All language subtitles for PBS.American.Masters.Dalton Trumbo.720p.hdtv.x264.ac3.MVGroup.org

I discovered the correspondence

as a processor at the Wisconsin
Center for Theater Research.

And they were collecting
the materials

of the Hollywood Ten.

One of the collections
that I got to process

was the collection
of Dalton Trumbo.

Box upon box upon box.

He would be one of our heroes

because he was, you know,
an iconoclast.

It's the story of the blacklist

and what it did to people.

Dalton was a contrarian.

He had fights.

Just glad he never had
a fight with me.

At rare intervals,
there appears among us

a person whose virtues
are so manifest to all,

who has such a capacity
for relating

to every sort of human being,

who so subordinates
his own ego drives

to the concerns of others,

who lives his whole life
in such harmony

with the prevailing standards
of the community,

that he is revered and loved

by everyone
with whom he comes in contact.

Such a man,
Dalton Trumbo was not.

During the Second World War,
277 members of the Guild

entered the armed services
to fight what was then called

the war against fascism.

Five of them did not come back.

Within six years,
43 of those who did return

were denounced as un-American,

stripped of their names
and passports,

and blacklisted.

I presume that over half
of our members

have no memory of that
blacklist,

because they were children when
it began, or not yet born.

To them,
I would say only this...

That the black list
was a time of evil.

And that no one on either side
who survived it

came through untouched by evil.

Caught in a situation that had
passed beyond the control

of mere individuals,

each person reacted
as his nature, his needs,

his convictions, and his
particular circumstances

compelled him to.

There was bad faith and good,
honesty and dishonesty,

courage and cowardice,
selflessness and opportunism,

wisdom and stupidity,

good and bad on both sides.

And almost every individual
involved,

no matter where he stood,

combined some or all of these
antithetical qualities

in his own person,
in his own acts.

Dalton Trumbo

is a very distinguished
film writer,

has won Academy Awards.

He's a letter writer too.

They're obstreperous,
they're funny, they're eloquent.

Well, I suppose so.

And so these letters
that you wrote,

dealing with yourself,

your independence,
your stubbornness...

Words are lost, only air,
the spoken word.

You never know really what you
said in the last conversation,

whereas if you sit down
and write

a concise definition
of your problem,

it commands the man's attention.

Your letters to all variety of people...

Friends and enemies.

And 1942 to 1962, it's almost,

you almost tell us the story of
our country

through the eyes of this very
stubborn man, Dalton Trumbo.

It was a very
lively two decades, very lively.

One was rarely bored.

All your warts are here, too.

Because you're pretty rough,
you know, at times.

Warty.
I prefer the word "abrasive,"

but "warty" is just as good.

Trumbo is this person

with an unbelievably strong
sense of justice

and what's right.

And the letters for him are his,
as it were,

a forum to express that.

He was so opinionated and so
passionate and so inventive

and sharp and funny,

that you just didn't
win an argument with him.

He just plain was
a little grandiose, I think.

He wasn't confrontational
in the sense

he went out looking for trouble.

It seemed to come to him.

I think of myself
as an extremely peaceable man.

God knows I've never wanted
to fight in my life.

But sometimes I think they're
forced upon peaceful men.

My father always had
an ambition to become a writer,

and once he got started
publishing his first book

in 1933 or 1934,

by 1940, he's published

three novels,
won a National Book Award,

and written
about 20 screenplays.

He's been nominated
for an Oscar also.

So he has a sort of brilliant
seven years beginning.

Up to about 1945, he was

very, very successful.

Everybody wanted

to use the name
of Dalton Trumbo.

He probably was
the best writer at that time.

And then it all fell apart.

In Washington, the Committee on
un-American Activities

opens new hearings in
a jam-packed caucus room.

Here, charges of red influence

directed against the motion
picture industry are aired.

This committee,
under its mandate

from the House of
Representatives,

has the responsibility
of exposing and spotlighting

subversive elements
wherever they may exist.

What about
Mr. Dalton Trumbo?

Do you know Mr. Trumbo?

Yes, I know Mr. Trumbo.

And Mr. Trumbo was the editor
of the official publication

of the Guild, was he not?

Yes, at one time, Dalton Trumbo
was editor of The Screenwriter,

the monthly publication
of the Screenwriter's Guild.

Do you think that
Dalton Trumbo was a communist?

Well, certainly I have no
information on that

beyond what I've heard here
this week.

People joined
the Communist Party

because it was doing something.

It was an effective instrument.
It was doing things that

they felt should be done.

It was opposing the rise of

fascism all through Europe.

It was helping those
who were refugees.

I remember as a kid,

the conversations would be
about the Soviet Union.

This was the depression.

The country was in a depression.

Socialism, communism seemed like
somewhat of a solution

to everybody being out of work.

Russia had been our allies

Through the early 1940s,
then all of a sudden,

they became our enemies.

We were ready for war
and felt it was coming.

And people didn't want it,
but they were frightened.

And with the public
that frightened,

one can understand how things
like this could happen.

If you want to scare a country,
you go after its royalty,

and Hollywood was our royalty.

And they had two rounds of
witnesses, and the first round

were mostly either friendly
witnesses or executives.

The committee wanted to bask

in the publicity glow and fame

of the stars of Hollywood.

This is a foul philosophy,
this communistic thing.

I would move to the State
of Texas if it ever came here,

because I think the Texans
would kill them on sight.

If I had my way about it,

they'd all be sent back
to Russia

or some other unpleasant place.

And then they called,
I believe, it was

19 people

and eventually it boiled down
to the Hollywood Ten.

Well, we were called originally

"the Unfriendly Ten".

And I liked that much better.

Unfriendly to what?

That committee.

And to anybody else who
interfered,

who tried to force compulsory
confessions

of beliefs,
faith, anything else.

An official purpose
of theirs was

to discover communist propaganda
in the films

that these folks had written.

It's a fallacy to think
that they got overtly

leftist themes into films,

but as many scholars
before me have noted,

quite elegantly, what they did
is they were able

to shift subtly
some of the archetypes

that were really important
in American films of that era.

You wrote from a particular
point of view.

The irony to me

of all these

radical communist writers,
you know,

was that what they were trying
to do really

was to be good liberals.

What is democracy?

Well, I was never very clear
on it myself.

Like every other kind
of government,

it's got something to do with

young men killing each other,
I believe.

Why don't old men
kill each other?

Well, the old men are needed
to keep the home fires burning.

Couldn't the young men
do that just as well?

Young men don't have homes,

that's why they must
go out and kill each other.

When it comes my turn,

will you want me to go?

For democracy,

any man would give
his only begotten son.

