin” was Charles Edward Coughlin (1891–1979), a radio priest with an estimated at forty million Catholic followers for his weekly broadcasts. More political than religious, Coughlin initially endorsed and promoted the New Deal—but also after 1936 promoted Hitler and Mussolini and issued anti-Semitic propaganda. Some radio stations began refusing to carry the program, and he was forced off the air by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1940.
Quoted in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 476.
Quoted without attribution in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 498.
Quoted in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 494.
A more detailed description of the rally can be found in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 504.
RAH, Take Back Your Government!, 240.
Heinlein’s experience in this election is noted without corroborating detail in Take Back Your Government!/How to Be a Politician, where Heinlein omitted all identifying detail as a matter of policy.
Jerry Voorhis, quoted in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 546.
Schlessinger, The Politics of Upheaval, 123.
This was a good prediction for Olson to make; four years later (albeit after repudiating his EPIC membership), Olson was elected Governor of California by EPIC Democrats.
Upton Sinclair, quoted in Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 541.
15. Party and Shadow Party (pages 185–200)
RAH, letter to Lieutenant Sandra Fulton, 08/07/65.
RAH’s 1938 campaign biography, quoted in Leon Stover’s unpublished manuscript, Before the Writing Began.
Unbylined front-page article by Max Knepper, in Upton Sinclair’s EPIC News I: 41 (March 4, 1935).
The observation was made in the same month in 1939 that The Grapes of Wrath was published. Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 53. Interestingly, this observation was quoted in the CliffsNotes for The Grapes of Wrath.
The text of Robert Heinlein’s report of his individual findings was not preserved, but much of his work duplicated the research of other individuals and agencies at about the same time (for which reason he never pursued it further). This particular example, attributed to a finding of “relief officials,” was quoted in Worster’s Dust Bowl.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 01/05/42.
RAH, Take Back Your Government!, 19.
EPIC News (April 8, 1935), 16.
“Girl Knocked Unconscious by Police, Blood Flows in J.C. Anti-War Strike Riot. Second Co-Ed Hurt on Being Driven from Speakers’ Stand. Policemen Jeered. Demonstrations Prove Quiet at UCLA, Other Campuses,” Hollywood Citizen-News (March 12, 1935), 1.
RAH, letter to Cal Laning, 11/26/50.
The New York Times famously ran a masthead slogan “All the news that’s fit to print.”
RAH, letter to Cal Laning, 11/26/50.
This refers to an incident on March 15, 1935 (after the “Red Squad” riot), in which the local school board refused to allow an airing of protests against the clubbing incident by “students, parents and sympathizers.” “Battle over Co-Ed Attack Grows Tense. Board Refusal to Grant Hearing on Clubbing Fails to Daunt,” Hollywood Citizen-News, March 16, 1935.
“Town Meeting” section, Hollywood Citizen-News, March 17, 1935, 21.
The suspicion that Leslyn may have added Robert’s military rank rises because Heinlein never before or after failed to include the exact rank at which he had retired, “Lt., J.G.” with the mandatory “Ret.”
“Speaker Hits ‘Vigilantes’ in Imperial Area,” Hollywood Citizen-News, March 18, 1935, 7.
EPIC News carried an Open Forum on the subject of whether EPIC should join in the United Front in its May 13, 1935, issue.
RAH, letter to Cal Laning, 11/26/50.
The Times was quoted in the EPIC News report of the convention published on May 27, 1935.
RAH, letter to Hon. Jerry Voorhis, 11/06/46.
RAH naval jacket, RAH Archive, UCSC.
RAH, letter to Cal Laning, 11/26/50.
The City Directory for 1935 gives a Grand Avenue address for them, which may have been the old Sinclair for Governor campaign headquarters.
Muster Notes, 1935. Muster Notes is the book produced for each class reunion.
Per RAH’s Naval Personal History Questionnaire, prepared by RAH in 1951; their voter registration was changed to the Lookout Mountain address as of 1936.
Ford’s investigation of graft and corruption in the administration of Los Angeles mayor Frank Shaw, and in particular the car bombing of private investigator and former policeman Raymond Frank in 1937, is widely detailed in histories of the period, but see the L.A. Almanac, http://www.laalmanac.com/history/hi06f.htm.
Nor was I able to find any reference to Heinlein—or indeed, to any of the other less well-known investigations Ford commenced in 1936 and 1937—in Ford’s personal papers lodged with the Huntington Library. Only a single box deals with Ford’s first four years as a Los Angeles County Supervisor.
RAH, letter to E. O. Voight, 05/13/58.
This information is from the 1936 entry from Heinlein’s 1938 campaign biography written for his volunteer staff. The only known surviving copy of this campaign biography was in the possession of Judge Robert Clifton, who gave it to Leon Stover for use in preparing his stub biography Before the Writing Began. The present whereabouts of Dr. Stover’s papers is not known.
EPIC News III: 14 (August 13, 1936), 1.
RAH, letter to Alfred Bester, 04/03/59.
RAH, Take Back Your Government! But also see RAH’s letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 01/17/42. This is a sentiment also echoed in one of Heinlein’s “political” novels, Double Star.
See, for example, RAH’s letter to Judge Robert Clifton, 03/15/82.
RAH, letter to Phil Farmer, 11/21/73.
RAH, Take Back Your Government!, 185.
Leslyn Heinlein, side comment in RAH’s letter to Robert Lowndes, 08/23/41.
RAH, letter to Cal Laning, 11/26/50; see also RAH, 1938 campaign biography, distributed to his campaign workers.
RAH, Take Back Your Government!, 182.
This pattern of completing each other’s sentences was remarked on often a few years later when Robert and Leslyn Heinlein entered the world of science fiction and was even noted in a Robert Lowndes editorial in 1941, concerning “the Lyle Monroes.” (“Lyle Monroe” was a pen name Heinlein used for lower-paying markets.)
This working as a team though the public attention was focused on Robert was noted in Heinlein’s Guest-of-Honor Speech for the Third World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, July 7, 1941 (transcribed and published by Forrest J. Ackerman as “The Discovery of the Future,” and republished in Requiem, ed. Yoji Kondo). This was three years after their intense joint involvement with political activities ceased, but the habit was well fixed by that time.
Implied
by remarks of Leslyn (Heinlein) Mocabee in a letter to Fred Pohl, 05/08/53.
RAH, letter to William A. P. White, 03/27/57. The specifics of the problem were not recorded contemporaneously, either by Heinlein or by Leslyn—just general mentions decades later. In this letter, Heinlein tells White that the crisis of the divorce in 1947 had been building up since 1936.
RAH, letter to “Capt. Jack” (A. Bertram Chandler), 08/27/78.
Virginia Heinlein, editorial comment in Grumbles from the Grave (New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, 1989), 114.