The Return of Lanny Budd

by Upton Sinclair

‘Did you have any particular person you expected to see in Stubendorf?’

  ‘I had a number of persons, Citizen Examiner. I had visited Stubendorf off and on many times. General Graf Stubendorf had been a friend of mine in the old days, and so had his protégé, the pianist and composer Kurt Meissner. I did not know if I would find them there, but I hoped to get track of them’.

  ‘And did you succeed?’

  ‘I learned that Graf Stubendorf was living by the Tegernsee, and I learned that Kurt Meissner was in the Harz Mountains. I afterward visited them both’.

  ‘That Meissner is the same man who was recently killed in Bavaria?’

  ‘That is the one’.

  ‘And you betrayed him to the American Army?’

  ‘No, Citizen Examiner, I did not betray him. Officers of the American Army told me what they knew about Kurt Meissner’s activities to revive nazism. Naturally I was opposed to that—I have considered it my duty to oppose nazism everywhere and in every possible way. So I went to Kurt Meissner and told him what the American Army had learned about him and persuaded him to give up his Nazi activities and come over to the American side. He did that, and some of his Nazi colleagues presumably murdered him—at least that is what I was told’.

  ‘And he told the American Army where a lot of gold was hidden?’

  ‘That is true’.

  ‘And you got a part of that gold—is it not so?’

  ‘No, Citizen Examiner, I did not get any of it, and the idea never crossed my mind. I have told you how I make my living, and it is not by looking for treasure’.

  ‘And did Kurt Meissner tell you where other treasure was buried?’

  ‘He did not. If he had done so I would have immediately told the American Army, and they would have got the treasure. In the case of valuable objects which are recovered and which can be identified, it has been the practice of the Army to return them to their rightful owners. In the case of gold bullion which was Nazi state treasure, it is turned over to the Interallied Reparations Agency and distributed to those nations from which the Nazis had looted gold. I have no doubt that the Soviet Union received its proper share’.

  ‘You understand, Budd, I am writing down what you are telling me, and you have given your word to tell me the truth. If you tell me what is not true, you will pay a severe penalty’.

  ‘Every word that I have told you is the truth, Citizen Examiner. I have been told by persons who are hostile to the Soviet Union in their minds that in these interrogations the examiner does not want to hear the truth, he wants to hear what he himself believes. I am doing you the honour to assume that this is not the case’.

  ‘Budd, I thank you’, was the reply.

  The watchful Lanny decided that what they were after was more treasure, and he prepared himself for a long and hard siege on that subject. If he had had any such information he would have given it in order to save his life; but he did not have it. He felt that his life might be in grave danger on that account.

  V

  The next question was, ‘Did you know the family of this Kurt Meissner?’

  ‘I knew them all very well’, Lanny said. ‘I had visited them off and on in their home near Stubendorf. There was Elsa, the mother, and there were eight children; they were well brought-up children, and when I went to see them I always took them presents’.

  ‘Did you meet any of Kurt’s family on your last trip to Stubendorf?’

  ‘No, they had all left. They were in the Harz Mountains. I went there, but I did not meet them there. Kurt was very antagonistic to me at that meeting’.

  ‘Did you meet any of them anywhere else?’

  ‘Yes, I met the oldest son, whose name is Fredrich; we called him Fritz. He was a student in East Berlin, and he came to see me in West Berlin. He revealed to me that he had become dissatisfied with his father’s Nazi ideas, and he begged me to do what I could to persuade his father to drop his activities. I promised that I would see Kurt and try to dissuade him, and I did so’.

  ‘And what was the result of your efforts?’

  ‘He promised to cease his pro-Nazi activities, but he did not keep that promise’.

  ‘He had that large amount of gold in his keeping at this time?’

  ‘No, I think he got it later’.

  ‘How did you find out about it?’

  ‘The American military authorities decided that he knew about it, and they were about to arrest him. I asked them to let me talk to him and persuade him to renew his promises and keep them. I went to see him, and then he told me how the gold was hidden’.

  ‘You are sure he did not tell you about any gold or other treasure, other than what the American Army found?’

  ‘He did not tell me of any other’.

  ‘Did he tell the American Army?’

  ‘That I am not able to answer. I never asked them or discussed the subject again. You see, I live in the United States, and I come to Berlin only occasionally, and always on my business as an art expert’.

  ‘You are the man who speaks over R.I.A.S. under the name of Herr Fröhlich?’

  ‘That is correct’.

  ‘And you are an enemy of the Soviet Union’.

  ‘I deny most emphatically that I am an enemy of the Soviet Union or of the Russian people. I am opposed to some of the regime’s present policies’.

  ‘What are those policies?’

  ‘Citizen Examiner, there would be no advantage in our going into a political discussion. I have no doubt that Radio Berlin has made recordings of my few talks over R.I.A.S. I am an American, and I believe what Americans believe; that is, in democratic government’.

  ‘You have denounced the government of the Soviet Union?’

  ‘I have expressed my disapproval of all governments that are dictatorships and are not based upon the will of the people’.

  ‘Then you presume to say that the people of the Soviet Union do not approve of their government?’

