Paul Robeson (163 page)

65
. PR to Clara Rockmore, Dec. 6, 1960, courtesy of Rockmore; ER to Freda Diamond, Dec. 15, 1960, RA (“strain”); ER to George Murphy, Jr., Dec. 16, 1960, Jan. 23, 1961, Murphy Papers, MSRC. Essie was not only preparing a new book, but still trying to resuscitate an old film script (ER to David Machin, March 16, 1961, RA).

As part of his musical research, PR corresponded with Edinburgh critic Christopher Grier (PR to Grier, Jan. 29, March 1, 1961; Grier to PR, Feb. 19, 1961, RA) and visited the musicologist Dennis Gray Stoll (Stoll to Robesons, Jan. 12, 1961; ER to Stoll, Jan. 23, 1961, RA). Robeson sent Grier some of his writing on the pentatonic scale. In his response (Feb. 19, 1960, RA) Grier expressed agreement with Robeson's high evaluation of Bartók but thought “it was too late” for “a return to the basic roots of a world universal folk pentatonic modal musical mother tongue” which PR had apparently called for; moreover, Grier felt “a return to ‘grass roots' is only valid in countries which have lacked or been outside the main stream of Western European musical culture.” On the other hand, Willie Ruff, the bassist, French-horn player, and professor of music at Yale, credits Robeson's insistence that the folk music of widely disparate countries has a common source, and his recognition of Bartók's importance, for having opened his own ears to musical interconnections (
The New Yorker
, April 23, 1984).

66
. PR, Jr.'s notes of his talk (not taped) with Harry Francis, Sept. 1982, courtesy PR, Jr. The FBI got wind of PR's invitation to visit Cuba, apparently as the personal guest of Castro, and Justice Department memos flew (FBI Main 100-12304-619, FBI New York 100-25857-4310). In the Soviet weekly,
Ogonek
, no. 14, April 1961, Robeson is quoted as saying about his future plans (which included possible trips to Ghana and Guinea): “I received an invitation to visit Cuba.… I don't see how I can do it all.”

67
. PR to Clara Rockmore, Jan. 30, Feb. 12, 13, 1961, courtesy of Rockmore; ER to Freda Diamond, Feb. 19, March 25, 1961, RA; PR to Helen Rosen, Feb. 11, 27, 1961, courtesy of Rosen; Claude Barnett to ER, April 14, 1961, CHS: Barnett; ER to George Murphy, Jr., Feb. 25, 1961,
MSRC: Murphy. Both Essie and Paul wrote letters in support of Kenyatta to the Release of Jomo Kenyatta Committee, Jan. 22, 1961, RA; A. Oginga-Odinga (vice-president of the Kenya African National Union) to PR, Dec. 22, 1960; Ambu H. Patel (organizing secretary of “Release” Committee) to Robesons, March 1, 1961, RA. Harry Francis remembered “how deeply affected” Robeson was by Lumumba's murder (Francis to PR, Jr., June 10, 1968, RA). The thirty-first birthday celebration of the
Daily Worker
, at the Albert Hall on March 5, 1961, at which Robeson sang and spoke, heard Communist Party General Secretary John Gollan protest the jailing of Kenyatta and the murder of Lumumba (
Daily Worker
, March 6, 1961). Paul had already left for Moscow, but Essie spoke at the big Trafalgar Square Anti-Apartheid rally to commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre, along with Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Barbara Castle, and Rev. Michael Scott (ER to Freda Diamond, March 25, 1961; Martin Ennals to ER, Feb. 24, 1961, RA). While still in Australia, the Robesons had been invited by Nnamdi Azikiwe personally to attend his inauguration on Nov. 16, 1960, as Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Federation of Nigeria (Azikiwe to Robesons, Oct. 26, 1960, RA). The script of “This Is Your Life, Flora Robson” is in RA (Robeson praised her work with him in
All God's Chillun
but penciled out the portion of the prewritten script that talked about her being “better” than Mary Blair in the American production); “thank-you” note from Flora Robson to PR, Feb. 18, 1961, RA; interview with Flora Robson, Sept. 1982.

68
. Interview with Herbert Marshall and Freda Brilliant, July 20, 1985; Neil Hutchinson to PR, Robeson, Nov. 15, 1960 (
Othello
); Herbert Marshall to Robesons, Dec. 25, 1960; Tony Richardson to ER, Feb. 8, 16, 27, 1961; Lewenstein to ER, Feb. 16, 1961; ER to Richardson, Feb. 22, 1961; ER to Lewenstein, Feb. 22, 1961—all in RA.

