NEWS> Did Fanfare for the Common Man Have Marxist Influences?
- From: Gleason Sackmann <gleason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: NetHappenings <nethappenings@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 08:16:04 -0500
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Net Happenings - From Educational CyberPlayGround
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From: "David P. Dillard" ?jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?
Sent: Mon, 12 May 2003 12:51:04 -0400 (EDT)
There is substantial current media coverage of the ties the FBI suspicions
that Aaron Copland, great American composer, was a Communist brought to
attention again by the release of the McCarthy inquisition papers.
---------------------
Posted on Sun, May. 11, 2003
FBI Probed Composer Copland in 1950s
DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Associated Press
?http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/5837711.htm?
WASHINGTON - FBI file 100-HQ-370562 begins simply enough.
On July 21, 1950, the subject, thought "to be self-employed as a composer
of music," is reported linked to communist front groups. Within six
months, he is classified outright as a communist.
So begins the government's surveillance of Aaron Copland, one of the
country's most important composers, creator of such stirring music as
"Appalachian Spring," "Fanfare for the Common Man," "Billy the Kid" and
the patriotic "Lincoln Portrait."
The government, using informants, spends the next two decades and more
monitoring Copland's whereabouts, analyzing his comments and taking note
of his friends and associates.
---------------------
This AP wire story is making news sources outside of the United States:
Aaron Copland, quintessential American composer, was a commie to the FBI
Canadian Press
Saturday, May 10, 2003
?http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id=
B379D2B0-018C-49F6-8B60-43AC5228CD91?
----------------------
Secret McCarthy papers released
By Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online, Washington
?http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3002239.stm?
At the height of the Cold War, the senator's subcommittee was granted
almost unlimited powers to investigate alledged communist subversion in
the government, following similar investigations by the House Un-American
Activities Committee and the FBI.
Senator McCarthy was judge, jury, prosecutor, castigator, and press agent
all in one
Senator McCarthy's tactics included wild accusations. For example, he said
that there were 205 card-carrying communists working in the state
department, launched simultaneous investigations into several subjects,
and held secret hearings which he then leaked to the press.
He often was the only member of his committee present at the hearings
which were held not only in Washington but in Boston and New York.
----------------------
Another news story about the McCarthy era is in the news currently that
may be of interest:
How a snitch led McCarthy to Louis Bortz
Washing machine repairman accused of plotting Red-baiting senator's death
Sunday, May 11, 2003
By Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
?http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030511mccarthy0511p3.asp?
Louis Bortz, a communist and washing machine repairman with roots in
Beechview, died in August at age 92. No reporter wrote so much as a
paragraph about his passing.
The quiet surrounding Bortz's death contrasted mightily with his life. A
half-century ago, his name filled the newspapers after he was called to
testify before Sen. Joseph McCarthy's committee investigating people who
were suspected of being anti-American.
?snip?
Bortz's long-forgotten name surfaced again last week when the Senate
unsealed 4,500 pages of transcripts from McCarthy's private hearings.
Bortz and other witnesses with connections to Pittsburgh account for
several hundred pages of the documents, which were made public to mark the
50th anniversary of the hearings.
?snip?
Bortz testified for two days in June 1953, first in a closed session,
later in public. Then 42, Bortz arrived in Washington to answer a hastily
issued subpoena from McCarthy.
Bortz had no lawyer, and he immediately asked for a postponement so he
could hire one. McCarthy said Bortz would be given time to obtain legal
representation, then ignored his own ruling by plunging ahead with the
hearing.
McCarthy and the committee's chief counsel, Roy Cohn, hurled hundreds of
questions and accusations at Bortz, who underwent a full day of
interrogation without an attorney. Bortz chose not to answer most
questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination.
Enraged, McCarthy threatened Bortz with contempt of Congress a dozen
times.
?snip?
Bortz landed in front of McCarthy's committee because of a portly snitch
named Joseph Mazzei. Mazzei ran a theater in Millvale, but he skipped the
movies many nights so he could pose as a communist and gather information
to pass on to the FBI.
Many people in Western Pennsylvania -- including blacks, Jews and
unionists and others who felt the sting of discrimination -- had
considered converting to communism during the 1930s and '40s. These people
became Mazzei's fodder.
---------------------------
Newsday has just published an article regarding the McCarthy hearings:
A New Look At McCarthy
Transcripts of closed-door hearings shed light on zealot's hardball
tactics
Senator Joseph McCarthy says the State Department is riddled with
communists during hearings in 1950. (AP) (RealAudio)
By Anne Q. Hoy
WASHINGTON BUREAU
May 6, 2003
Washington
?http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usmcca06327069
4may06,0,1579853.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines?
The Senate yesterday unsealed thousands of pages of testimony taken behind
closed doors by Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose anti-communist
crusade in the 1950s exploited a national mood of unease and transformed
his name into his very own "ism" for witch-hunt.
More than 4,000 pages, the transcripts of the sessions in 1953 and 1954 of
the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Government Operations provide the
first public look at McCarthy's hard-nosed tactics in 160 closed hearings
that often weeded out witnesses who confronted him and left the more
vulnerable for televised sessions.
Composer Aaron Copland, mystery writer Dashiell Hammett and Harlem
Renaissance poet Langston Hughes were among the 500 witnesses subjected to
McCarthy's closed inquisitions, the latter two hauled back for a public
hearing in March, 1953.
The documents lay bare the danger of unbridled power and the threat that
such excesses pose to the civil liberties of Americans.
More Coverage:
His In-Your-Face Style
May 6, 2003
?http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usexce06327069
5may06,0,5044077.story?coll=ny%2Dnationalnews%2Dheadlines?
Tales From A Redbaiter's '50s Fishing Expedition
By Ken Ringle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 6, 2003; Page C01
?http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17913-2003May5.html?
The ghost of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy was exhumed for a new century
yesterday as the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs released five
volumes of long-secret testimony from 160 closed hearings held during
McCarthy's red-baiting heyday half a century ago.
There were no particular blockbuster revelations in the 4,232 pages,
according to Donald A. Ritchie, associate historian of the Senate, but the
volumes offer a new and deeper look -- cautionary and at times ridiculous
-- at the unbridled recklessness with which the Wisconsin Republican
escalated Cold War concerns about communism into witch hunts that
destroyed careers and victimized the innocent.
---------------------------
Full Stories May be Read at the URLs Above.
To learn more of Aaron Copland's great contributions to music in general
and to American music in particular, the websites below would be a good
place to start:
The Aaron Copland Collection: Ca. 1900-1990
Library of Congress American Memories Collection
?http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/achtml/achome.html?
Aaron Copland
(1900 - 1990)
?http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/copland.html?
Copland House
?http://www.coplandhouse.org/?
Featured Subject: Aaron Copland
With News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times
?http://www.dl.ket.org/humanities/music/copland.htm?
American Masters . Aaron Copland | PBS
?http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/copland_a.html?
Sincerely,
David Dillard Research Librarian
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ECP RingLeader
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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