Rebirth of a Realist

Rebirth of a Realist excerpts and comments from the works of David Truskoff
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Yes, As Yogi Berra once said, " it is deja vu all over again." Folks my age know that spying on Americans by an unsready government is nothing new.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Rebirth Of A Realist
"War preparations create record profits for big business, but only false prosperity for the people—their purchasing power shrinks as prices rise, their needs go unfilled, and they are burdened with new debts." Henry Wallace 1948

The most disturbing factor to those abroad charged with the task of the selling of American democracy was the continuing practice of tarnishing the product at home. Europeans stood aghast at the undemocratic methods of suppressing dissent in America. It was all too reminiscent of the fascist tactics that they had suffered through just a little more than a decade earlier. It made our brand of democracy a hard sell particularly to third world countries and certainly to the Koreans and the Vietnamese.
In 1954 while diplomats at the Geneva peace conference were planning to insist upon elections that would unify Vietnam in two years (July of 1956) the New York Times was keeping up the drumbeat and increasing the anti-Communist frenzy. On the front page of the Sunday May 30,1954 edition a full column that spilled over into a five column story with pictures of handcuffed "Reds" on page 25 jubilantly announced . . ." F.B.I SEIZES 7 MEN AS RED OFFICIALS FOR CONNECTICUT . . . Conspiracy is charged. 109 rounded up since 1948."
I wish I could include the entire article because it reads like one of those old black and white, J Edgar Hoover promoted, television shows with a description of how the agents raided an art studio and rounded up these supposedly dangerous criminals. They were tried under the 1940 Smith act as "conspiring to overthrow the United States Government." As Yogi Berra once said, " it is deja vu all over again." Only today, "al Qaeda", or "Muslim rebels," is used instead of Communist. The effect is the same.
As I mentioned earlier one of those arrested in 1956 was the sculptor Robert Ekins of New Haven Connecticut. Although Bob was a veteran of World War II he was one of the most gentle, sensitive and creative persons that I was privileged to know. We first met in the 60s when I was planning another bus trip to Washington D.C. to protest America’s involvement in Vietnam. By that time, I had given up the idea that my anti War and Civil rights statements would allow me to survive in the Broadcast industry; given the political climate. I had found safe haven with The American Friends Service Committee.
When Bob called to reserve a ticket on the bus, I recognized the name immediately. Anyone with liberal views who read the papers would remember the name. I did not pursue any conversation with Bob on the office phone. While the protesters were boarding the bus in the driveway of the Quaker Friends Meeting house, I noticed two cars parked out front. I knew that they were from the local and State Police and or the F.B.I. I had been through it all before more than once. This time a bunch of goons arrived and tried to board the bus shouting obscenities at those already seated. I managed to pull one of them off the bus and the police arrived to get the rest of them. An FBI. agent told the driver not to move the bus until he gave him permission to do so. That infuriated me. The agent then asked me to go with them back to my office where he asked for the names of the passengers who were going to demonstrate against the war. I, of course, refused. They left my office, but did not release the bus. Moments later a local police officer came back in and told me that the reason that they wanted the names was because they had received threats against the property of those who were going and they wanted to be able to protect the property. I did not mean to be rude. I never was with police officials, but at that statement, I could not help but burst out laughing. The police officers left and the bus was allowed to go on its way.
A few days later, after I had burned the list, a small figure appeared in my office doorway. Bob Ekins said that he just wanted to stop by to thank me. He said that he was about to leave the bus because he knew that they wanted to prove to the media that the protesters were indeed a bunch of Communists. They could prove that because they had a real live one on board the bus. I told him that I was well aware of that and I was also aware of the fact that we had an informer in our group, and that our phone was probably tapped. He said that he had come also to suggest that what I had said was true and our friendship developed.
Bob had a studio home in a neat, and yes, cozy cottage above a lake in Connecticut, and at times I would go to the cottage and relax. He was a very articulate person with a sense of humor that helped to carry him and his wife Edie through those terrible years. Many of the conversations that we had are very pertinent to the subject that we are dealing with in this manuscript and I feel that I must share them with you.
