Profile: Lillian Hellman; No. 3

. . . . . . . . . . . Profile is made possible by grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Texas Committee for the Humanities. . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I'm annoyed me. I had stopped right and by the time I started I was not going to be good and I was going to stay there. I've long ago stopped thinking about what happiness is. Taking for granted there was no arbitrary definition of it. Well, I just wanted to tell you my story. It's going to sound awful because it's going to sound so mixed up. I'm pleased with what I did in front of the house on the American committee.

Because it had good results and it led other people to take the same position, which was the first time anybody had ever taken it. I am pleased with it. But I'm very regretful that I didn't take another one. I know that sounds crazy because I know I've come out of kind of heroin for the position I did take. So it sounds as if the heroin wants to be even more of a heroin, which isn't what I mean. I have long wished I wished even before I wrote that letter and went into that committee hearing. And I really wanted to go in and say to hell with all of you. You're a rotten stinking lot of unjust man ragging me and everybody like me simply to get your names in the papers.

You know full well I've done no harm and you know full well nobody you've had here has done any harm. You're a disgrace to your country and I won't stay in the room with you and walk down. This is what I really would have liked to have done and gone to jail for it. But I didn't have the nerve to do it. And there's no sense regretting it because I simply didn't have the nerve to do it. I thought I was going to jail anyway, but everybody else thought I was going to jail too. I'm not certainly there to use to spend his entire time trying to persuade me not to write that letter that I wrote. But he knew I was terrified of rats as everybody born in New Orleans, Louisiana, was it my day? But I was, I have a particular heart of rats. So he used to describe to me rats in jail every single night of his life.

I had a little talk about rats in jail and how I was going to heal. Also knows that I have a neurotic, I have it to this minute, a neurotic horror being pushed or shoved in a crowd or any other place. So he used to describe me how I was going to be shoved in jail and how I was going to turn on somebody in that night. I was going to be dead. I'd get this like every night. Did you feel that you wanted to take that stand at the time or do you feel it now that you wish you had taken that stand? It crossed my mind. Let me say it as honestly as I can. It crossed my mind that that's what I wanted to do. It never crossed my mind seriously that that's what I was going to do. Because I was already scared enough of what I did. That's to say it as truthfully as I can say. The young people, students have embraced scoundrel time.

They have been your great readers. And yet they don't seem to know very much about the so-called McCarthy years. What's your view of that era? How do you see those years? How do you remember them? Well, I'm not sure that I'm the best judge. Because I was so involved in many ways punished. And living with a man that was so punished. Well, no, no, I'm begging the question now. Because I think I would have seen them when I was punished or not the same way. They were all kinds of things. They were comedy. They were black comedies. They were really black comedy. Have you ever read any of the testimonies of the questions or the testimonies of witnesses? One is torn between laughter and tears. It's so truly common.

People were confessing to sins. They'd never done making up lies of meetings. They'd been in one. They'd been so no such meeting. Asking God in the committee's pardon for nothing, for just going into a room and listening to some rather dull talk. That was one of the effects. And that to me was the saddest and most disgusting, as well as most comic. The effect was of a certain section of the country going crazy. Which section? Washington, the men involved in the committees. The committees that were involved were Hewack, and the Senate Internal Security Committee, which was McCarthy Committee.

For their own reasons. The reasons being they could get their names in the papers every day. By using more famous people than they were. And they were playing on, of course, the Cold War, the fear of our ex ally, Russia. And they were led by, and I think in many ways, paid for by, in some cases, paid for by, not in many ways. What was known as the China lobby? The China lobby was a group of men who, out to restore Shanghai check. Well, this was an era just to reconstruct it a little bit. That in 1945 when the war ended, we read at least that the United States started demobilizing,

cut down its troops, cut its defense budget. The Russians were forgetting something. Forgive me for interrupting you here. We didn't so voluntarily demobilize as a demobilization was demanded an absolute demand of the American people. And you say the Russians were devastated as they were. And some kind of psychosis grew in this country, when the Russians, in their own drive for some sort of self-protection, created a belt around the Soviet Union. Absolutely. The fall of Czechoslovakia was won. Absolutely. And they're taking Poland and not being willing to give it up. And Finland, of course, we were very nervous characters with certainly some justice without questioning that we were now facing a world we had never known before and had not expected. Whether some of that bargain had been made at U.R.

I suppose none of us will ever know. But we were facing a new world. And we had some of these men, the serious ones, and I had some reason for fear of where the Soviet Union once it recovered, would go. But these particular people were talking about were not those people. They were on a much lower level. They were not serious people. No, they were not not only not serious people. They were... It's as if one talked about, say, a good college teacher and then one talked about people in kindergarten. And these people were mostly unknown men at this point in their lives. Nixon was a fairly unknown man.

