810
PARTISAN REVIEW
DM:
On the contrary. First of all, it wasn't a plan to break up the
conference. There was one section of the conference that three or
four of us, and some others we didn't expect, Mary McCarthy
and myself and Cal Lowell, decided to attend. We found out that
Jean Malaquais, I think it was, and George Counts were also
there to make trouble. Malaquais was a French novelist, a friend
of Norman Mailer. Hook, on the other hand, the Hookites, did
everything possible to discourage us. They said that this was not a
good idea at all; we would make fools of ourselves. We would also
give the Stalinists a talking point; it was rude to go to their func–
tions. And they, of course, held their own separate thing at Free–
dom House. But we thought that we were not humiliating or in–
sulting Shostakovich but showing our solidarity with him. The
poor guy was doing his best to be a good boy.
DT:
Shostakovich was the star of that panel?
DM:
The Russian star. Norman Mailer was the big American star.
We didn't address any questions to Norman. We'd known him
but we assumed that he still was what he was before, a loyal Wal–
lace-ite. But we did ask a lot of questions about what had hap–
pened to various people. That was our aim, to ask embarrassing
questions. We asked questions about the way things were being
run, and at one point I remember that the chairman, Louis Un–
termeyer, made some crack about Hook being a four-letter word,
and either I or Mary got up and said, "We object, Mr. Chairman,
to such language from the chair. You're not supposed to use such
language." But of course the sensation was Mailer's speech . He
was the most highly applauded when he got up because he was the
darling of the session. But when he sat down there was hardly any
applause, and when he was talking there were audible rustlings of
discontent among the mob because that's where he announced
that there were two imperialisms, America's and Russia's. That
was the first time anybody heard that . And then we were invited
to a party by Howard Fast, given by the Stalinists. And what
struck me was that they weren't so different from the Trotskyites
and the other radicals that I'd known .
DT:
In what sense?
DM:
It was just that there was a river of blood between us. But
otherwise they were just the same type. They were perfectly nice,
amiable people and idealistic. They didn't behave like totalitar–
Ians.
DT:
Did you expect them to have horns or fangs or something?