That was it.

He understood it now.

He had told them his secret.

And in denying him,

they had told him theirs.

He was the future.

He was a perfect picture
of the future,

and they were afraid to let
anyone see

what the future was like.

Already, they were looking ahead.

They were figuring the future,
and somewhere in the future,

they saw war... to fight that
war, they would need men,

and if men saw the future,
they wouldn't fight.

So they were masking the future.

They were keeping the future
a soft,

quiet, deadly secret.

They knew that if all
the little people,

all the little guys
saw the future,

they would begin
to ask questions.

They would ask questions
and they would find answers

and they would say to the guys
who wanted them to fight,

they would say, "you lying,
thieving sons of bitches,

"we won't fight.
We won't be dead.

"We will live. We are the world.
We are the future.

"And we won't let you butcher us
no matter what you say,

"no matter what speeches
you make,

"no matter what slogans
you write.

"Remember it well, we, we,
we are the world.

"We are what makes it go round.

"We make bread and cloth
and guns.

"We are the hub of the wheel,
and the spokes,

"and the wheel itself
and without us,

"you would be hungry, naked
worms and we will not die.

"It will not be us who die.

It will be you."

"It will be you.

"You who urge us on to battle.

"You who incite us against
ourselves.

"You, who would have one cobbler
kill another cobbler.

"You, who would have one man
who works

"kill another man who works.

"You, who would have one human
being who wants only to live

"kill another human being
who wants only to live.

"If you tell us to make
the world safe for democracy,

"we will take you seriously,
and by God and by Christ,

"we will make it so.

"Make no mistake of it...
We will live.

"We will be alive and we will
walk and talk and eat,

"and sing and laugh
and feel and love,

"and bear our children
in tranquility,

"in security, in decency,

in peace."

Very much what my father

took to be his politics was

the Constitution of
the United States

and the first 10 amendments.

That, for him, outlined
a reasonable way

that human beings could live
within a society.

That it guaranteed
the individual specific rights,

and that it limited the rights
of the State,

it limited
the influence of religion,

and that very much

was his idea
about what the west was.

It was an open place.

The ranch was fairly isolated.

There would be days on end where
you do not see

any kind of automobile,
so the sighting of an automobile

is really exciting
for my older sister and me.

Doesn't mean that the car
is coming to us,

but there's a possibility.

And this one did, and so
we went out and opened up

the rather large, heavy gate
and brought the man in

to the house,
and he was the process server.

So that's how my father received
his subpoena,

with the help of his children.

The man knocked on the door
and you got that pink slip.

But the first thing you did was
go out

and try to sell your house
before anybody discovers.

So you could at least get
a fair price for it,

or as fair as possible.

Don't let anybody know.
Keep it quiet.

Get as much work as you can in
before it becomes public.

Save every penny you have.

Sell what assets you have

and get ready to become nobody.

Do you solemnly swear
the testimony

you are about to give is
the truth, the whole truth,

nothing but the truth,
so help you God?

I do.
Sit down, please.

Would you state your full name?

Dalton Trumbo.

When and where
were you born, Mr. Trumbo?

I was born in Montrose,
Colorado, on December 9, 1905.

What is your occupation?

My occupation is that
of a writer.

I have some other questions,
Mr. Trumbo, I'd like to ask.

Are you now or have you ever
been a member

of the Communist Party?

Mr. Stripling, you must have some reason

for asking me this question.

You can address the committee...

I understand that members
of the press

have been given an alleged
Communist Party card

belonging to me, is that true?

No.

You're not asking the question.

I was.

The chief investigator is
asking the question.

I beg your pardon, sir.

Now, are you or have you
ever been...

A number of Hollywood personalities

took the First Amendment...
Not the Fifth Amendment

against self incrimination,
but the First Amendment...

To refuse to answer
their questions

about their political
backgrounds.

Well, Mr. Stripling,
I think that there is

a question of constitutional
rights involved here.

I don't believe that you have...

When did you learn
about the Constitution?

Now just tell me when you
learned about the Constitution.

Mr. Scott, could you tell
the committee

whether or not you are now

or have ever been a member
of the Communist Party?

I believe that question also
invades my right as a citizen.

I believe it also
invades the First Amendment.

I believe that I should not
engage in any conspiracy

with you to invade
the First Amendment.

Well, now we can't tell,
even from that answer,

whether you're a member
of the Communist Party.

If you take the Fifth Amendment,
you're talking about

your right not to be incriminated.

Well, they didn't feel they'd
committed any crime.

Well, they believed that their
freedom of speech

was being abridged.

I believe I have the right to
be confronted with any evidence

which supports this question.

I should like to see
what you have.

- Well, you would?
- Yes.

Well, you will pretty soon.

The witness is excused.

Typical communist tactics.

Typical communist tactics.

Dear Sam, it's 4 a.m.
And I've been working

since 10:00 last night,

back at last the hours I love.

And all night it's been snowing.

I just flashed the spots on
and the sight

is wonderfully soothing
and beautiful.

No corners anywhere
in the world.

Everything round and smooth
and immaculate.

The kids and Cleo are asleep.

The house is in order.

The machines
all function smoothly.

The larder is full, and I feel
for the moment, at least,

that I am the luckiest and most
contented man in the world.

If you were here, we would break
a bottle and light the fire

and watch the falling snow, and
I would tell you all about it.

That being impossible,

I shall write.

First, I shall tell you something

which would embarrass us both
greatly if I were to speak it.

Separated from people
as I have been,

I have had a great deal of time
to observe their reactions

to the present troubled times,

and I have seen many
betray themselves.

I have seen many

fail any decent test of conduct.

Some of them my friends.

And I have shucked them off with
as little feeling

as I would toss away
a nail paring

and have experienced no sense
of loss in the process.

But through this whole
interesting experience,

my respect for you has deepened

and my affection has grown
more profound,

not only for the money you lent me,

although that was a lifesaver

and a great demonstration of faith,

but for your attitude toward me
and other persons

and toward life itself.

For your willingness to grant me
any belief I cherish

so long as it is not harmful
to others,

even when you disagree with it,

and for your personal sense
of outrage

when that right is denied.

This, and this alone, makes
decent men and decent societies,

and is rare,

and is why I feel warm
in the knowledge

that we are friends.

Perhaps I should not be

as angry as I am against
the weaklings,

the cravens and liars who have
succeeded in banning me

from motion pictures.

For I feel a sense of relief
and a sense of buoyancy

at no longer being an employee.

I'm sure I should never have
had the courage,

or perhaps one should say
the foolhardiness,

to have left it voluntarily.