I shall paraphrase his answers because it was so many years ago and I took no notes, but I remember asking him about the so-called clandestine meeting where he was arrested, and all the aliases that they were supposed to have used. Through his infectious laughter, Bob told me that they did use other names at times because the FBI not only tapped their phones, but also read their mail and contacted their employers. He said that it was a nightmare that few Americans living in the suburbs could relate to or even believe.
As far as the charges of conspiring to over throw the United States Government, he told me that it was so ludicrous that at times he would laugh. That is when he did not feel like crying. Bob said, "Can you just imagine us, at that meeting discussing something like this . . . ‘O.K. Sid, you get the twenty ninth infantry to go along with us and I’ll work on the 82nd airborne. James, you do what you can with the U.S. Marines.’ I mean, David, how can seven people from Connecticut conspire to overthrow the United States Government? J. Edgar Hoover used to say that it only took a few Russians to overthrow their government, but he fails to mention that the people and the army were already in rebellion.
To the State Department, it did not have to make any sense. They got what they were always after and that was the scare headlines. Americans were traumatized and wallowing in the quagmire of suburban life. They just did not give a damn about what was happening to their constitution. Nor were they able to project themselves into an America ten or twenty years down the road."
I asked him to be specific and tell me just what it was that they were discussing at that meeting and his answer was simply that they talked about the same things that the young people who have taken to the streets (it was 1965) were demanding. His answer was, "Honesty in government, civil rights, ending the war economy and moving toward peace. We spent a great deal of time on tactics; how, in the face of the FBI. harassment, can we get our message to the people? One thing that I must say; we never expected America to be able to keep a war economy going for twenty years. We expected 1929 revisited by 1949 or 1950. That would not create a revolution, but it would bring Americans back to reality and perhaps force the government to make the kind of structural changes that are needed. We wanted to be in a position to help them do that. No one else was getting ready to do it. It may still happen before I die and then people will eventually see that democratic socialism is the only way to go."
I told him that there must have been others in the fifties who were fighting back and he responded that, " there were some, but they were mostly the intellectuals who may say the right things, but they always just say them to each other. They read each other’s books and attend each other’s lectures, but when it comes time to act they fall off the tree like autumn leaves." The one time that I saw Bob Ekins get emotional was when I mentioned Howard Fast. Howard Fast produced over seventy-five books, along with mystery novels (under the pseudonym E.V. Cunningham), science fiction, innumerable newspaper and magazine articles, short stories, plays, screenplays and poetry. Until his death Fast said, "I’m a lefty. I was born one, and I’ll die one." He was convicted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Bob said, "I was at the demonstration at the St. Nicholas Arena, to protest the sentence. Dr. Edward Barsky was sentenced to six months prison and $500 fine and Howard Fast, one of my heroes, and nine others were sentenced to three months and $500 each. They read a statement that said in part, "we were engaged in dispensing help - medical help, food and clothing to those Spanish Republicans who fought against Franco. We established a hospital in Southern France, another in Mexico. Thousands of men, women and children who would have otherwise been dead, lived because of our work and effort." Bob sounded like he was pulling the script out of his mind. He went on to say, "I was crushed when the media claimed that he had condemned Communism and Stalin for crimes against the people. It is true that crimes were committed. Did we not commit such crimes against our own people who are Black? Did we not commit such crimes against the people of other countries in Latin America and Asia? Did we not commit such crimes against me and people like me, and did not the company goons shoot down striking mineworkers? I know we should be against all injustice everywhere, but Howard gave the right wing media a field day. It was all because of Khrushchev’s speech to destroy the personality cult."
The crash did not come in Bob’s time although there were many narrow escapes. The truth is that his thinking was actually matched by many in the western capitalist superstructure. They had the same fear that Bob had about the viability of the economic system. The motivation to continue the open door and wartime policy came, not only from the profit mania, but also more from that constant fear that another depression would be the end of capitalism.