69
. PR to Clara Rockmore, Sept. 9, 1960 (HUAC), Jan. 30, 1961 (lengthy), Feb. 12, 13, 27, 1961, courtesy of Rockmore. Abe Moffat (president, National Union of Mine Workers) to ER, March 29, 1961, RA; ER to Kotov, Feb. 24, 1961, RA; Marie Matejkova to PR, Oct. 7, 1960; ER to Matejkova, Feb. 17, 1961; Walter Friedrich to Robesons, Feb. 16, 1961; ER to Friedrich, March 4, 1961—all in RA. Robeson had been set to participate in the Africa Freedom Day concert on April 16 in London and had also accepted an invitation to join the Tagore Conference, part of the Centenary Celebrations in London on May 5 (John Eber to PR, March 13, 1961; Omeo Gooptu to PR, March 20, 1961—both in RA).

70
. PR to Helen Rosen, Feb. 11, 1961, courtesy of Rosen.

71
. PR to Helen Rosen, Feb. 11, 24, 27 (twice), 1961, courtesy of Rosen; multiple conversations with Helen Rosen.

72
. Multiple conversations with Helen Rosen.

73
.
Neue Zeit
, April 27, 1961; Moscow
News
, April 1, 1961;
Ogonek
, no. 14, April 1961;
Izvestia
, March 24, 1961;
Bechernyaya Moskva
, March 21, 1961;
Trud
, April 2, 1961 (Zavadsky); Chernyshev to PR, March 24, 1961; McVicker (U.S. Embassy in Moscow to State Department), March 31, 1961, FBI Main 100-12304-(no file number); ER to PR, March 24, 1961, RA.

CHAPTER
24
BROKEN HEALTH
(1961–1964)

1
. The sketchy details of PR's suicide attempt are primarily derived from interviews with PR, Jr. (multiple), Helen Rosen (multiple), Dr. Alfred Katzenstein (July 26, 1986), and Dr. Ari Kiev (Dec. 14, 1982). According to PR, Jr. (ms. comments), “[I] asked to see two top-level Soviet officials with whom [I] discussed the entire matter of [my] father's collapse. When [I] asked them whether a blood test showed any evidence that Paul had been drugged, they answered in the negative and with considerable concern gently suggested that perhaps [I] had been under excessive strain and ought to get some rest. But when [I] asked them
about the party at the hotel, they became visibly agitated, saying that although many of the people at the party ‘were not Soviet people' (i.e., disloyal Russians), there was not concrete evidence against any of them. As for the party, everyone had assumed it was Robeson's party, so despite many complaints, no one had intervened.” Interview with Lord Ivor Montagu (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 1982; PR, Jr., interview with Harry Francis (notes courtesy of PR, Jr.); interview with Dr. Alfred Katzenstein, July 26, 1986 (“conflict”); Harry Francis was surprised (and hurt), because he had increasingly become a trusted go-between for Robeson (ER to Jerry Sharp, Aug. 30, 1961, RA). There are various versions of the overcoat incident: that Robeson pushed it away, that he accepted it and later returned it, that the overcoat belonged to an American art dealer or to Montagu himself. Unable to reconcile the sketchy memories involved, I have settled here for a “best guess.” Essie, too, seems to have believed the overcoat incident had been significant. In my interview with Jay and Si-lan Chen Leyda (May 26, 1985), they recalled meeting ER accidentally in a GDR airport (they thought the year was 1963 but were not positive; a letter from ER to family, Nov. 26, 1963, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe, reporting on meeting the Leydas, confirms that the year was 1963, and the place Leipzig). Upset, Essie had sat the Leydas down, said she “had to talk,” and proceeded to describe how in an airplane someone—“she thought an American”—had put a heavy coat over Paul's shoulders on seeing he didn't have one. “He was never the same thereafter,” the Leydas quote ER as telling them; startled at the gesture, he had reacted as if (in Jay Leyda's words) “chase and capture—and some sort of revenge” were at stake. What seems to have been meant as an act of kindness was apparently mistaken for the opposite by Robeson. Significant as a triggering event, the overcoat episode does not, of course, account for Robeson's underlying and pre-existing anxiety.

2
. The translated Russian medical report (dated April 4, 1964, RA) is an overall evaluation but makes specific reference to the 1961 period. PR, Jr.'s recollections are on a tape he made for me and in his ms. comments. Cedric Belfrage and his then wife, Jo Martin, are among those who saw Robeson with some frequency in the months before his departure for Moscow and did not detect any overt symptoms of disturbance. But Jo Martin, now a therapist herself, stressed the unpredictability of depressive mood swings; she feels certain of only one diagnosis: Robeson did not have the serious memory losses associated with the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, as others have suggested to me (interviews with Cedric Belfrage, May 29, 1984, and Dr. Josephine Martin, June 5, 1984).

