Suspect Red

by L. M. Elliott

  A little past 3:00 A.M., a car door slammed shut in the driveway. Richard bolted up and fell out of his bed. He stumbled downstairs.

  Don was in the kitchen, illuminated only by the refrigerator light as he held the door open and drank from a milk bottle. Richard caught his breath. Don was dressed in a garbageman’s overalls.

  “Dad?”

  Don startled and dribbled milk down his chin. “Darn it!” He wiped his mouth. “You caught me! Don’t tell your mom I was drinking from the bottle.” He brushed milk off his front. “Hey, what are you doing up, anyway?”

  “Waiting for you, Dad.” Richard stepped in closer, into the refrigerator’s spotlight.

  “Whoa, Rich! Where’d you get that nose?” Don slammed the refrigerator closed.

  “Vladimir punched me.”

  Don grimaced. “I’m sorry, son.”

  “Why are you dressed like that?” Richard felt sick to his stomach. Was this punishment? “Mr. Hoover isn’t making you pick up garbage now, is he?”

  Don looked puzzled and then glanced down at his clothes. He chuckled. “No, son. The opposite. Come here, let me look at that nose.” He flipped the light on over the sink and tilted Richard’s face up. “Hmmmm. That must have been a heck of a punch. Not broken, though, thank goodness.” He let go and stepped back, leaning up against the counter. “You okay?”

  Richard shook his head. “Vlad hates me now.”

  “I think he’ll be all right in a day or two.”

  “No, he won’t, Dad. He said his father will probably get fired.”

  “That won’t happen. Not now.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do. I talked to a lot of people yesterday.” He put his hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Believe it or not, Vladimir’s dad is getting called into the Loyalty Review Board on a complaint sent in by someone who works for him. Not because of you.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.” Don nodded. “It happens sometimes. A young go-getter type who wants to move up. He realized Mr. White was prime for investigation, given his wife being born in Eastern Europe and a ‘modern’ artist, to boot. When he heard Vladimir’s dad mention that Teresa had been visiting friends at the Czech Embassy—socializing with the Communist delegation’s wives—he shot off a pretty vicious letter to the review board.

  “He even brought up that controversial State Department art show she’d been involved with in Prague and how Congress had decided it made us look bad overseas. And he threw in Truman’s comment about modern art being ‘the vaporings of half-baked lazy people.’ The guy’s a total jerk. He probably was hoping for Mr. White’s job.”

  “But what about the…”

  “The board didn’t even know about our FBI surveillance. And I was able to close that file tonight. Got the okay for it from Mr. Hoover because of something Vladimir’s mom told me.”

  “You went to see her?”

  “Yes.”

  Richard felt himself turn red. “She must hate me now, too.”

  “Well, she doesn’t like me very much, that’s for sure. But we talked for a long time. And she let me in on something she’d heard one of the Czech Embassy wives let slip. And that allowed us to do some good tonight.”

  “Really? What’s that, Dad?”

  Don rubbed his chin. “I…I can’t tell you, Rich. What little I’m going to say, I need to trust you to keep top secret, like a G-man would. Got it?”

  Richard nodded solemnly.

  “Let’s just say she told me about something that could help us decode chatter among some bad guys. And embassies don’t seem to pay no never mind to garbage trucks.” He grinned.

  Garbage truck. Garbageman overalls. His dad had gone undercover that night. He must have planted something or taken something. All right! “So does that mean everything is okay now, Dad?”

  “Mostly. For the time being.”

  Richard sighed in relief. “Dad, the other thing Vlad said is that his mom wouldn’t be able to go back to Czechoslovakia now. Did you fix that, too?”

  Don frowned. “No. It won’t be safe for her to visit Czechoslovakia now.”

  Richard caught his breath, thinking about all her Christmas traditions, her kraslice, her grandmother’s mezuzah. He knew how important her homeland and heritage were to Teresa. That would be a terrible loss for her. And that was his fault.

  “What…what about her cousin?” He choked out the question.

