MR. RAVENNER: You were found unfit for service on what grounds, Mr. Shepherd?
MR. SHEPHERD: Psychological grounds.
MR. RAVENNER: You were determined unfit for reasons of mental and sexual deviance, is that correct?
MR. SHEPHERD: I was found only sane enough for the Civilian Services, sir. My mental capacities were deemed adequate for handling the country's most important national treasures. That was the determination of the Selective Service board.
(Mr. Nixon here entered the hearing and was seated near Mr. Velde. Brief discussion between Mr. Nixon and Mr. Velde.)
MR. RAVENNER: Did you or did you not at that time believe membership in the Communist Party was inimical to the interests of the United States?
MR. SHEPHERD: To be honest, sir, I didn't think one way or another about it. I never met any Communist Party members in this country.
MR. RAVENNER: Can you give me an answer 'Yes' or 'No'?
MR. SHEPHERD: Does a citizen have a right to be uncertain until further informed?
MR. RAVENNER: Let me inform you. A member of the Communist Party is a person who seeks the overthrow of the government of the United States by force and violence in this country. Is that something you approve of?
MR. SHEPHERD: I've never sought to overthrow the United States. Is that an answer?
MR. RAVENNER: It is a form of answer. Now, I understand that you were born in the United States, but chose to spend most of your life in another country. Is that correct?
MR. SHEPHERD: My mother was Mexican. We moved back there when I was twelve. She threatened to leave me by the tracks if I put up a fuss. So yes sir, I chose to go.
MR. RAVENNER: And after many years, what made you want to live here again?
MR. SHEPHERD: That's a complicated question you ask. It would take me a good while to answer, and you said you wanted to get this over quickly.
MR. RAVENNER: Well, then, let me ask an easier question. Did you associate with Communists while living in Mexico?
(A long hesitation from the witness, prior to answering.)
MR. SHEPHERD: That is not an easier question. Again, it could take some explanation.
MR. RAVENNER: Then let me make it easier still. We have papers here that show you were granted travel documents to come here in November 1939, as a travel companion and assistant to a man called to testify before this same committee. The Dies Committee, as it was called then. Our documents say a Harrison Shepherd, born 1916 in Lychgate, Virginia, was a member of the party that was granted a travel visa. Are you that person?
MR. SHEPHERD: I am.
MR. RAVENNER: Then we may assume these documents refer to you. That you were then living in the Mexican headquarters of the well-known Communist leader of Stalin's Bolshevik revolution, Leonadovich Trotsky.
MR. SHEPHERD: I beg your pardon?
MR. RAVENNER: Answer the question.
MR. SHEPHERD: I only want to clarify. Do you mean Lev Davidovich Trotsky, who led a worldwide movement to oppose Stalin? He was called by your Committee as a friendly witness, sir.
MR. RAVENNER: Just answer the question. Did you work for this Trotsky?
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER: In what capacity?
MR. SHEPHERD: As his cook, his secretary-typist, and sometimes cleaner of rabbit cages. But usually the Commissar preferred handling the manure himself.
MR. WOOD: Here, I'll have order!
MR. RAVENNER: You say you were his secretary. Do you mean to say you helped prepare documents whose purpose was to arouse a Communist insurrection?
(The witness did not answer.)
MR. VELDE: Mr. Shepherd, you may take the Fifth Amendment if you wish.
MR. SHEPHERD: I don't know how to answer, when you say 'helped prepare documents.' I was a typist. Sometimes I could hardly understand the words in those documents. I don't have any expertise in politics.
MR. NIXON: Is the welder of a bomb casing innocent of the destruction it causes, just because he doesn't understand physics?
MR. SHEPHERD: It's a very good question. Our munitions plants make arms we sell to almost every country. Are we now on both sides of all the wars?
MR. RAVENNER: Mr. Shepherd, you are instructed to answer 'yes' or 'no' to all further questions. One more outburst will land you in contempt of Congress. Did you help prepare Communist documents for this Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik revolution?
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER: And are you still in contact with Comrade Trotsky?