Macaron, who was among the worst, was not unknown, but was not brilliantly known. They were men cashing in in a quite scandalous way on perhaps normal and expected fears. I'm not for a minute saying that we didn't have a right to be frightened of the imperialism of the Soviet Union. But we didn't... It certainly didn't solve anything to bring a movie active before a committee to express it. The committee wished to hear drama and these people supplied the drama. And the drama was full of lies.

So they made liars out of rather simple-minded people. But simple-minded people trained in drama and simple-minded people who were very, very frightened people. Actually, a third of the people who went before the committee at that time named names and the rest didn't. Now, I don't know enough of the history to know if you were the first. Not to name names? Yes. Oh, no, no, no. Great many people didn't name names. Oh, no, no, no. That wasn't my standard all. No, I understand that, but it was part of your standard. That's one of the attacks on you that you represent yourself in the book as standing alone when you're not alone. Oh, no, no, no. I don't think that's... I'm saying that's one of the attacks. It's not a close reading of the book that shows that. No, most... I came... See, I was rather at the bottom of the barrel. I didn't... I wasn't called until 1952.

They'd been at this game for a long time. And many people didn't name names. The famous Hollywood ten didn't. Oh, but they went to jail. And they say that critics say that at the time you were before the committee and you call yourself the bottom of the barrel, there really was no danger if you're going to prison, but I'd say there was. That... That I think, Mr. Rowan, and a for us who thought up the position would tell you was not the truth. I was... I was legal only on the grounds that has nothing to do with heroic, so not heroic. It has to do with legalities, which are never heroic one way or the other. The only difference in my position from other people's positions was I tried not... I did finally take the Fifth Amendment. I tried not to take the Fifth Amendment. What I said was, I will talk about myself freely. I will not give you mention anybody else's name under any circumstances.

That is a violation of the Fifth Amendment, and thus you are legally open to any contempt charge that can be brought. And this is what they were very frightened of. You were the first to do that. I would say I will speak of one another. And actually, it was not my idea. It was the idea of the very brilliant Abe Fortis, and was carried out... Not that not only with the aid, but with the thoughtfulness of the very famous Joseph Rowan. But they were very worried I was very nervous about my going to jail on it. They had no legal grounds to stand on. They were no heroic about it one way or the other. The heroics have been thought of by people the people who don't like me. Why do you think they did not send you to jail? I think it was a technicality. At least we thought so that day.

The counselor, whose name was Tavanagh, made a mistake. It was an interesting day. I had written a letter two days before. The committee had received it and had replied that they would not allow the physician. I... Thus, we... Mr. Rowan very brilliantly had the letters, um... memory graft, I guess, in those days. I was there... I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. And get a whole stack of my way. I didn't know I did. They... They had not been very willing to advertise my appearance. So the room was almost empty, except for six or seven, sort of...

Middle-day Southern ladies in the background will obviously very handy me. Then suddenly the room began to fill. I have no idea why to this day, and suddenly the press boxes began. The press box began to fill. I haven't any idea how. Maybe rowdy did it. I don't know. So they having refused to accept the letter. There was nothing for me to do except to take the Fifth Amendment. There was no place for me to go. Once in a while I slipped on the Fifth Amendment and made grow very nervous, because for the amendment made me so angry that I was violating it once. I violated it once. And he got very upset with me for doing it. Then, Mr. Tabiner, the counsel for the committee said, I would now like to read a letter that Mr. Tabin has written the committee, and he read my offer out loud. Somebody in the press box, God blesses.

So, I've written all this. Said, thank God somebody's finally done it. At this point, Joe Rouse sprang up and distributed all his copies. And Mr. Tabiner said, sit down, Mr. Rouse, sit down immediately. And Mr. Committee, man, whoever it was, if I got in the committee at that point, said, you go online. This and we'll put you out of the room in a few minutes. And Rouse said very pleasantly, I don't think you can do that. You see, Mr. Tabiner read the letter, and thus I have a right to hand it out. You cannot deny me that right, he's read it into it. He's read it to the record. The record stands. I have a right to the record. These gentlemen have a right to the letter. By this time, I think they were deeply nervous. They had made a legal mistake. And whoever in the press box had said it had swung the room. There was no question in my favor.

The hearing was stopped within three minutes of the handing out of the letter. And then something happened, and I do not know legally no enough. No, do I remember well enough. Somebody, one of the committee members said something, and Joe Rouse said to his assistant, you get living out of here as fast as you can get out of the building. They cannot indict her this time. There's no way any longer for them to indict her. Just run out of the building now. Don't stop the talk to anybody, don't anybody question. Just go over to the Mayflower hotel and sit in the bar and wait for me. The assistant, I wasn't that old, but he was very young. And we ran from the building at the top of speed. It must have looked like total fools running down about four blocks of the Mayflower bar. Some legality happened. There was no question of heroic, so a question of legalitys. You know, I'm reminded that in scoundrel time, you say that what started in the McCarthy years ended up with Watergate.

