POINTS AFTER .
..
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIFTIES
Revisionist history, with its one-sided politics and simplified
morality, must make the complexities of the past more palatable. How else
to
explain the recent popularity of revisionism? In any case, I find it a little
burdensome and saddening to have to go back
'to
the McCarthy era to try to
get the record straight. It was one of the most stupid and shameful periods,
and its lessons have been made clear in countless books and articles, though
its political meaning is apparently still not clear.
The occasion for these reluctant reflections is Lillian Hellman 's book,
Scoundrel Time,
in which she makes some statements about the role of
Partisan Review
and some of its contributors in relation to McCarthy. Miss
Hellman is an honorable and gifted woman, and a friend, but I think a few
of her facts and political conclusions need to be corrected.
It
may appear
pompous to speak of the historic record, but it seems to me that those of us
who have committed a good part of our lives and our thinking to the intel–
lectual and political issues of our time have an obligation to put down the
facts as objectively as we can and to try to explain events in which we had
some part in a way that might make sense for the future .
As we know, Miss Hellman was a victim of McCarthy's psychopathic
and politically opportunistic campaign against Communists, fellow travel–
lers, and a number of innocent people who were either caught in the cross–
fire or who were simply falsely accused . In her book, Miss Hellman asks bit–
terly why high-minded anti-Communists did not come to her or to Dashiell
Hammett's defense, and goes on to suggest that such anti-Communists bear
some responsibility for Nixon, Watergate, and Vietnam. "There were many
thoughtful and distinguished men and women on both magazines" she
says, referring
to
Partisan Review
and
Commentary.
"None of them, so far
as I know, has yet found it a part of conscience to admit that their cold war
anti-Communism was perverted, possibly against their wishes, into the Viet–
nam War and then into the reign of Nixon, their unwanted but inevitable
leader." And of
Partisan Review,
Miss Hellman also says "Although