(Very long pause.)
MR. SHEPHERD: No.
MR. RAVENNER: Did you come to the United States directly from his employ?
(Pause.)
MR. RAVENNER: Yes or no?
MR. SHEPHERD: Sorry. Could you clarify the question?
MR. RAVENNER: Yes or no. Your last place of residence, prior to entering the United States in September, 1940, was the Trotskyite World Revolutionary Headquarters on Morelos Street, Coyoacan, outside of Mexico City.
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER: Is it true that in that same place, several extreme acts of espionage and violence were committed, all directly linked with the Secret Police of Joseph Stalin?
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes. Committed against us.
MR. RAVENNER: You say you have no head for politics, so try to focus your powers, if you will, on one simple question. From that headquarters, did you come here on a program of overthrowing the United States government, however poorly you may have understood it? I want to hear one word, sir. Yes, or no.
MR. SHEPHERD: No.
MR. RAVENNER:: For what purpose, then, did you come to the United States?
MR. SHEPHERD: (Pause.) Yes or no?
MR. RAVENNER: You may elaborate in this instance.
MR. SHEPHERD: I came to deliver paintings to museums in New York City.
MR. NIXON: Well, that's some delivery job if he's still here after ten years. Even Sears Roebuck doesn't generally take that long.
(Laughter in the gallery.)
MR. RAVENNER: Tell me, what was the nature of these paintings?
MR. SHEPHERD: Oil-based paint applied to canvas.
(Laughter in the gallery.)
MR. WOOD: Mr. Shepherd, we are not fools. We can see you're attempting to mock this hearing. This is the last time I will warn you to answer the question as directly as you can. What sort of paintings did you smuggle into the United States?
MR. SHEPHERD: Surrealist. All transported with legal customs documents. The papers are still on file at the museums, I expect.
MR. RAVENNER: And were these paintings by the Mexican painter Diego Rivera, who is well known as a dangerous Communist agitator?
MR. SHEPHERD: No.
MR. RAVENNER: No?
MR. WOOD: Remember, Mr. Shepherd, that you have sworn an oath.
MR. SHEPHERD: Not Mr. Rivera's paintings, no.
(Congressmen Wood and Verne spent some moments conferring with Mr. Ravenner and looking through documents.)
MR. RAVENNER: Were these paintings from the household of Diego Rivera, or his possessions? Answer the question fully.
MR. SHEPHERD: They were painted by his wife, the artist Frida Kahlo.
MR. RAVENNER: Then you admit, you knowingly associated with the Communist militants, Mr. and Mrs. Diego Rivera?
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER:: For what purpose?
MR. SHEPHERD: In the instance you mention, to oversee the transport of her paintings to galleries in New York.
MR. RAVENNER: They hired you to carry crates across the border into the United States. Where you have now remained nearly ten years. My documents say there were eight crates altogether, some of them too large for a man to lift by himself.
MR. SHEPHERD: That's right. We used hand trucks to get them off the trains.
MR. RAVENNER: Did you know precisely what you were transporting? Did you pack these crates yourself?
MR. SHEPHERD: No. I had a roster with the na
mes of the paintings.
MR. RAVENNER: You smuggled large crates of unknown content into this country? From the headquarters of some of the most dangerous Communists in any country touching our borders. Is that correct?
(The defendant conferred briefly with the identified friend, Arthur Gold.)
MR. SHEPHERD: Congressmen, nothing exploded.
MR. WOOD: What say?
MR. SHEPHERD: I delivered artworks. You're hinting at a crime that was not committed.
MR. WOOD: Mr. Shepherd, I will put to you then a different question. Could this so-called artwork also be called Communist propaganda?
MR. SHEPHERD: In my opinion, sir? Art takes its meaning in the eye of the beholder.
MR. RAVENNER: Could you state an answer in plain English? What was the purpose of the concealed objects you transported into this country?
MR. SHEPHERD: May I answer freely?
MR. RAVENNER: In your own words, yes. All right.
