Ray Bradbury, communiste !

[Lensman]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/30/r ... ympathies/

Ray Bradbury was investigated by FBI for ‘communist sympathies’
By Alison Flood, The Guardian
Thursday, August 30, 2012 9:32 EDT


Science fiction great put under surveillance by the FBI for ‘spreading
distrust and lack of confidence in America’

Ray Bradbury was investigated by the FBI during the 1950s, with
government agents interviewing his peers and putting him under
surveillance before concluding that despite being critical of the US
government in his writing, the celebrated writer was never a member of
the Communist party.

The 40-page cache of the late science fiction author’s FBI files was
obtained by the Daily Beast following a Freedom of Information
request, and shows the extent to which the FBI had Bradbury in its
sights in 1959. “Raymond Douglas Bradbury, a freelance science
fiction, television and motion picture scenario writer … has been
described as being critical of the United States Government,” the FBI
wrote on 8 June 1959, before laying out its issue with Bradbury’s
classic collection of short stories, The Martian Chronicles. The
stories “were connected by the repeated theme that earthmen are
despoilers and not developers”, according to the FBI.

The FBI uncovered the information that “Bradbury has been extremely
successful in the writing field”. The bureau also discovered “that
Bradbury, while a young man, sold papers and did miscellaneous small
jobs”, and that “in 1942 his writing were beginning to return him a
descent [sic] livelihood”.

A named source in the file, Martin A Berkeley, told the agents
investigating Bradbury that the author “was probably sympathetic with
certain pro-communist elements”, and that during a discussion about
whether Communist party members should be allowed to join the Screen
Writers Guild, Bradbury “rose to his feet and shouted ‘Cowards and
McCarthyites’ when the resolution was discussed”.

Berkeley, a “self-admitted” former member of the Communist party, went
on to tell the FBI “that science fiction may be a lucrative field for
the introduction of communist ideologies”, and that “some of
Bradbury’s stories have been definitely slanted against the United
States and its capitalistic form of government”.

Another informant agreed about the dangerous effects of science
fiction, advising “that individuals such as Ray Bradbury are in a
position to spread poison concerning political institutions in general
and American institutions in particular”, and that “Communists have
found fertile opportunities for development; for spreading distrust
and lack of confidence in America [sic] institutions in the area of
science fiction writing”. Even worse, “the general aim of these
science fiction writers is to frighten the people into a state of
paralysis or psychological incompetence bordering on hysteria which
would make it very possible to conduct a Third World War which the
American people would seriously believe could not be won since their
morals had been seriously destroyed”.

Bradbury did not help his own cause by taking out an advertisement in
the Daily Variety in 1952, in which, according to the FBI documents,
he wrote: “I have seen too much fear in a country that has no right to
be afraid. I have seen too many campaigns in California, as well as in
other states, won on the issue of fear itself, and not on the facts. I
do not want to hear any more of this claptrap and nonsense from you. I
will not welcome it from McCARTHY or McCARRAN, from Mr NIXON, DONALD
JACKSON, or a man named SPARKMAN. I do not want any more lies, any
more prejudice, any more smears. I do not want intimations, hearsay or
rumour. I do not want unsigned letters or nameless telephone calls
from either side, or from anyone.”

Despite this, the FBI concluded in 1959 that “no evidences have been
developed which indicate he was ever a member of the [ party]“.

In 1968, however, it was investigating Bradbury again, looking into a
potential trip by Bradbury to the Cultural Congress of Havana in Cuba,
the purpose of which was “to obtain unity of action in the
anti-imperialist fight”. There appeared to be some confusion over the
tip received by the federal agency, however: the named individual was
one “Roy Bradbury”, and after investigating Bradbury’s passport file
and lacking evidence that he had applied for or travelled to Cuba, it
dropped the investigation, deciding not to interview the author. “Due
to Bradbury’s background as a known liberal writer, vocal in
anti-United States war policies, an interview with Bradbury would be
deemed unadvisable,” an agent wrote.

Sam Weller, Bradbury’s biographer, describes the FBI investigation in
his book The Bradbury Chronicles. “I remember distinctly his response
when I visited him and presented him with the files,” Weller told The
Daily Beast. “He beamed ear to ear and dismissed it with a wave of his
hand and laughed and he said, ‘I’ll be damned, I’ve had nothing to
hide over the years – what are they going to investigate? What a
bore.’”

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