  ‘I am quite sure that the people of the Soviet Union have never had an opportunity to say whether they approve of their government or not. Therefore I do not know, and I do not think that anyone else knows. But, as I have told you, Citizen Examiner, it is futile for us to discuss this subject. You and I were brought up in different worlds, and we have wholly different views of political and economic affairs. The great Karl Marx understood that men’s opinions are determined by their economic environment, and you must not expect me to be superior to the laws of social determinism’.

  VI

  That was a tactful way to put it, and the Citizen Examiner condescended to change the subject. ‘You have been permitted to visit our great Stalin, I am informed’.

  ‘That is correct, Citizen Examiner. I have had that honour twice’.

  ‘Will you tell me the circumstances?’

  ‘Gladly. The first occasion was early in ninteen forty-two. I had been in Hong Kong and had fled from the Japanese with my wife. We crossed China and were flown to Moscow. It happened that I was a representative of President Roosevelt, and there was an exchange of cablegrams with Washington. Anyhow, I was received by Marshal Stalin’.

  ‘Where were you received?’

  ‘In some building in the Kremlin’.

  ‘You had an opportunity to visit Marshal Stalin in his home?’

  ‘Citizen Examiner, I was not told whether it was his home or not. I was driven into the Kremlin at night and I saw nothing. I was taken into a building, and all that I saw was a passageway and then an oval-shaped room, all white with gold trimmings. Marshal Stalin came into the room, and we sat at a large table and talked for an hour or two. He was very friendly and frank; and I think that if you could consult him he would express a wish that you should be the same’.

  The young subordinate of the great Marshal did not see fit to follow up this lead. ‘What were the circumstances of the second interview?’

  ‘The second interview was four years later, about a year after the end of the war. This time I came as a repre
sentative of President Truman. I was flown from Washington to Moscow, and I was received in the same oval-shaped room. I remember being struck by the fact that everything in the room appeared to be exactly the same. There were several telephones, each a different colour, and I assumed that this was in order to distinguish one private line from another. I will describe other details if you wish me to. It may be, of course, that you yourself have been in that room’.

  ‘No such honour has been extended to me. What was the character of your second interview?’

  ‘It was courteous and friendly, exactly as in the first case. I got the impression of a man quiet, self-contained, and friendly to meet personally’.

  ‘Yet you went back and carried a report to the warmonger Truman that Marshal Stalin was planning an attack upon your capitalistic country’.

  ‘I carried no such report, Citizen Examiner, and anyone who has told you that has told you falsely. I reported to the President that Marshal Stalin had stated to me positively and in great detail that he intended to carry out to the full all the agreements that had been made at Yalta and Potsdam’.

  ‘But you reported that you did not believe that he would keep those agreements’.

  ‘I reported nothing of the sort, Citizen Examiner. I had no basis for any such statement. When I was asked my opinion, I said that, and added that only time would show’.

  ‘But you reported that Marshal Stalin had been personally friendly to you’.

  ‘He was not only friendly, he was cordial, in a talk that lasted about three hours’.

  ‘And yet you came away from that interview and used your knowledge of Marshal Stalin and his place of residence to help conspirators against his life’.

  If the inquisitor had pulled out a gun and taken a shot at Lanny, he could not have been more greatly shocked. ‘Um Gottes Willen! he exclaimed. ‘Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘You intend to deny that you were involved in a conspiracy to take Marshal Stalin’s life?’

  ‘I deny it with all the emphasis that is possible. No such idea ever crossed my mind, and I never heard of it until this moment’.

  ‘You deny that your trip to Poland was to meet such conspirators and give them information and money?’

  ‘I deny it most emphatically. I met no one in Poland except in Stubendorf, and there I talked with no one expect persons who might be able to tell me where Kurt Meissner was living and what had become of the paintings which had been in Schloss Strubendorf’.

  VII

  The investigator wrote with painful slowness, and that gave Lanny plenty of time to think. His mind was in a tumult. So that was what they were going to try to put over on him! He knew that nothing could be of more deadly significance. The preposterousness of the charge had nothing to do with the matter. The preposterousness of any charge never had anything to do with the making of it by the Reds. The preposterousness of a charge no more kept them from making it than it had Adolf Hitler; and Hitler had said that the bigger the lie the easier it was to get it believed.

  What counted with Lanny was the revelation of their intentions toward himself. They were going to pin that charge on him and make him confess it to the world; and when he had confessed it there could come only one ending, which was the ending of his life. For lesser charges there might be lesser penalties, even pardon; but for plotting against Stalin’s life there could be no forgiveness and only one penalty.

  The man continued, ‘You intend to maintain that attitude in spite of all the evidence?’

  ‘Citizen Examiner, there can be no evidence as to any such absurdity’.

  ‘We have the evidence, Accused Budd, and you will be confronted with it’.

  ‘If you have any evidence, Citizen Examiner, I assure you in advance that it is fraudulent. It is a frame-up’.

  Lanny used the German word Erfindung, and they were delayed for a time because the official was not familiar with that word. Lanny had to invent some other way of saying it, and then the examiner had to figure out a way to put it down in Russian. ‘Accused Budd, what will you say when I inform you that Fritz Meissner has confessed fully to his share of the crime?’

