On April 6, Caskey photographed Thomas Mann––this was one
of his best sets of portraits.
On April 7, Christopher sent a reply to an invitation to take part in a conference for world peace which was being held in Los Angeles under the auspices of the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. He refused to attend, on the grounds that this wasn’t a genuine peace conference but a political demonstration with a pro-Russian slant. Christopher’s letter is very well constructed, it makes telling points and its main accusation is really unanswerable.1 (Before 1 Some extracts from Christopher’s letter:
Strict pacifism is total and neutral. . . . You do not pretend to be total pacifists, and I’m not going to try to convert you to that position. What I am now concerned with is your neutrality. . . . I am . . . basing my opinion
. . . on your own leaflet, your “call” to the conference . . . a whole paragraph is devoted to Washington’s misdeeds and mistakes. I agree with much of what is said. . . . But where is the paragraph which ought, in fairness, to follow it . . . dealing with the misdeeds and mistakes of Moscow? You imply or seem to me to imply––that the “cold war”. . . must be blamed entirely on the U.S. government. This is simply not true. . . . If we invite guests from overseas, we should not greet them with accusations. We should be humble and dwell most upon our own shortcomings. I take this to be your intention. Nevertheless, I must suggest that such politeness hopelessly confuses the issue . . . by refraining from criticism of Soviet militarism and aggression, you imply that your guests are associated with it and that, therefore, you mustn’t hurt their feelings. Isn’t this . . . an accusation? A well-founded accusation, I fear. Consider the facts. The greatest police state on earth permits some of its prominent citizens to come over to this country and take part in a peace conference. Such a conference . . . ought to imply a condemnation of all the governments whose nationals are involved[,] since these governments have failed to establish peace. . . . If these Russian delegates had come with genuinely neutral, pacifistic aims, they would be condemning Soviet militarism. Their lives would be in danger. They could never return to their own country. . . . I am forced to believe that the Russian delegates were permitted to come . . . because the Soviet government intends to exploit . . . your whole conference for propaganda purposes. . . . I fear that its findings and resolutions . . . will inspire militarists within the Soviet Union with the most dangerous confidence that the 190
Lost Years
sending off his letter, he had gotten in touch with the local Quakers and found that they entirely agreed with his stand.) What makes me a bit uncomfortable, rereading it today, is to remember that it was written in the midst of the McCarthy era. The senator and his committee were attacking these people for holding the peace conference, and what they were saying against it was more or less what Christopher was saying––that it was red. Christopher loathed the Soviet government for disowning the attitude toward the private life prescribed by Marx, and for persecuting its homosexuals. He somewhat disliked the Jewish parlor-communist intellectuals who were members of the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. But he also loathed McCarthy and the red-hunters––and it is humiliating to reflect that they might have approved of his letter or at least decided that it showed he was rather more on their side than the other. (Christopher was certainly more a socialist than he was a fascist, and more a pacifist than he was a socialist. But he was a queer first and foremost. I remember a discussion he had with Caskey and some others around that time on the question: “If you could produce positive proof that McCarthy is queer––would you use it to ruin his political career?” Their unanimous verdict was, “No––because all queers would be harmed if it became known that he was one.”
On April 8, Christopher and Caskey had a birthday party for Jim Charlton. And Christopher restarted The School of Tragedy for the third time, after an interval of twenty-two months. This opening is perhaps the most promising one he ever made. Stephen is writing a letter––or maybe a journal in letter form––addressed to someone called Edward. I have no idea, now, if Edward was to have been a major or a minor character; but the tone of voice of this extract suggests the literary tone of Edward Upward, and Stephen seems to be much livelier, more amusing, less sentimental and self-pitying than the character he will later become.1
intelligentsia of the United States are actually on their side; that the cold war
. . . should therefore be pressed to the uttermost. . . . Such confidence . . .
might well lead to the outbreak of armed hostilities. . . .
1 Christopher made another start on May 2––this, like the first three, was set in the refugee hostel. On May 9, he tried again––beginning, this time, with the flight east from Los Angeles following Stephen’s breakup with Jane (Anne, as she was then called). This may have been another false start––it is certainly very bad; it reads like inferior Scott Fitzgerald––or it may have been revised and then added to later; for the day-to-day diary entry of June 27 records that Christopher finished chapter one of The School of Tragedy on that day. I dare say the manuscript of this chapter is stored away somewhere, but I can’t be bothered to look for it now.
¾ 1949 ¾
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On April 11, Christopher worked at MGM on what the day-to-
day diary describes as “retake changes.” I can’t remember what these were.
On April 19, Christopher saw Dodie and Alec Beesley, who had
recently moved into a house on Cove Way, behind the Beverly Hills Hotel, just off Benedict Canyon. This was to be the last of their Californian homes.
On April 29, he drove with Swami to Trabuco, for the day. This probably means that some monks from the Hollywood Vedanta
Center were already living there, cleaning the place up and getting it ready for its official opening.
On May 3, the day-to-day diary notes that Rita was “released.” I think this refers to Rita Cowan’s release from prison––for I dimly remember that her husband or boyfriend, a black man, was shot dead by the police and that Rita regarded this as a murder and made some kind of [. . .] protest scene which ended with her being locked up.
On May 20, Christopher had another contact with the National
Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. The writer Paul Jarrico had previously written him about the blacklisting of Albert Maltz, who was under prosecution by the U.S. government for refusing to testify before the Committee on Un-American Activities. As a result, Twentieth Century-Fox had decided not to produce a film based on Maltz’s novel The Journey of Simon McKeever. Jarrico had asked Christopher to write a letter in support of Maltz which could be read aloud at a meeting of the film division of the council on May 25.
Christopher wrote and sent them a letter––he couldn’t do otherwise.1 But, as before, his anti-Soviet sentiments showed between the lines. Also, his resentment at having been made to read Maltz’s boring and insipid novel––why did the vast majority of these literary martyrs have to be without talent?
On May 21, Klaus Mann killed himself in Cannes. I can’t
May 20.
1Dear Mr. Jarrico,
Thank you for your letter about Albert Maltz [one of the Hollywood Ten].
I’m sorry that I can’t be with you on the platform on May 25 when you hold your meeting, but I shall certainly be there in spirit. I loathe all censorship––no matter whether it comes from the Right or the Left. Luckily, as a rule, it defeats its own object.
As for The Journey of Simon McKeever, it seems to me a charming novel, which couldn’t hurt a baby, politically or otherwise. If anyone could possibly object to it, I should have expected the communists to do so. Isn’t it what they call “liberal romanticism”?