My feeling now...
As of today, that is...

With the hope of succeeding
elsewhere still strong in me,

that I shall never return to films.

That if Metro asked me back
tomorrow with all forgiven,

I should refuse.

Hunger, of course, could in time
alter that decision,

but for the present,

it stands.

Well, now, enough.

I hope all things go well with you.

Cleo and I send you our best.

And the children have just risen
and started shouting

through the house
at the discovery of the snow.

Say hello to my friends

and piss on my enemies.

Wherever there's fear,
there's hysteria.

Wherever there are people

who whip up fear
for their own purposes,

they will produce the hysteria.

And they will try to do it again.

The fact that he followed
the usual communist line

of not responding to questions
of the committee

is definite proof that he's

a member of the Communist Party.

Therefore, by unanimous vote,

the subcommittee recommends
to the full committee

that Dalton Trumbo be cited
for contempt of Congress.

The committee recommends

appropriate action be taken

by the full committee
without delay.

After the hearings,
there was this meeting

at the Waldorf.

They united on a policy
which basically was,

we don't believe in a blacklist,

but we're not going
to employ anyone

who has been involved
in any way,

shape or form
with the Communist Party.

We will forthwith
discharge or suspend,

without compensation,

those in our employ
and we will not reemploy

any of the ten until such time
as he is acquitted

or has purged himself
of contempt

and declares under oath
that he is not a communist.

You have a scapegoat.
You have the communists.

There were about 80,000
communists in the country.

At the peak of the party's
success, you know.

They weren't as dangerous
as The Elks.

And didn't have nearly
as many guns.

After the Waldorf agreement is signed

by the various producers
and studios

and the blacklist is
established,

my father's position
became that he

would have to accept the idea
that the blacklist existed

and operate under those
conditions,

which meant finding work in
another way.

They lost their jobs.

They were persona non grata
in Hollywood.

And they began writing
under assumed names.

And it was really contrary to
what this country is all about.

I have the feeling...

That if you give

most people in the world

a choice between enough food
for their children

and shelter and clothing,

in return for
their freedom of speech,

that they will go for the food,

the shelter,

and the necessities,

and freedom of speech

becomes a luxury for which

few fight at the most.

Dear Guy,

I've had several days to ponder
our discussion

of the Saturday before
Christmas.

Though I have not yet
had the opportunity

to talk it over with the others,
I have had second thoughts

of my own,
and the strong impression

I didn't make myself clear
as to my real opinions.

That day, a prominent
and liberal producer,

whose motives I do not
at all doubt,

was quoted as saying
to one of us...

"Look, you people are simply
stubborn and foolish.

"The committee and its
requirements

"are a part of our time.

"They are the law.

"They are the country.
They are the flag.

"That's the way it is.

"And those who refuse to
recognize this,

"no longer arouse sympathy.

"They only isolate themselves

and prevent their voices
from being heard."

I know and can read the first
amendment

as well as anyone else.

I know it is the basic law
of this country.

I know that if it goes,
all will go.

Thus, the court has
presented us with a dilemma

that lies at the heart of all
philosophies and religions.

The dilemma best symbolized in
the Faustian legend...

"Yield up your principles
and you shall be rich,

"cling to them, and you shall be

less prosperous
than you presently are."

That's the problem... choice.

Not compulsion, choice.

Committee or no committee.

Law or no law.
Capitalism or no capitalism.

Movies or no movies.

It is the constant necessity
to choose

that dogs every action
of our lives,

every minute of our existences.

Who is it then who compels us
to inform?

Who is it that denies us work

until we seek out the committee
and abase ourselves before it?

Since it is neither the court,
nor the law, nor the committee,

the man who compels informing

can only
be the employer himself.

He is the one who urges us
to inform,

and he is the one who withholds
work from us until we do.

He is, in fact, that same
liberal producer

who was quoted at our Saturday
discussion.

It is he, and not the committee,
who applies the only lash

that really stings...
Economic reprisal.

He is the enforcer who gives
the committee

its only strength
and all its victories.

Disliking the nasty business
of blacklisting,

but nonetheless practicing it
every day of his life,

he places upon his country
and his flag

the blame for moral atrocities

that otherwise would be charged
directly to himself.

And thus, since informing has
nothing to do with the law,

and the country and the flag

and since the necessities
of his life, as he sees them,

oblige him to enforce what
the committee

can never compel,

and since without his enforcement

the committee would have
no power at all,

what he actually said
is that he is the law

and the country and the flag.

Thinking back to our producer
and his concept

of country and flag,

I am more than ever bewildered.

I wonder if he has really seen
this country.

If he has really seen
these American people.

If he has really seen that flag.

If he has, and his conclusions
are honest,

he has seen something I never
imagined

and don't believe exists.

My mother and father always refused,

declined to state

their political affiliation
in primaries.

And I learned to decline
to state.

I learned that certain things
were no bloody body's business

and that if you allow them
to encroach upon this area,

then they can ask you anything
about your wife,

about your children,
about your politics.

They might even... and I can
imagine a time in this country

when they may bring democrats
up to the platform, and say,

"have you now or ever

been a member
of the Democratic Party?"

My father loved it
when he could be

in some kind of magnificent
battle with somebody.

I always loved hearing
his perspective on anything,

but especially political,
because he was just so astute.

He was really smart.
He was very funny.

He was charming.
He was very charming.

He would enchant people.

He could also be difficult

and grumpy and cantankerous

and had a temper.

He was a terrible money manager.

As soon as money came in

for a script, he'd spend it,

is the only way I could
think about it.

My father's relationship
to money is,

he never managed to save any.

This was always the problem.

He was consistently catching up.

So all of his plans,
or all of his dreams,

to actually become financially
independent

never had a chance
in the face of the things

that he was interested
in doing with the money

at the time, which was like...

"Maybe we should put a lake
in there."

That kind of thing.

And so as he was being
unemployed by the studio

and his contract canceled,

he was in the middle of
improving the ranch again.

Dear burglars,

our baby sleeps in one bedroom
and we sleep in another

and when she yelps at night,
we cannot hear her.

A man said you were the people
to see about such things.

Can you install a speaker
in her room

and one in ours so we can gossip
back and forth with her

during the wee small hours?

Not one of your solid gold
outfits.

Something sensible and
serviceable.

I am not a rich man anymore.

Now, let's all get together
and see if we can arrange

a decent, modest little outfit
for an old customer

without screwing him to death
in the process.

Irritably yours, Dalton Trumbo.

My dear Mr. Farness,

Your letter has arrived
and been put

to the only sensible use
I could think of.

