TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032089/03208900.071

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.7 KB | 117 lines

                                                                                BOOKS, Page 80

My Father the Communist


By Walter Isaacson


    LOYALTIES
    by Carl Bernstein
    Simon & Schuster; 262 pages; $18.95

    In the 15 years since he helped topple a President, Carl
Bernstein has become famous more as a celebrity than as a
journalist. He has been pictured on the gossip pages with a
procession of notable women. He was portrayed by Dustin Hoffman
in All the President's Men, based on the Watergate book he
co-authored with Bob Woodward, and, as a fictional character,
by Jack Nicholson in Heartburn, based on a cleverly barbed novel
by his former wife, Nora Ephron. All the while, he was waging
an off-and-on struggle with a project that he described to
friends as "an account of the witch-hunts leading up to the
McCarthy era."

    Now the book is finally out, and it turns out to be far
more personal than that. It is a candid and powerful inquiry
into his parents, their union activities during the 1940s and
their secret membership in the Communist Party. As Bernstein
explains to his father, "It's a very personal book. It's not a
history book at all." In fact, it is a book about writing a
book, a book about Bernstein writing the book that his parents
did not want him to write.

    A good memoir should produce shocks of recognition that are
both intimate and historical, revealing truths about a person
and about his times. Bernstein provides both, in abundance.
Juxtaposing excerpts from declassified FBI files with tales of
a childhood thrown into turmoil by the early postwar Red scares,
he has created a new genre -- what might be called the
investigative memoir. It combines the journalistic thrill of
Watergate with the emotional punch of that most basic of
literary themes, a boy's search to understand his father.

    Bernstein, who was born in 1944, recounts his Washington
childhood in a family of politically progressive Jews. Upon
returning from the Army at the end of World War II, his father
Alfred became active as an organizer for the United Public
Workers of America, a left-wing union representing federal
employees. After President Truman, in an effort to satisfy
political pressures, issued the loyalty order of 1947, the elder
Bernstein's life was dominated by defending public workers
summoned before the loyalty boards and accused of being
Communists.

    Soon his parents' loyalty was questioned. In 1951, in front
of a Senate committee, Alfred invoked the Fifth Amendment when
asked if he was a member of the Communist Party. His wife
Sylvia, also active in progressive causes, did the same three
years later in front of the House Un-American Activities
Committee. The family found itself shunned by many of its
neighbors, friends and even relatives. The FBI kept the
Bernsteins under surveillance for years (Bernstein's bar mitzvah
is duly described), accumulating 2,500 pages of files that pop
up in the book.

    Young Bernstein's reaction was to become a patriotic rebel
-- class air-raid warden, supersalesman of Defense Bond stamps,
proud wearer of an I LIKE IKE button -- and a marginal student
who eventually skipped college to become a newspaper copy clerk.
He also, quite understandably, became interested in whether his
parents had actually been Communists. When he was eight, he
first blurted out the question to his father. "I remember the
silence that followed and my not daring to look at him,"
Bernstein writes. "My question offered no escape; there is no
Fifth Amendment for eight-year-olds." His father tried to skirt
the question, speaking instead about the irrelevance of party
membership and the persecution of progressives. "I didn't ask
any questions when he finished explaining, and I'm sure he
guessed that my silence meant that I knew. It took twenty-five
years before I asked him that question again."

    The answer, deftly treated, is that both his parents had
been, for a short period, party members. Therein lies the main
source of tension throughout the book: grappling with his
father's wish that he not reveal their secret. "You're going to
prove McCarthy right, because all he was saying was that the
system was loaded with Communists," says his father. "And he was
right."

    The "loyalties" of the title thus refer to more than just
the allegiance Bernstein's parents had to the Communist Party
and to their Government. The real struggle in the book is
between Carl's loyalty to (and love for) his parents and his
search for the truth about their lives. At times his quest
becomes traumatic. Bob Woodward makes cameo appearances,
comforting his former partner when he breaks into tears at the
memory of a childhood schoolmate calling his mother a Communist.

    For all his honesty, Bernstein upholds the honor of his
parents. They were never subversives, never disloyal to their
country, he says. His sensitivity to Alfred and Sylvia (both
still living) means that he never quite penetrates the deepest
questions: Exactly why did people like them join the Communist
Party? Just what did they do at their cell meetings? Was there
in fact some danger in having people working for the Government
whose loyalty was also to the Communist Party? And, on a more
personal level, does he feel he has betrayed the father he
clearly loves very deeply?

    By not probing such sensitive spots too deeply, Bernstein
may be doing the reader a favor. As it is, the book fairly
crackles with emotional intensity and unsettling historical
questions. With his rich depiction of his parents and pungent
evocation of the period, Bernstein has been able to explore his
controversial issues with the finesse of a jazz musician
bouncing around themes that might otherwise be too hot to
handle.