  “That’s up to people other than me. It’ll depend on the State Department, and maybe even the United Nations. But I think people are motivated to try interceding now.” Don straightened up. “To bed with you, young man. And I need to take a shower, bad. See you in the morning.”

  Vladimir didn’t show up at school. Richard didn’t see him around the neighborhood that weekend, either. But the next Saturday, he knocked on Richard’s front door.

  Heart pounding, Richard opened it. Vladimir held a big box.

  “Hey!” Richard said.

  “Hey,” answered Vladimir.

  There was a long, awkward pause.

  “How’s your nose?”

  “Fine.”

  Pause.

  “Want to come in?”

  “Can’t. Gotta catch a train.”

  “Where are you going?” Richard asked.

  “New York.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Don’t know,” Vladimir answered.

  Richard nodded, pressing his lips together to keep them from trembling in nervousness. “Going to see a show?”

  “Nope. Looking for a house.”

  “What?” Richard’s heart sank. “You’re…you’re moving back to New York City?”

  “Yup.” Vladimir nodded. “Dad’s decided to go back to the UN office. He thinks he can do more good up there.”

  “Is this because…because…”

  “Yeah, it is,” Vladimir answered bluntly. “But you know what, buddy boy? We didn’t like it much here. Except for you.”

  “Vlad, I’m so sorry.”

  “I know you are.” He paused. “Mom said to tell you that everybody makes mistakes. What matters most is what you do after them.” He shrugged. “Mom’s like that. Forgiving. She kills me.”

  Richard didn’t know what to say. He was losing his best friend. And it was his own stupid fault. “I…I…” Better to fly straight to the target. “I’ll miss you, Vlad.”

  Vladimir nodded. After a few beats of silence, he replied, “I’ll miss your old crumb-bum self, too.” He looked squarely into Richard’s eyes and waited until Richard returned the honest gaze. “You saved my life at that shooting, Rich. We’re even-steven.”

  Richard blinked back tears of guilt, of sorrow, of relief, and of gratitude for Vladimir’s largesse. Then he gasped. “Oh no. Wait. Will you still be able to apply for the page program?”

  Vladimir snorted. “I’m not sure what I think about working for the U.S. government now. Maybe I can do more good as a musician. Natalia’s been telling me there’s a lot of important protest stuff coming out of Beat poets and folk musicians.” He paused. “I don’t know. I can always apply. Most pages come from around the country and find a place to live in DC.”

  “You could stay here!”

  Vladimir smiled wryly. “Not sure how Mom would feel about that, given all that’s happened.”

  Of course. That boat had sailed. Richard squirmed inside and changed the subject. “What’s in the box?”

  “Sheet music for your latest lyrics. The one about the girl we fought over for Hoover.” Vladimir grinned. “We can still keep writing songs, you know. By mail.”

  Richard smiled back. “Promise?”

  “Yeah, sure!”

  “What else is in there?”

  “Some books you lent me. Like that Philbrick thing.” Vladimir put the box down on the stoop and pulled out I Led 3 Lives. “I have to be honest, I didn’t like it much. But I marked somet
hing I thought you should read again. Especially now.” He opened the book to the end, to a page pinned with a paper clip. It was an appendix titled “The Communist and the Liberal.”

  “Philbrick lists sixteen differences between the two, and he starts out saying, ‘Unfortunately, some people confuse Communists and liberals when, in truth, they are worlds apart.’”

  Vladimir looked up meaningfully at Richard before reading more: “‘Number one: a Communist believes the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the masses; a liberal has high regard for the value and integrity of the individual.’” He turned the page. “I especially like number nine.” Vladimir cleared his throat before continuing, “‘A Communist, although he pretends to be independent, always takes his orders from above; a liberal makes up his own mind.’”

  Vladimir closed the book. “It doesn’t matter if you’re liberal or conservative, man, just make your own decisions about what you believe.” He dropped it back in the box. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans. “Natalia mailed this to me right before…before…you know. Anyway, she asked me to give it to you. I almost threw it away, I’ve been so mad at you. But then I figured you needed it.”