When we Reds come into power,
we are going to shoot merchants

in the following order...
One, those who are greedy

and, two, those who are witty.

Since you fall
into both categories,

it will be a sad story when
we finally lay hands on you.

I had hoped time might have
improved your character,

but the prices you quote
convince me otherwise.

You still cannot imagine
a happy moment

which does not find your fist
in somebody else's pocket.

Since I have little choice
in the matter, I must yield.

Send the set described

and with it,
a man for installation.

I have no intention of creeping
about the house on all fours

with a wire in one hand
and a hammer in the other

and my larynx clogged with tacks.

The bill should be sent to
my business manager,

whose name is Rex Cole.

I have employed him because
he hates creditors

and does not pay them
too promptly.

You will feel better over
the Thanksgiving

and Christmas season if you have
something to look forward to

during the hangover period
which follows.

And I tell you quite frankly
that it will probably be 60 days

before you get your money.

Considering what you've
done to me,

I ought to make you wait
the full nine months.

Please extend my good wishes for
the holiday season

to everyone in the thuggery.

The guys went to jail

in '50.

And that was a big shock.

That was
a real shock to all of us.

Only two people stood trial...
Jack Lawson

stood trial first and then I.

Both Jack and I were judged
guilty of contempt

Of the 83rd Congress,
I think it was.

And as far as I was concerned,

it was a completely just verdict.

I had contempt for that Congress

and have had contempt
for several since.

All through the appeals,
things got very tight.

Everybody was working,
scrambling terribly hard.

It went all the way up
to the Supreme Court.

And by the way, they thought
they were going to win.

Every law review in the country

thought we would win.

Now, we didn't win.

Others saw something that we had
not had the advantage of seeing.

They saw ten men sell their houses,

say goodbye to their kids,
and go off to jail,

lose their jobs,

and be subjected to public
disgrace and punishment.

I had three children.

I had a nice wife.

Why should I go to jail?

My darling...

You know what I was thinking
last night?

I was thinking of the night

a weary, frightened,

tearful girl climbed into my car

and let me drive away with her.

And I was thinking
of the truly remarkable person

she has turned into.

And I came to the conclusion
that the night in question

was the luckiest one in my life.

Yes, my parents' courtship

was the famous family story.

He had a friend named
Earl Felton, who...

Told him that he had met the woman

that my father should marry.

And my mom worked

in a drive-in stand.

My mother came out,
served them dinner,

whatever it was, and my father
proposed to her.

My mother rejected him.

She married, I believe he was
the cook at the drive-in stand.

I don't know if she did this
in defiance or what.

Trumbo was dismayed

when she married this fellow

whom he had met somehow and
didn't trust him worth a darn.

So he put a detective
on this other man

and in due time discovered that
the man was already married.

So to his great delight,

this invalidated Cleo's
marriage to his competitor.

And before too long,

Cleo had chosen Trumbo.

Two days hence will be our 13th
wedding anniversary,

and I have been lying here
on my bunk thinking about it.

The 13 years
seem so short a time because...

It has been so happy a time for me.

All that is any good in my life
has grown out of it.

And I think back on each year
with pride.

I think our children
take pride in it,

and will take more pride
as they grow older.

I think the three things
I want most

when I get out of here are,
one, a good drink;

two, a rare steak;

and, three, a symphony.

More and more I realize that
when I emerge from here,

I must make the choice of what
kind of writer I want to be.

I think it would be better
for all of us

if I return to writing novels

with the occasional foray
into theater.

It will probably take years
to recover from the blow

dealt by the blacklist,

but the discovery of friends
who rally around

with such incredible generosity,
perhaps,

makes the whole experience
worthwhile.

Much love...

Dalton Trumbo.

Prisoner number 7551.

P.S. As for the problem
of your children...

I have no solution.

Except that I will adapt myself
to the solution

which you conclude
is reasonable.

It is your problem.

They are, after all, the fruits
of your own unbridled lust.

And if they now appear
inconvenient...

Remember the joy
of their conception.

In 1951, when he gets out of jail,

my father came back
to the ranch,

and all the attendant problems
of, how do we start again?

What are we going to do?
What's the world look like now?

Is it your opinion, senator,
that we're any nearer

a war with Soviet Russia
than we were a year ago?

As far as war is concerned,
we're at war

with the communist half
of the world.

That war wasn't started by us.

It can't be ended by us
except by ultimate victory.

About this time,
the government was beginning

to recondition
the relocation centers

that the Japanese had been
interned in during the war

for members of the left.

In other words, concentration
camps for American radicals.

And that was really frightening.

We had had a long period of
unemployment, which had scared

the living dickens out of us,
so we realized

that there was a gray list

that was beginning to affect us.

But I had dinner with the kids

and the doorbell rang.

I went to the door,

knowing exactly what I would find.

And I looked through
the Judas hole,

and it was two men in hats
on the front porch.

And they asked for Hugo and
I said he isn't there.

They asked where he was,
and I said I didn't know.

They looked at each other
and off they went.

And, oh!

I was a wreck

and I came back to the table.

And I telephoned Hugo...
He came on the phone and I said,

"Honey, get on your horse."

And there was a pause,
and he said, "No."

And we were on the run.

We all agreed that maybe
we should all leave the country

because we couldn't see
any way out.

We couldn't see what lay
in store for us.

Oh, boy!

My limited view
of the economy of Hollywood

indicates it's not too good.

Employment extremely low.

Many deserving hacks starving.

I find enough to do but don't
enjoy doing it.

Stall a great deal of the time.

I just slunge around
and bipper at people

and dream of the time
I'll be shed of everything.

I'm impatient for something
to happen...

Good, bad or indifferent.

I want to move somewhere.

I think we might live handsomely
and grow rich in Mexico.

Don't you?

I'm perfectly willing to go
anywhere

that I can live,
not, perhaps, in peace,

but certainly in luxury.

If I could spend
the next 5 or 10 years

in Mexico City or its environs,
earn say

$40,000 or $50,000 a year,
which isn't at all improbable,

and pay Mexican income taxes
and stash

enormous sums of cash away,
hell, I'd go for it instantly.

Cleo and I intend to swoop into
Cuernavaca,

quiz Gordon Kahn
about living costs,

schools, rents,

Mordito, immigrantes,
and the virgin of Guadalupe.

All of which he is said to know
more about

than any other living person.

Naturally, we shall share
our findings with you.

We all send you
felicitaciones y misereres,

y fraternidades,
y commiserereres.

Ring Lardner and Hugo Butler

and Ian Hunter are my
father's closest friends

And had been during the '40s,

and all of the families
ended up, at some point,

in Mexico City.