3
. Several people who knew PR only casually have voiced the view that he collapsed “from conscience,” from disillusion with the Soviet Union. Herbert Marshall, in Moscow at the time but denied access to Robeson, is the strongest proponent of that view, and quotes Pera Attasheva, Sergei Eisenstein's widow and a friend of Robeson's since his first visit to Moscow in 1934, to the effect that “the full knowledge of what had been happening in the Soviet Union crashed in on him” (interview with Herbert Marshall and Fredda Brilliant, July 20, 1985). But Zina Voynow told me that her sister, Pera Attasheva, warned her that Marshall was not a reliable witness (conversation with Voynow, March 1987). Angus Cameron (interview, July 15, 1986) and Marie Seton (interviews, Aug.-Sept. 1982) are among those who have argued the broader view of disillusion with the historical process, Seton adding as causative the accumulated stress Robeson felt at being alienated from the black struggle at home, and from living with Essie on a daily basis. Interview with Sam Parks, Dec. 27, 1986 (moorings).

4
. Multiple conversations with PR, Jr.

5
. ER to Jessica Abt, April 19, 1961; ER to Ben Robeson, May 6, 1961 (“Feeling much better”); ER to Freda Diamond, May 9, 14, 1961 (“fell flat”); ER to Prof. Friedrichs, May 29, 1961; PR, Jr., to Marilyn Robeson, April 13, 27, May 5, 10, 1961; PR, Jr., to Ben Robeson, May 4,
1961—all in RA. PR, Jr., to Marian Forsythe, May 4, 1961; ER to Marian Forsythe, May 5, 1961—both courtesy of Paulina Forsythe. Larry Brown, too, wrote Helen Rosen that he was feeling “a little happier” after getting “a very cheerful letter” from ER (April 29, 1961, courtesy of Rosen), and ER's own chatty letter to Helen about how well both Pauls were doing was no more informative (April 28, 1961, courtesy of Rosen).

6
. PR, Jr., to Marilyn Robeson, May 5, 10, 1961; ER to Marilyn Robeson, May 31, 1961; ER to Diana Loesser, May 29, 1961—all in RA. Between medical duties, Essie kept busy writing articles and doing occasional broadcasts over Radio Afrika (Moscow). The mss. of her articles—including “Cuba Libre,” full of praise for Castro's revolution—are in RA. “So every dog has his day,” Essie wrote Freda Diamond (May 14, 1961, RA) in summary of her numerous activities—the phrase suggestive of psychological gratification beyond mere article-writing. To add to her pleasure, she received word in Aug. that the GDR had awarded her the Clara Zetkin Medal in honor of her “great merits in the struggle for peace.” “I am very proud of it,” she wrote Peggy Middleton (Rudolf Dolling to ER, Aug. 4, 1961; ER to Middleton, Aug. 17, 1961, RA). She accepted the medal in person two years later (see p. 518).

7
. ER to Helen Rosen, June 15, 1961, courtesy of Rosen; Nkrumah to PR, May 10, June 21, 1961, RA; Cheddi Jagan to PR, June 14, 1961, RA; Shirley Du Bois to Freda Diamond, Oct. 9, 1961, courtesy of Diamond. Soon after, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, responding to a letter from Essie, wrote to express his sorrow “to learn of the indisposition of my hero, Paul” (Azikiwe to ER, July 15, 1961, RA). Hearing that Robeson was back at Barveekha, Nkrumah, who was himself on a visit to Moscow, wrote again (“Dear Uncle Paul”) to express regret at not having any room in his schedule to visit him (Nkrumah to PR, July 25, 1961, RA). Predictably, the State Department was displeased when it learned of Nkrumah's offer of a professorship (Accra Embassy to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, April 5, 26, 1962; Rusk to Accra, April 19, 1962, reporting that Robeson was ill with “a nervous disorder” in Moscow, implying it was unlikely he would be able to assume the appointment). For the return to Moscow: ER to Ruth Gage Colby, July 4, 1961; ER to Shirley Du Bois, July 2, 1961; Du Bois to PR, July 25, 1961; ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, July 7, 1961; ER to Rockmores [May 1961], July 10, 1961—all in RA. In the middle of July, Essie came down with an attack of gallstones and was herself hospitalized for two weeks; deciding against surgery, the doctors put her on a restricted diet (ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, July 29, 1961; ER to Ed Barsky, Aug. 11, 1961—both in RA).

8
. ER to Helen and Sam Rosen, July 31, 1961, courtesy of Rosen; ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, Aug. 18, 19, 1961, RA; multiple conversations with Helen Rosen. Alphaeus and Dorothy Hunton also visited the Robesons briefly at Barveekha, along with John Pittman and his wife, Margrit; they had all come to attend the funeral of William Z. Foster in Moscow (ER to PR, Jr., and Marilyn, Sept. 5, 1961, RA). Shortly before he died, Foster had been at Barveekha for treatment (ER to Freda Diamond, May 14, 1961, RA).