  He handed over a small round pin. It was white with a green feather in its middle. “She said to remind you that Robin Hood was his own man, with his own beliefs. Of course, he did make some pretty questionable wardrobe choices.” Vladimir laughed.

  Richard stared down at the pin in his palm, not wanting to meet Vladimir’s gaze, knowing that would bring his friend’s good-bye.

  “Hey, Rich?”

  Slowly, Richard looked up.

  Vladimir smiled at him. “If I spot any hollow nickels up there in the Big Apple, you’ll be the first to know.” He punched Richard’s shoulder. “See ya.” He backed down the stairs. “Tell Gin to write our story someday. It’d be a heck of a scoop for an inquiring camera girl.”

  Afterword

  JOSEPH McCarthy rose to national celebrity in February 1950, during a speech to the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. The senator held up a piece of paper and brayed, “I have here in my hand a list of two hundred five—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party, and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”

  McCarthy’s accusation that our diplomatic corps was riddled with Communists came fast on the heels of the sensationalized trial of a former State Department official, Alger Hiss. He had been convicted of perjuring himself when he denied passing top secret reports to a Soviet spy ring during World War II. Hiss had first been identified by Elizabeth Bentley, a double agent who had named approximately 150 Americans as spying for the Soviets, including 37 federal employees.

  Elements of the Hiss trial read like pulp fiction. For instance, a Time magazine editor and confessed courier for the Soviets testified that Hiss had hidden strips of microfilm containing State Department documents stuffed inside pumpkins for him to pick up. The documents were linked to Hiss because of a quirk in type that would only occur from a malfunctioning key—like one found on his personal typewriter.

  In the same month, physicist Klaus Fuchs confessed to spying for the Soviets while he worked on the Manhattan Project developing the U.S. atom bomb. And by early summer, the Rosenbergs would be arrested—eventually convicted of handing the Soviets our nuclear technology and executed.

  Understandably, the country was jittery.

  After all, World War II and its horrors had ended only five years earlier. Since then, the Soviets had drawn an “iron curtain” across Europe, taking over Poland, arresting thousands in Hungary, and blockading East Germany and East Berlin. A Soviet-backed Communist coup had won Czechoslovakia. Reports of Russian dissidents being sent to Siberian gulags to labor and freeze to death were growing. And the Soviet Union had successfully detonated its first atomic bomb.

  Instead of postwar peace, the United States and the USSR were in a terrifying “Cold War” and atomic-weapons standoff.

  Also, in Asia, China had fallen to Communism. French-controlled Vietnam was desperately fighting Communist rebels. By summer, the Korean War’s carnage would start.

  The piece of paper McCarthy waved in front of that West Virginia audience was hooey, to use a 1950s term. Within days, he himself would backtrack, first claiming he’d left the list of 205 names in his other suitcase when journalists asked for clarification. Under scrutiny by the press, he reduced the number to 81, then to 57, and finally only specifically targeted four people. A Senate committee formed to investigate McCarthy’s claims also exonerated the State Department.

  But recent events had primed the United States for hysteria. McCarthyism—a term we still use today for unsubstantiated accusations used to attack people’s character and to suppress political opposition—was born.

  Across the nation and across professions, rules were adopted to require employees to sign loyalty oaths. Review boards investigated employees’ opinions, behaviors, and friendships. Civilian watchdog groups mushroomed and coordinated letter-writing campaigns against “un-American” influences. Books were scrutinized and taken off shelves if they contained “subversive” themes—ideas that seemed to advocate the overthrow of American laws or simply challenged our traditions and status quo attitudes. Key members of McCarthy’s Senate committee traveled to U.S. embassy libraries to purge suspect books—including an edition of Thomas Paine’s writings that had helped spark our own American Revolution in 1776.