We all moved to Mexico.
First it was the...

The Butlers and the Trumbos went
down in this caravan together,

and we followed in January.

I think they went down
in November.

I've heard stories

about Ring and Hugo and...

Ian and pop.

There are actually some photos
somewhere of them wrestling.

So this is the wrestling.

This is my dad, this is Ring.

And that's Hugo.

And this...

Unflattering picture here,
this is Trumbo.

I think these are legs
and they would be Ian's.

Somehow or other
these four young writers

all got together,

all had a wonderful time
together,

and made up a band,
a little band of brothers.

They were adorable together.
They were terribly funny.

Mostly what they did was have fun.

They would think of pranks.

They would drink,
which was, you know,

a primary occupation.

They were all probably drunks.

I'm not sure about Hugo.

Trumbo seems to have been
the most successful

in being able to drink and write.

My dear son,
I am sending you two books

I think appropriate
for a young man spending

five-sevenths of his time
in the monkish precincts

of John Jay Hall.

The first is Education
of a Poker Player

by Herbert O. Yardley.

Read it in secret,

hide it whenever
you leave quarters,

and you'll be rewarded with
many unfair but legal advantages

over friend and enemy alike.

The second book I think you
should share

with your young companions.

It is Sex without guilt...

By a man who will take his place
in History

as the greatest humanitarian

since Mahatma Gandhi...
Albert Ellis, ph.D.

This good man has written what
might be called

"a manual for masturbators".

The result... mailed in plain
wrapper, under separate cover...

Is one of those fortuitous events

in which the right man
collides with the right idea

at precisely the right time.

This whole new approach,

this fresh wind blowing
under the sheets, so to speak,

this large-hearted appeal
for cheerful self pollution,

invokes, perhaps, a deeper
response in my heart

than in most, for I...

Sneaky, timorous, incontinent
little beast

with my paphian obsessions was
never wholesomely at home

with my penile problem.

All because of that maggoty,
mountainous pustule

of needless guilt
that throbbed like an abscess

in my young boy's heart.

This is an exercise
of language and style.

He's just read Nabokov.

He's playing with it.

He's entertaining me.

He's entertaining himself.

On warm, summer nights,

while exuberant girl-hunting
contemporaries

scampered in and out of the brush

beneath high western stars,

I... dedicated fool...

lay swooning in my bed
with no companion

save the lewd and smirking
demons of my bottomless guilt.

The first thing I did
was start laughing,

and the second thing I did
was get a dictionary.

Cowering there in seminal darkness,

liquescent with self-loathing,

attentive only to the stealthy
rise and crafty-ebbing

of my dark scrotumnal blood,

fearful as a lechwe
yet firmer of purpose

than any rutting buffalo,

I celebrated the rights
of Shuah's son

with sullen resignation.

Poor little chap on a summer's
night morosely masturbating.

Tck-tck-tck.

Even now, more than
three decades later,

even now when I
forget a friend's name

or mislay my spectacles or pause...

in mid-sentence idiocy...

Even now, such lapses
set a clammy chill

upon my heart.

It's then, while panic tightens
my sagging throat,

that I whisper to myself,

it's true, after all.
It does make you crazy.

It does cause the brain to soften.

Why, oh, why did I like it so much?

Why didn't I stop while I was
still ahead of the game?

Well, little good to know it now.

The harm's done, the jig's up,
you're thoroughly rattled.

Better you'd been born
with handless stumps.

I recall a certain
chill winter night

on which my father took me

to one of those Calvinist
fertility rites

disguised as a father and son banquet.

Master of the revels
was an acrid old goat

named Horace T. McGinnis.

He opened his discourse with
a series of blasphemous demands

that the almighty agree
with his ghastly notions

and then got down to the meat
of the program,

which, to no one's surprise,
was girls.

"When you go out with
a young lady," he slavered,

"you go out
with your own sister."

It seemed plain to me
that if one day I did

burst upon the world as
the hymeneal Genghis Khan

of my dreams,

I would be in for an extremely
incestuous time of it.

I can still hear that demented
old reprobate howling

his bill of particulars against
poor Onan...

The Bible's first
recorded masturbator.

Shaking his fist at us and
sweating like a diseased stoat.

"He wasted his seed!

"Monstrous, shameful,
nameless act.

"He spilled it, right out
onto the ground... all of it.

And this displeased the lord
and the lord slew him."

Yet, the more I think on it,
the more positive I become

that you will never truly be
able to comprehend

in all its horror
that interminably sustained

convulsion
which was your father's youth.

It's only reasonable
that this should be so since

you had so many advantages that
were denied to me.

To name but three of them...
A private room,

s masturbating father
and Albert Ellis ph.D.

I carried the ball for all of us.

And carried it farther than
anyone had a right to expect.

I was the Prometheus
of my secret tribe.

A penile virtuoso.

A gonadic prodigy...

A spermatiferous thunderbolt.

In fine...
a masturbator's masturbator.

I dreamed of living in luxurious
exile in Mexico City.

Well, it was luxurious
for the first year,

it was absolutely hellish
for the second year.

Because I had assumed
that I could get

a little underground work
from the north.

It turned out that
I could get none

and I was sort
of heroically broke.

Cleo was staunchly loyal to Trumbo.

Staunchly loyal.

And everything that he stood for.

So she accepted what had to be.

By now, the Trumbos had kind of
used up most of their reserves,

and they knew that
they were going to have to,

sooner or later, come back,
and it had better be sooner.

There were ideas that perhaps
there were ways

of breaking into the Mexican
film industry

or something like that.

For my father, none of this
ever paid off.

Dear Dorothy and Seniel,

To start in, I was a fool
for moving south of the border.

The line of supply to my living
source was so tenuous

that when I did work,
the people who owed me for it

mistook my absence for my death

and simply did not pay

without the strongest kind
of pressure being exerted.

We lived out an old truism...

The first time you see Mexico

you are struck
by the horrible poverty.

Within a year,
you discover it's infectious.

I'm as broke
as a bankrupt's bastard.

When I arrived from Mexico,
I pulled into town with a wife,

three children, a dog, a cat,
one mortgaged jeep

and $400 in my pocket.

There were other problems.

I'd lost all my life insurance

during that disastrous
Mexican holiday.

I lived on borrowed money

for the last nine months
of the visit.

Couldn't even get
my furniture out of storage,

because of a $1200 storage bill
I couldn't pay.

I sat down in a motel
in Pasadena with a dog,

a cat and one child, while Cleo
and the two girls

moved in with my sister.

Most of my black market
connections had dissolved

during my absence.

It was like trying to find work
at midnight

in a thick fog among strangers.