And I think of your train of thought, I believe, going through McCarthy, the wiping out of the China experts in the State Department, which was in part responsible for going into Vietnam, the climate that that created, which led to Watergate. Is that the way you saw it? Do I answer what I gave? Yes. Oh, absolutely. I think what happened. I don't wish to analyze Mr. Nixon, because I don't know enough to analyze him, but Mr. Nixon came into prominence in a period of total immorality, where you said anything that furthered your career. He said it about Helen Guegg and Douglas, he said it about anybody that came. Gary Voor, he's anybody came into his who fought him in this degree with him in any form. I don't think that changes in men.

He learned that it paid off quite well. It didn't pay off very well for McCarthy, because McCarthy was a drunk and besotted and a mess and was going much too far. But if you kept your head, not unlike many other people, and you don't see villainy as villainy, and I genuinely believe that Nixon doesn't see villainy as villainy, that there are people without any moral sense who see only their part in this world, and therefore almost can't be blamed, since it's been left out of them. Whatever you do is okay, because it benefits you, it doesn't matter much what it is. The pious words come out, because you know that the pious words are good salesmanship.

You can't say I'm a villain, you have to say, because you don't think of yourself as one for one thing, and you can say I've just decided to lie at four o'clock in the afternoon to tell a total of truth. So you say the total unto this absolutely necessary for the country, and I think you genuinely believe it is. Do you think these are people in which a part has been left out? From my viewpoint, a part has been left out, but they've always been, they always will be, and they've been among the most successful people in the world always, I suppose. It must be quite comfortable to go through the world believing that you can do anything because you wish to do it. Well, I don't think you'd think that Mr. Nixon feels he's one of the most successful people in the world these days. Well, he was for a long time. This was one of those accidents.

This is, well, one isn't saying they're always very bright, which is quite different. Sometimes they're dazzlingly brilliant, but nobody's saying Mr. Nixon is very bright. And there's a point at which, there's often a point, thank God for the safety of the rest of us in which such people grow too confident. Thank God for the safety of the rest of us. Are you frightened of another McCarthy type era growing out of perhaps inflation and the inability to take hold of the economy and the need for perhaps a leader? I don't think they could ever be another McCarthy time. They could be a worse time. I don't think McCarthy could be duplicated. It's too monumentally ridiculous now. One forgets that McCarthy could have only sprung in a certain war hysteria. And we're not in a war hysteria.

I think something worse could happen, and I think Nixon was on the verge of it. This is what source gave me about the whole Nixon era. I helped to form a committee called the committee for public justice three years before Watergate just based on that fear. We were headed for much worse than McCarthyism. How do you define that much worse than McCarthyism? Well, McCarthyism was bound if you could live it out to... God knows that doesn't excuse it from the harm it brought many lives in the ruination it made for many people. For thousands and thousands of people. But it was bound in the end to fail because it was too ridiculous. And he was desperate to carry it too far. And nothing like that, I think, can last too long in America in the end we have got some sense.

But something worse could happen based on a seeming sense and seeming rationality and seeming need. That's what I think was exactly what Nixon was doing. But that would in the last analysis to deprive people of liberty? Yes. Yes. And a much more quiet and simple way since very few of us ain't long to pay any attention to. The small laws that are passed are even larger ones. We can be deprived of a great deal without realizing it, waking up to it. You once said that America is almost dying to see a hero rise up. Yes.

Are there any heroes left? When you say we yearn for one now, we're almost dying to see a hero rise up. Do you mean by that a leader, first of all? No, I don't really believe in the word leader. I resent the word leader. It comes in my mind too close to Hitler or Stalin. Well, how about in the sense of Churchill or Roosevelt? Leader. Well, I still don't like it. God knows they both were, but it's too undemocratic a concept for my taste, I think. It has overtones of dictatorship and dependence on one man and one personality. I'm not crazy about such concepts. Well, then hero, you said we're dying for a hero.

Hero is something else again, I think. Hero is something else again. You said that during the McCarthy years, you learned what you could do without. What were those things you could do without? Obviously, you had to give up the form, which was a dramatic hero. Money, you could live without money. I did live without money. You even went to work in Macy's, didn't you? Yes. That must have been an extraordinary time. How did you feel about going to work in Macy's? I didn't mind. I was very pleased. I didn't do it under my own name. I understand. I was very pleased. Was I the only day to the half day? I was pleased to have any kind of job. I didn't like to hold period mind you. I hated coming down from having handled a lot of money too. I didn't know it was nothing, but I also found that one could manage if one had to manage. What Miss Helman calls the scoundrel time was a turning point in her life.

In our next profile, she will talk about the sale of hard-scrabble farm and her life in the ensuing years. Profile was made possible by grants from the corporation. From the corporation for public broadcasting and the Texas Committee for the Humanities.