9
. ER to Rosens, Sept. 5, 1961, RA; multiple conversations with Helen Rosen. In a letter to family, et al., ER later confirmed that it was Davison's doctor, Philip Lebon, who had put her in touch with the Priory (ER to family, et al., January 28, 1963, RA).

10
. Multiple interviews with Helen Rosen.

11
. The comments on Ackner were made to me by Dr. Max Fink, the ECT specialist (at the State University of New York, Stony Brook). Ackner to Perlmutter, Jan. 9, 1964; John Flood to Perlmutter, Jan. 17, 1964; Ackner to Dr. Baumann, Aug. 24, 1963, RA. Of the Priory doctors, Essie (at least in the beginning) was especially keen on John Flood. “
HE
is our man,” she wrote Helen Rosen enthusiastically. “He is Paul's choice, and he and Dr. A. [Ackner] are the
ONLY
ones he talks to” (Dec. 19, 1961, courtesy of Rosen). Although ECT treatment was not so benign a procedure then as currently, Helen Rosen says that Paul was “always highly sedated before being given one
and afterwards remembered nothing” (multiple interviews with Rosen). That Robeson did suffer at least some short-term memory problems from the ECT treatments is confirmed in ER to Helen Rosen, Dec. 14, 19, 1961, courtesy of Rosen. Apparently Robeson also got at least a few insulin treatments (ER to Rosens and Rubens, Oct. 11, 1962, courtesy of Rosen). Dr. Robert Millman and Dr. Theodore Tyberg helped me to evaluate Robeson's general medical history. Two phone conversations (June 1985) with Dr. Max Fink, of SUNY, Stony Brook, helped clarify the ECT specifics. “Attitudes today are different towards ECT,” Fink said, “but not dosage particularly.” Fink added, in a follow-up letter to me of July 4, 1986, that “in today's classification, the history and description of Paul Robeson's condition would most likely fit that of a patient with a delusional depressive disorder, probably bipolar disorder—for which condition convulsive therapy remains the most effective treatment.” The most recent reviews of the literature on ECT are Raymond R. Crowe, “Electroconvulsive Therapy—A Current Perspective,”
New England Journal of Medicine
(July 19, 1984); Philip G. Janicak, et al., “Efficacy of ECT: A Meta-Analysis,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
, March 1985; Richard Abrams,
Electroconvulsive Therapy
(Oxford 1988); A. J. Frances and R. E. Hales, eds.,
Review of Psychiatry
(APA, 1988), pp. 431–532. The current debate is conveniently summarized in “Electroconvulsive Therapy: An Exchange,”
The New York Review of Books
, May 30, 1985, in which William H. Nelson argues for the conclusion that “ECT is clearly superior to all other available forms of treatment of severe depression” and is especially impressive in achieving results with patients who had previously failed to respond to drug or psychological therapy. Nelson cites a survey of three thousand randomly selected psychiatrists (
Task Force Report #14: Electroconvulsive Therapy
[APA Press, 1978]) in support of his claim that two-thirds share his favorable disposition to ECT, and only 2 percent totally oppose the treatment. He acknowledged, though, that ECT “remains a controversial treatment,” and in answering him Marilyn Rice and Israel Rosenfield reiterate the opposing view that “proper testing” (in Rosenfield's words) will eventually reveal that ECT treatment does produce permanent brain damage even though it is useful in treating severe depression. According to Dr. Max Fink, the arguments presented by Rice and Rosenfield “have been assessed repeatedly, and rejected; the latest is by the 1985 NIH Consensus Conference on Electroconvulsive Therapy” (Fink to me, July 4, 1986). Even today, according to Fink, the “efficacy rate” for a condition like Robeson's is higher with convulsive therapy (greater than 75 percent in controlled studies) than with an alternative drug regimen (“The combination of an antidepressant drug like imipramine or amitriptyline and an antipsychotic drug like perphenazine or fluphenazine” has an efficacy rate of less than 65 percent). As regards psychotherapy, a major study released in the spring of 1986 concludes that some forms are as effective as drugs in treating depression (
The New York Times
, May 14, 1986)—an option not used with PR except peripherally in 1965. The study, however, is based on a small sample and involves ambulatory, non-psychotic, and mildly depressed individuals; at the time he was admitted to the Priory, Robeson's illness was more acute. According to Dr. Max Fink (letter to me, July 4, 1986), “There is no study suggesting that any form of psychotherapy is even moderately successful with patients with bipolar disorder, or with major depressive disorders with delusions.” For a less positive view on ECT than Fink's (though it cites him as a leading authority), see the popularized account in Mark S. Gold,
The Good News About Depression
(Villard Books, 1987), especially pp. 231–32. Gold's exultant listing of the promising new drug therapies currently available makes for poignant reading in relation to the limited treatment options in Robeson's day.