Hence, I started at the bottom,
like any newcomer.

For as little as $1000 a script.

In the first 18 months,
I wrote 12 scripts,

which normally would take
between 4 and 6 years to do.

The necessity of keeping
the money grinding in

made it impossible for me
to take as much as a month off

and gamble on an original

which might sell for enough
to give me more gambling room.

Also, I am overly timid
and evasive

when I owe money

and I can't see just how I'm
going to pay it back.

This letter, then,
is an apology,

which I hope you will be
generous enough to accept.

I enclose a check for $50,

which I shall now be able
to repeat every month

until the money you so very
graciously lent me

is paid off in full.

One of the objects
of a blacklist is to deprive

the victim of economic security

and to drastically lower
his living standards

to the point
where he will yield.

Well, that being their objective,

my objective was to maintain
those living standards

in spite of it.

Trumbo began to work very,
very hard and very fast.

He would have three stories
going at once

because he was beginning

to have to sell stuff under
other names or with a front.

So there were a lot of secrets.
He had many different names.

And the phone would ring

and it was never a wrong number
as far as I was concerned.

I'd always just call my dad.

I had 13 pseudonyms, all told.

I had Irish names.

I had Jewish names.
I had Anglo-Saxon names.

Give them their preference.

So you say, "Sam Jackson
calling," or Doc Abbott

or Theodore Flexman
or Evelyn Domain.

My dad, his best friend, one of
the members of this group,

was Ian Hunter.

And Ian had an Academy Award.

Ian's was for this beautiful
movie called Roman Holiday.

It wasn't until I was in my early 30s

that I learned that Ian had not
written Roman Holiday.

Trumbo had written
the original story.

Ian had fronted for Trumbo.

Ian hadn't been blacklisted yet.

And when the credits were
re-distributed sometime

in the '90s to Trumbo,

the whole experience

was embarrassing.

Just the blacklist is a little
bit more complicated.

It just has

these sort of repercussions.

I thought a little wine
might be good.

Shall I cook something?

No kitchen.
Nothing to cook.

I always eat out.

Do you like that?

Life isn't always
what one likes.

Is it?

No, it isn't.

Ray Murphy was

a young man my father met
in the South Pacific.

Ray later became a front
for my father.

And we needed the money,
as usual,

when the script sold,
and my father was expecting it

and it wasn't coming.

So he made inquiries
and a few weeks later discovered

that Ray Murphy had died suddenly.

Dear Mrs. Murphy,
I want to tell you

about your son
and my relationship with him

and of my wife's sorrow
and my own

that he is no longer living.

It has been my privilege
since 1945 to be Ray's friend.

It came about in the following manner.

In June of 1945, a party of 6
or 7 war correspondents

embarked from San Francisco
by air on a three month tour

of Pacific battle areas.

Among the correspondents
were Ray and I.

During the invasion of Borneo,
Ray and I went ashore

in a landing craft between
the first and secondary,

dodging mortar fire
as we sprinted across the sand.

From a slit trench outside
the governor's palace,

Ray and I spotted a hilltop
which we believed

would give us a better view
of what was going on

and decided to climb it.

When we finally reached the top
of the hill,

we found an abandoned AA gun
that had been knocked out

by naval fire,
and no sign of a human being.

We took what cover we could
when we heard sounds

of approaching troops, thinking
the Japanese were returning.

Moments later, a grim-looking
Australian assault group

with fixed bayonets appeared,
expecting to meet the enemy.

Well in advance
of our armed forces,

as it turned out, Ray and I had
accidentally captured the hill.

On the fourth day of the campaign,

the outcome being beyond doubt,

our group decided to return
to Tawi Tawi.

Once off, we retired
into the main cabin.

Somewhere off Japanese-occupied
Celebes,

the alarm signifying an air
attack went off in the cabin.

It could only mean that
a Zero had risen

from Celebes and was attacking.

I was on the top bunk.
I looked down.

Ray was lying full length
on the floor

between two other men,
his helmet on.

He looked up at me and although
his face was, I dare say,

as pale as my own, he smiled.

And then he said,
"Goodbye, Trumbo".

I cannot quite describe
my emotions at that moment.

Perhaps I thought of my own son,
then only 4.

Perhaps I thought
of my father long dead.

I certainly felt that a son,
not my son, had chosen me

from among that company
as the one he wished

to say goodbye to.

And that a father,
not his father, had responded.

The fact, as it later turned out,

that there was no Zero within
a hundred miles and no danger,

that the whole incident was
a ludicrous mistake of nerves

on the part of the crew
in no way diminishes

my memory of that moment

nor the surge of love
I felt for your son.

We managed to correspond
intermittently ever since.

Ray went to India and later
published his first novel.

I went before

the House Committee
on un-American Activities

and later served my first term
in a penitentiary.

I was at that time, as I am now,
blacklisted by motion pictures,

publishers, and magazines.

It was typical of his generous
nature that he offered

to collaborate with me
for motion pictures

and to put his name alone

to the product
of our mutual endeavors.

It was typical of my need
that I accepted.

During our last visits,

in a moment of temporary
depression common to young men,

who are both sensitive and
intelligent beyond their years,

Ray told me that he thought he
believed in nothing.

He felt himself a complete cynic.

It was of course, not true.

A day or two later, when he
brought a copy of my novel

Johnny Got His Gun
for me to inscribe,

I wrote in it what I really felt
about him and his future.

He telephoned me the next day
to thank me.

He said,
"I hope I can live up to it."

I should have told him then,
and now

have only you to tell
that he already had.

Prisoner!
Show yourself.

Give me the name and you're
back on full rations.

Just one name.

I was born skinny.

Then you'll die.

In 1957 or '58,
the situation in Hollywood

in terms of blacklisted
writers is,

unless you cooperate
with the committee,

unless you do what it asks
you to, you won't be employed.

The next generation

of witnesses

faced a different sort of choice.

They could take the First Amendment
like the 10

and then their assumption was
they would go to prison.

They could take

the Fifth Amendment, which would
keep them out of prison,

but they would then be blacklisted.

Or, they could cooperate
with the committee.

If they did that,

and admitted that they had been
members of the Communist Party,

the next question was, "And who
else was a member with you?"

And it's only a matter of time.

You think so?

He's on half rations now.
He can't exist on that.

You're forced to choose between
starvation and telling.

What would you do?

We're not talking about me.
What would you do?

I looked hard at Dalton and I thought,

what is it about this guy
that would not,

which would make him say,
"No, I'm not giving names"?

And that was a psychic death,
kind of.

Because you just lost everything.

You were never to work again.

You were never to have
any money, you went to jail.