MR. SHEPHERD: The purpose of art is to elevate the spirit, or pay a surgeon's bill. Or both, really. It can help a person remember or forget. If your house doesn't have many windows in it, you can hang up a painting and have a view. Of a whole different country, if you want. If your spouse is homely, you can gaze at a lovely face and not get in trouble for it.
(Laughter in the gallery.)
It can be painted on a public wall or locked in a mansion. The first paintings Mrs. Kahlo ever sold went to one of your famous film stars, Edward G. Robinson. Art is one thing I do know about. A book has all the same uses I mentioned, especially for the house without enough windows. Art by itself is nothing, until it comes into that house. People here wanted Mrs. Kahlo's art, and I carried it.
(Silence in the gallery.)
You asked me why I've stayed here so long. I can try to say. People have a lot of color and songs in Mexico, more art than they have hopes, it often seemed to me. Here, I found people bursting with hope but not many songs. They didn't sing, they turned on the radio. They wanted stories, like anything. So I decided to try my hand at making art for the hopeful. Because I wasn't any good at the other thing, manufacturing hopes for the artful. America was the most hopeful place I'd ever imagined. My neighbors were giving over their hairpins and door hinges to melt down for building the good ship America. I wanted to give her things too. So I stayed here.
(Quiet in the gallery for some time. Of an unusual kind, the type to hear a pin drop.)
MR. RAVENNER: You say that Edward G. Robinson is an associate of Communists?
MR. SHEPHERD: I'm sorry, I might have made a mistake. It was a long time ago. It might have been J. Edgar Hoover who bought the paintings.
(Considerable laughter in the gallery.)
MR. WOOD: Order!
MR. RAVENNER: Now see here, if you continue to mock this hearing we will hold you in contempt of Congress. I am going to ask you a series of questions to which you will answer Yes or No. One word beyond that will get you removed to the jail house. Do you understand me?
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER: Do you now, or did you ever, work for Communists in Mexico?
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER: Have you yourself written works about foreign people, men disloyal to their leaders, with the intention of distributing these tracts widely in the United States?
(Pause.)
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER: Have you been in contact with Communist revolutionaries since coming to the United States?
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes.
MR. RAVENNER: I have here a good deal of evidence, in print, news articles and so forth, to the effect your books are being read in Communist China. That you opposed the use of the atomic bomb. I have evidence you made the following statement. I want you to listen carefully, and then confirm or deny it. And here I quote Mr. Shepherd: "Our leader is an empty sack. You could just as well knock him over, put a head with horns on a stick, and follow that. Most of us never choose to believe in the nation, we just come up short on better ideas." Mr. Shepherd, are these your words?
MR. SHEPHERD: A few among many, yes. In a story.
MR. RAVENNER: Mr. Shepherd, I am asking a simple question. Did you write these words? You are asked only to confirm or deny.
MR. SHEPHERD: Yes. Those are my words.
MR. RAVENNER: Mr. Wood, gentlemen, that is all I have. This hearing is finished.
Afterward, 1959
by Violet Brown
The Asheville Trumpet, July 16, 1951
Obituary
Harrison Shepherd, 34, perished June 29 while swimming in the ocean near Mexico City. A resident of Asheville, the deceased had traveled to Mexico under an assumed name while under investigation for crimes including dismissal from the Department of State for treasonous actions, misrepresentation of qualifications and fraud. He wrote two books, had no record of military service and was well known as a Communist. Authorities cite no evidence of foul play and believe he took his life. Reared in a broken home, Shepherd leaves no survivors. No services are planned.
The most important part of a story is the piece of it you don't know. He said that plenty. It would be no surprise if he asks for that put on his gravestone, if there is to be one. There you see. Hangs the tale, and still yet more to find out.
You believe a thing is hopeless. You believe a book burned, yet the words persist. In this case twice, first in Mexico, his notes and drafts all taken by police after the murder, meant for destruction but precariously rescued. Then later on given to me for burning, and not burned. You believe a life ended, but the newsmen can't make that true by saying so, even saying it many times. It's dying makes a death, and living makes life.