  Meanwhile, McCarthy called hundreds of people before his Senate subcommittee. Often his accusations were nothing more than “guilt by association,” e.g., knowing Communists or attending social events sponsored by groups his staff suspected to be “Red” or “pinko”—leaning sympathetically toward “Red.” Typically, the only way for a witness to save his or her reputation was to “name names,” to identify others who might have dabbled in Communist or left-wing politics.

  The total effects of McCarthyism in terms of breeding fear and suspicion, ruining careers and friendships, are hard to tangibly measure. But historians estimate 12,000 people lost their jobs. The loyalty oaths and security reviews that ensued would harm a wide range of Americans—from the 300 screenwriters, directors, and actors blacklisted by Hollywood to the 3,000 sailors and longshoremen fired from cargo ships and docks. The damage lingered for years. An anthropology professor who lost her university post after McCarthy smeared her was unable to find another teaching job for eight years.

  How did McCarthy hold such sway over the nation’s thinking? A former marine from Wisconsin, full of bluster and backroom poker-game charisma, McCarthy somehow came across as an underdog “skunk-hunter,” the guy next door who would run the Red Menace out of town.

  He was a compulsive braggart, referring to himself, for instance, as “Tail Gunner Joe.” It was self-made legend. The reality my character Don Bradley explains to Richard was true—the shrapnel McCarthy claimed to carry in his leg from a mission was actually the result of falling during a hazing ritual.

  Journalists exposed the lie. Yet the American public didn’t seem to care. People were captivated by McCarthy’s rhetoric. They had grown angry and resentful of the East Coast establishment that had surrounded FDR. They delighted in McCarthy dismissing Ivy League–educated, New Deal liberals as “eggheads.” Americans loved his unsophisticated Midwestern bluntness and bad-boy image.

  McCarthy was also helped by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover had been “hunting Reds” for decades, starting in World War I, when he served in the alien enemy branch of the War Emergency Bureau. He was soon head of the FBI’s Radical Division, a counterterrorism office. A 25-year-old Hoover oversaw the deportation of dozens of radical Socialists following Russia’s Bolshevik revolution and a series of coordinated bombings in the United States during 1919. One night’s attack targeted several cabinet members, a Supreme Court justice, industrialist J. P. Morgan, five congr
essmen, the attorney general, and an FBI agent investigating a group of Italian anarchists.

  While this terrorist threat was very real, Hoover also arrested many who were simply labor union workers, or pacifists who had protested American troops going to fight in World War I. He started a watch list. His devotion to rooting out Communists steeled when a horse-drawn carriage filled with dynamite was detonated at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City in September 1920. Thirty-eight people died and 300 were injured. The American Anarchist Fighters claimed responsibility.

  Under Hoover, the FBI solved many crimes, hobbled mob bootlegging and violence, and caught a number of Nazi agents. But Hoover was also a rigid moralist and detested progressive lifestyles and ideology. He distrusted foreigners in general and did all he could to discredit Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. He hated First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her outspoken support of African Americans’ push for equality. Once asked why he never married, Hoover reportedly quipped, “Because God made a woman like Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  Much of Hoover’s power came from damaging files and tapes he amassed on members of Congress and White House staff, with which he essentially blackmailed them. Besides being a grotesque abuse of power, it was a stunning irony since Soviet agents used that tactic to turn Americans. Truman was one of the few presidents Hoover couldn’t find dirt on. Yet he was able to pressure Truman into creating the Federal Employee Loyalty Program that required background checks on federal workers, which under McCarthyism devolved into America’s “hunt for the disloyal.”

  By the time McCarthy rose to fame, Hoover had perfected his bureau’s surveillance techniques. Hopeful that the news spotlight McCarthy was generating would help the FBI destroy spy rings it had been investigating for years, Hoover instructed his agents to feed names and incriminating information about those individuals to McCarthy’s committee.

  Hoover praised McCarthy as earnest, an amateur boxer, “a vigorous individual who is not going to be pushed around.” The two became friends. They often spent afternoons together at nearby Maryland racetracks—despite federal workers losing their jobs for the same pastime.