I'm really speaking

of the personal experience of a man

who was fortunate
during this period.

It was a matter of total

disaster for others.

Financial, matrimonial.

For some of their children.

Wherever you are, at some point
somebody discovers

that Dalton Trumbo
is Dalton Trumbo.

We clearly stood out.

We were a different kind of family.

It is that we were thrust
inward as a family.

We were thrust upon ourselves.

And we relied upon each other

more and trusted each other more
and helped each other more.

I felt we were a very close family.

What you need is
a person who is outraged

by the fact that Dalton Trumbo
lives in the neighborhood

and, two, that his daughter
actually goes to school

with their children.

it was beginning fifth grade.

I think I was 10 years old.

And it was pretty awful
at school,

and I didn't tell them about it
because when you're a kid,

you pretty much think it's
your problem to deal with,

so...

Until it got to the point
where I just couldn't

go to school anymore and finally
let them know

what was happening.

To Mrs. Eleanor Barr Wheeler,
principal,

Annandale Elementary School.

My dear Mrs. wheeler,

We entrusted to your care

a happy,

healthy, comparatively
well-adjusted

and demonstrably intelligent
child

who loved school,

adored her teachers,

and enjoyed the friendship

of her small circle
of contemporaries.

Eight months later,
you return to us

a spiritually devastated
human being

who begs us not to send her
to school.

I am informed that within
the PTA and the Bluebirds,

there have been a series of
small secret meetings

devoted to a discussion of
Mrs. Trumbo's character

and of mine.

And what to do about us.

Since no one has come
to our home to discuss

at first hand the problems
which so deeply trouble them,

we have obviously been tried
and condemned in absentia.

And the verdict has filtered
down from parent to child.

Mitzi, who started out
the school year

with many friends,

has found herself
in the past three months

the object of the scorn

and ridicule and hatred
of those she liked most.

Small, childish conspiracies
are directed against her,

patterned in secret

after the conspiracies
of the parents.

And she is quietly and
incessantly

persecuted and boycotted

and shunned as long
as the school day lasts.

This slow murder of the mind
and heart and spirit

of a young child
is the proud outcome

of the patriotic meetings
held by a few parents

under the sponsorship of
the PTA and the Bluebirds.

I should like you to watch

how decently
and bravely our daughter

tries to suppress her
bewilderment

at her first encounter
with barbarism

parading as American virtue.

Barbarism which began at
your school among adult persons.

Now that we have discovered
the source of Mitzi’s agony,

we shall naturally secure
competent treatment

to rid her of the scars
already inflicted.

If it then seems advisable,

we shall employ competent
counsel

to seek a court test
of the responsibilities

of the school and of school
organizations

for the mental health
of the children entrusted to it.

For it is within these school
organizations

that Mitzi has suffered
an assault.

That the assault has been upon
her personality

and that the injury
she has sustained is psychic

makes it no less real than if,
in a physical sense,

the men and women of the PTA

and the officials
of the Bluebirds

had incited their children
to trample her senseless

on the blacktop of the playground.

That was the quality of hatred.

It wasn't just

against me or our daughter.

It was against everything
that is strange.

Everything that is different.

And that, of course, is...

Is the beginning of...

of the apocalypse.

One Sunday, Hugo and I

and Trumbo and Cleo
went to a bullfight.

Hugo identified
with the bullfighter

and Trumbo identified
with the bull.

So in this case,

it was a bad kill.

The bull was stabbed

through the throat
and bled profusely.

And Trumbo and Cleo were
absolutely livid.

They were simply horrified.

They could hardly speak.

And within a couple of months,
Trumbo has gotten the idea

for an original, which emerged
finally as The Brave One.

On the day that the Academy nominations

were announced, it was announced
that Robert Rich was nominated.

Robert Rich

was one of my father's fronts.

Robert Rich was an actual person.

He was the nephew
of the King brothers,

who had produced the picture.

Night of nights in Hollywood
as the film industry presents

the 29th annual
Motion Picture Academy Awards.

In 1957,

at the Academy Awards,
The Brave One received

the Academy Award

for Best Original Story.

For The Brave One...

And the Academy Award was given
to Robert Rich.

That night, no one appeared

to pick up the award.

The next morning six other
Robert Riches announced

that they had written it
and demanded the award.

That Oscar became

the only unclaimed Oscar,
I believe,

in the whole history
of the Academy Awards.

I remember as a child
seeing a photo composite

that they were trying to
reconstruct who Robert Rich was.

As a result, there came to be

a search for Robert Rich.

This was an opportunity that
my father seized upon

and used to bring

the idea of blacklisted writers
to a head,

that it couldn't be ignored
anymore.

Mr. Trumbo, did you write
The Brave One?

Well, you see,

I've been accused of writing
many pictures

in the last ten years during
the period of the blacklist.

So I've had to make a policy
about such questions.

My policy is that I modestly

refuse either to confirm
or to deny.

In this way I receive just
a little bit of credit

from almost every good picture
that's made

and, for some reason, I never
get blamed for the scamps!

The name "Robert Rich"

lends itself magnificently
to jokes

and may even be the invention
of a jokester.

But it nonetheless contains,
as every really good joke must,

an essential element of tragedy,

or horror, or disgrace,

or doom.

Robert Rich is the unknown artist.

He is the fugitive American
of our time.

And it is my purpose and
determination

that his name shall be
remembered

as a symbol
of this national disgrace

long after the blacklist itself
has been destroyed.

For I have seen the blacklist
that produced Robert Rich.

I know its pain and
its frustration and its horror

and its shattering cruelties.

I have seen families rendered
by it destitute overnight.

I have seen broken homes
and heartbroken children

and sorrowing friends.

I have seen its hideous waste
of talent, and of love,

of friendship, and of life.

I have long served in this lowly

marching army of the anonymous.

And walking among its ranks,

I have seen the figure of death.

And helplessly, I have watched
decent men and women die

before their stories
had been told,

before their work was finished,

before their normal span
of years had been lived out.

Every trade,

every profession now has

its roll call of honored dead.

I can make no more jokes
about Robert Rich.

They turn sour on my tongue.

I can invent no more witticisms

about the Oscar
he dares not claim,

because that small, worthless,
golden statuette is covered

with the blood of my friends.

I cannot laugh about it
any longer

because my belly is filled
with the poison

of this blacklist
and my heart is filled

with its grief and my ears roar
with rage at its injustices.

And my heart,
for the first time,

is filled with something
very close to hate.

I have a daughter, 13 years old.

I've been blacklisted since
she was 3.

She's known the title of every
motion picture

I've written in this study.