The salvation of all, the life or the tale either one, I'll come to directly. First the notebooks. For you see I hadn't burned them, the day I was asked. He said I could only stay on working with him if we disposed of every word, his life entire if you asked me. I saw what he meant to do that day, and why. He took those writings to be evidence for his hanging. But I believed it could be otherwise, evidence for the good in him. I had no idea what his notes contained, but I knew the man.
I took what he pulled off his shelves that day, and while he was upstairs looking for more, I stuffed it all in the big leather mail pouch. My heart cantered, I have no nerve for crime. But that day, found some. By the time he was watching me out the upstairs window, I was half done. You should see what all I threw in that tar barrel: wastepaper, advertising supplements, the whole trash basket under my table, and more. Quite a few ugly letters I'd set aside. Things that deserved to be gone.
His notebooks went home with me to Mrs. Bittle's, and there they stayed in a box in my wardrobe, hidden under some knitting wool. Let those men come and search the place, was my thought, for they'd not have a second look at a box of knitting wool and needles. Most will run from the sight. I thought I would only keep it there until Mr. Shepherd changed his mind. Or until such time as needed, to prove he'd done no wrong. No such time came, as far as I could see, though I still had no idea what he'd written in a natural lifetime of little books. A nerve for that sort of crime I did not have, to poke my nose in a living man's diary.
I didn't do that until coming back from Mexico. At first, a glance was all I could endure, looking for certain dates and such, to make a proper obituary. But of course that did not come to pass, they ran their own little useless piece, so my researching wasn't any excuse for long. But still I went on glancing, a page here and thither. Time and again I took up his notebooks knowing they were not meant for my eyes, yet my eyes went on looking, many were the reasons. Some of them plain by now, I surely think.
Going to Mexico, that had been my idea. I didn't like to say so afterward, due to events. But at the time I proposed it, things had come to a point. After the hearing he'd stopped writing, for good he said. Instead he bought a television set and let its nonsense rule his days. Mook the Moon Man comes on at four, and so on. I still came to his house twice a week
, but the mail was not worth answering. My concern wasn't to take his money, I'd found another job. I could have left him alone, but feared to do it.
One day he sat staring at the advertisements and declared he hated what America looked like now. Sofas and chairs with little pointy legs. Like a woman in high heels, he said, walking around smiling with a bad backache. And those metal funnel-hat lamps on poles, they look like they want to electrocute you. He missed beauty.
I asked him, why not go to Mexico then, I reckon it is prettier there. He said he couldn't unless I went with him. Thinking that would be that. But I said, "All right, I will call the air-port right now." What possessed me? I can't say.
He was so changed by then, even his looks. Whatever used to show up for its workaday there inside him, it had shut off the lights and gone on home. He was fagged out in the chair as usual, in his old gray flannels, smoking, never taking his eyes off the set. Captain Video was on, some underwater band of thieves fighting. They had Al Hodge by the neck, fixing to drown him. I asked him whether we ought to go back to Merida, because he'd seemed to like it there. He said no, let's go to Isla Pixol so he could dive in the ocean, because that was all that made him happy as a boy. That was a grave moment, I see that now. Full of all that was to come, and me with no inkling. But I believe he did. Have an inkling.
That was in April, a year and some past the hearing. A Monday or Thursday, for those were the afternoons I still came. A joyful month if there ever was one, you'd think. Even a feather duster will lay an egg in April. But such generous feeling had gone from the land. No real work remained for me at Mr. Shepherd's after the hearing, and I'd commenced looking for another income, disliking to be any burden. I was floored to find the city wouldn't hire me. Not at the clerk's office, though I'd once kept that whole place afloat. Not at the library where I'd volunteered. I can't be a government employee due to previous association with the wrong element, they told me, it is all in print, and nothing to be done about it. It was the same at the Teachers College. After some months of asking, a hateful thing in itself, an acquaintance from the Woman's Club consented to recommend me as a bookkeeper at Raye's Department Store. It was a low position, mornings only, and I had to work in a basement office. They could take no chance on a customer seeing my face.
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