  ‘What I say, Citizen Examiner, is that if Fritz Meissner confessed any such thing it was because he was tortured beyond endurance’.

  The inquisitor brought his Faust down on the desk with a bang. ‘You dare to accuse the government of the Soviet Union of employing torture?’

  It was truly funny, but Lanny knew it was no joke, and he had no impulse to laugh. On the contrary, he was praying as hard as he could. At every respite during the writing he was saying to himself over and over again, ‘God is helping me. God is helping me’. Now he said, ‘Citizen Examiner, when I was brought to this place I was put in a tiny box and frozen almost to death; then the temperature was changed and I was almost roasted to death; then I was brought into this room and had a glaring light turned into my eyes. If that is not considered torture in the Soviet Union you must tell me what it is’.

  ‘I will show you what it is’. The man pushed the button and the light flamed back into Lanny’s eyes.

  VIII

  Too late Lanny realised that he had got in God’s way on this occasion. He had talked too much. And he could think of nothing to do now but to clap his hands over his eyes and say, ‘Citizen Examiner, I shall answer no more questions until the light is turned off’.

  ‘You will find that we have ways of making you talk’, announced the other. And he proceeded at once to prove the truth of this. ‘You deny that you have conspired with Hetman Skoropodsky?’

  Lanny realised in a flash that if he sat quietly while such questions were asked he would accumulate a mass of guilt against himself. It would be assumed that every silence was an admission, and at all hazards he must not make any such admissions. ‘Herr Gott! Is he still alive?’

  ‘You know him then?’

  ‘I never knew him. He is merely a name to me. I understood that he was a Ukrainian White Guardist. I have never had anything to do with him’.

  ‘Nor with any of his followers?’

  ‘Never so far as I had any idea’.

  ‘You don’t know a man named Lilivitch?’

  ‘I never heard the name. It doesn’t sound like a real name to me’.

  ‘You never handed him a large sum of money to be used to bribe a spy inside the Kremlin?’

  ‘I most certainly never did anything of the sort’.

  ‘You deny that you gave him five thousand American dollars?’

  ‘I most certainly deny it’.

  ‘You will maintain that denial in the face of his written confession?’

  ‘I will most certainly maintain it. I will say that he is lying, possibly under torture’.

  ‘You intend to repeat that insult to the Soviet Union?’

  ‘Citizen Examiner, I am being tortured at this moment, and I cannot deny the evidence of my own eyes. If you will come and sit by me, you will have the evidence of your eyes. So let us try to be sensible with each other’.

  ‘It is not for you to give instructions, Accused Budd’.

  ‘Citizen Examiner’, said Lanny, ‘we are men of culture, and we should treat each other with correctness. I do not know how much you have had to do with the accumulating of this evidence. It may be that it has been handed to you and you have been told that it is the truth. If so, then of course I have no right to blame you; all I can do is to assure you in all sincerity that this is the most preposterous piece of fiction I have ever heard. I do not believe in assassination, I have never believed in it, and I have never knowingly had anything to do with any person who believed in it’.

  ‘We have the evidence, and you will see in the end that it is futile to deny it. You will fare much better if you make a full and frank statement and give us the names of all persons who were your fellow conspirators in this plot’.

  ‘I assure you, Citizen Examiner, that if I knew of such a plot I would consider the men to be evil and I would give
you their names. I cannot give you what I have not got, and you are simply wasting your time in asking me questions about this matter’.

  ‘What will you say when we confront you with the signed testimony of Fritz Meissner?’

  ‘I will say what I have already put into this record, that if Fritz Meissner made any such statement he must have been forced to make it. It is not true, and under no circumstances will I say otherwise’.

  IX

  There was no way to keep track of time or to estimate it. The questioning went on and on, wandering from one subject to another without apparent order or purpose. Names were brought in, Russian names, Polish names, German names. Lanny would say dully, ‘I never heard of him’; it became a formula, very irritating to the questioner. He would express his annoyance, and Lanny, anxious to avoid a scolding, would find a different phrase, ‘I do not know the man’, or ‘I have never met any such person’.

  All this time the electronic particles, or waves, whichever of these compose light, were being hurled in a tremendous blast at Lanny’s eyes. He kept his hands over his eyes as long as he could, and this had the effect of turning the energies of light into those of heat. His hands became hot and then the eyes underneath. When the muscles of his arms became utterly exhausted the hands would drop and the light would smite his eyes. He was not permitted to turn his head away; he would receive a sharp order to look at the inquisitor, and when he protested he could not see anyone, he was told that he was being insolent and that he would make his lot harder if he persisted in that course.

  ‘Citizen Examiner’, said Lanny, ‘I desire to enter a formal protest against being obliged to submit to examination under this light. I request you to notify the Prosecutor of my protest’.

  ‘The Prosecutor will pay no attention to your protest’.

  ‘Nevertheless I demand that my protest be entered on the record and be presented to him’.

  ‘Very well’, replied the man; and he wrote—but he might as well not have written, because Lanny never got any result from that petition.