And she's kept
that title secret.

My parents and I watched
the Academy Awards

the night that Robert Rich won
and I was so thrilled

and I was saying, "Daddy, let's
go get it tomorrow.

Let's go pick it up."

He said, "No, we can't".

When her friends say to her,
as children do,

"My father does so and so,
what does your father do?"

This has confronted her with
a very real problem.

It confronts her with
the problem,

and has since she was 3,

of who her father really is

and what her father really does.

I...

think I will give this Oscar,
if I get it, to that girl.

I think I will tell her, well,
here is one secret

you no longer need to be
burdened with.

I'll tell her, we have our
names back again.

I bring a message
from your master,

Marcus Licinius Crassus,
Commander of Italy!

By command of his most merciful
excellency,

your lives are to be spared!

Slaves you were
and slaves you remain,

but the terrible penalty of
crucifixion has been set aside

on the single condition

that you identify the body
or the living person

of the slave called Spartacus!

I'm Spartacus!

You know,

when you get close
to 90 years of age,

you look back
and you try to remember

the things that we were not
quite proud of

and the things you're proud of.

I find one thing
that I was very proud of.

I employed Dalton Trumbo

to write the screenplay
of Spartacus.

Trumbo's name appears
on two films in 1960,

on Exodus and Spartacus,

after years in which none
of his peers

could get credited on films.

I know it. I feel it.

Either you compromise
or you lose.

We won't lose.

And I remember
going to see Spartacus

and I remember going to see
Exodus with my family.

I sensed the family pride,

you know, the pride
of the community,

you know, that...

This man's name was on the work

and it might make it easier
for the others.

Everything for him comes down

to some very simple attitudes
and some very simple beliefs.

And he just doesn't stray
from those,

which goes back to his ideas
about the First Amendment,

freedom.

What it is, the way a man
operates in society.

We were talking
and he looked at us and he said,

"Don't forget to be happy."

And I thought, God,
reflected in that

must be so much pain
and suffering

for the political commitment
he made

that put him on that blacklist.

All over the world...

here, there and everywhere...

is this immoral assertion
of power

over the most private thoughts
of men

and the assertion by government

that it has the power to compel
men to tell, to recant,

to disgrace themselves,
to swear they were idiots,

to revoke their past
and to spit on their work.

This is what government wants,
in greater or less degree,

all over the world,
and this is what nobody...

Nobody can do!

I've delivered newspapers,
peddled vegetables,

clerked in stores,
waited on tables,

washed automobiles,
picked fruit,

hosed down infected cadavers,
shoveled sugar beets,

iced refrigerator cars,

laid rails with a section gang,

reported for newspapers,

served an eight year hitch

on the night shift
of a large industrial plant.

I've looked at many
American faces.

I've seen them as flak burst
around them

9,000 feet over Japan.

In a slit trench on Okinawa,

watching the night sky to see
where the next bomb would fall.

In an assault boat as they moved
toward a beach that tossed

more violently than the surf
through which they rode.

I've counseled with a paroled
prostitute on

how she might escape the clutches

of a policeman who had caught her

and was stealing half her earnings

and sending his friends
to her with courtesy cards

that entitled them
to take her without pay.

I've been asked by Louis B. Mayer

why I had no religion

and by a ranking member
of the State Department,

how I could bring myself

to work with
"all those Hollywood Jews."

I've seen American faces
in a Congregational church

in New Hampshire
where a colleague and I traveled

with a bodyguard of students.

I've seen their faces in
a miners' union hall

in Duluth on a night
when the wind off the lake

blew the snow so killingly
and so deep,

cars couldn't be used, everybody
walked to the meeting.

I've seen their faces

in the banquet room
of a New York hotel,

when the American Booksellers
Association

gave me a National Book Award.

And I've seen them again
in the jury box

as each of them twice said,
"Guilty as charged,"

while one of them wept
as she said it.

While one of them wept
as she said it.

I've been stripped by Americans

and paraded naked with them

and before them and obediently
bent over on command

to present my anus
for contraband clearance.

I've lived with and trusted
and been trusted

by car thieves, abortionists,
moonshiners, embezzlers

and burglars and
Jehovah’s witnesses and Quakers.

I've stood on a gray day

in the Fifth Marine Division
Cemetery on Iwo Jima

and looked off at the graves
of 2,198 Americans.

In the center of all those graves

on a slim white pole
on a concrete pedestal

flew the American flag

and I swear it was
not the flag of informers.

And if I could take a census

of all the American faces
I have seen

and of all the dead whose graves
I have looked on,

if I could ask them
one simple question...

"Would you like a man
who told on his friend?"

There would not be one among
them who would answer 'Yes.'

but show me the man who informs
on friends,

who have harmed no one,
and who thereafter earns money

he could not have earned before,
and I will show you

not a decent citizen,
not a patriot,

but a miserable scoundrel,
who will, if new pressures arise

and the price is right, betray
not just his friends,

but his country itself.

I do not know one Hollywood
informer who acted

except under duress
and for money.

Such men ought to be watched.

I cannot imagine
they are not watched.

I've been noticing lately that
I sneak small naps

in the afternoon.

It's just a little more
difficult to summon the energy

to write this letter than
it was five years ago.

Wine goes to my head more
quickly than it used to.

I walk forward instead of running.

And although there is much life in me,

much is also gone.

So to sum up,

I evaluate, I calculate
my course more thoughtfully.

There are certain men of my time
who have waged great battles

and now look out upon the world
from hilltops or from peaks

where the horizon must be
immensely wider

and more revealing, but I have
only skirmished.

Stand on a ridge.

Lower than I had hoped for,

and yet perhaps higher
than I deserve.

The horizons I had thought to
see will probably be denied.

I still hope, if I conserve
energy and absorb

the meaning of my experiences,

that I shall be able to ascend
one of the middle hills,

a little hill, but still
a hill and not a ridge.

Be that as it will be, even
from my ridge, I look back

on two decades through which

good friends stood together,
moved forward a little,

dreamed that the world could be
better and tried to make it so,

tasted the joy of small victories,

wounded each other, made
mistakes, suffered much injury,

and stood silent
in the chamber of liars.

For all this, I am grateful,
that much I have.

That much cannot be taken from me.

Barcelona fell.

And you were not there
and I was not there,

and perhaps if we had been,
the city would have stood,

and the world been changed
and better.

But we were here, and here
together we remain.

And our city won't fall...
And if it should,

better that we lie buried
in its ruins

than found absent a second time.

We are not guaranteed happiness.

We are only guaranteed
the right to pursue it.

Which does imply
that we all have adversity,

and...

it's not too bad.