Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson    (political activist, singer)
Born	9 April 1898
Died	23 January 1976 (Age 77)
Cause of death	poisoning
Nationality	US
Alma mater	Rutgers College, Columbia University
Victim of	premature death
US artist and activist possibly poisoned by the CIA

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass baritone singer, athlete, lawyer, and stage and film actor who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political activism. An active communist and the most famous black radical in the world - or even the most famous person in the world in his era - he was targeted by the FBI,CIA and US military intelligence for decades.

Robeson was probably slipped a synthetic hallucinogen called BZ by U.S. intelligence operatives at a March 1961 party in Moscow, which crippled his mental health for the rest of his life. The party was hosted by anti-Soviet dissidents funded by the CIA. Since he long had been harassed by the FBI and CIA, and this probably was the final assault in a government operation with a drug from the MKULTRA program, his demise should be counted in the long string of assassinations of US opposition leaders from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Extremely Gifted

In 1915, Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College, where he was twice named a consensus All-American in football, and was the class valedictorian. Robeson entered New York University School of Law in fall 1919. However, Robeson felt uncomfortable at NYU and moved to Harlem and transferred to Columbia Law School in February 1920. Robeson was recruited by Pollard to play for the NFL's Akron Pros while he continued his law studies, while also recieveng main roles in several off-Broadway plays. He ended his football career after 1922,[73] and months later, he graduated from law school.

Robeson worked briefly as a lawyer at the Stotesbury and Milner law office in New York. The only African American in the company, Robeson was the victim of abuse from other members of staff, and he soon quit.

He got his acting breakthrough in The Emperor Jones, later made to a Hollywood movie. The role terrified and galvanized Robeson, as it was practically a 90-minute soliloquy. His acting career continued in New York and London.

Paul Robeson became increasingly concerned with the issue of civil rights. Two of his closest friends were Walter F. White and James Weldon Johnson, two leading figures in the NAACP. Interviewed by the New York Herald Tribune Robeson claimed that "if I do become a first-rate actor, it will do more toward giving people a slant on the so-called Negro problem than any amount of propaganda and argument.

In 1925 Robeson went to London to appear in Emperor Jones, and scored a major success in the London premiere of Show Boat in 1928, settling in London for several years with his wife. In England he became close friends with Emma Goldman, an anarchist who had been deported from the United States after the First World War.

Political Awakening

In early 1934 Robeson enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a constituent college of the University of London, where he studied phonetics and Swahili.

Robeson was a strong supporter of the Popular Front government in Spain. On 24th June, 1937, Robeson spoke at a mass rally at the Albert Hall in London in aid of those fighting against General Francisco Franco and his rebel Nationalist Army.

Paul Robeson sings for the workers at Sydney Opera House

In January 1938 Robeson,Eslanda Goode and Charlotte Haldane visited the International Brigades fighting in Spain. While there he heard about Oliver Law of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion who had been killed at Brunete in July 1937. During the offensive, Law became the first African-American officer in history to lead an integrated military force. Robeson decided to make a film about Law and "all of the American Negro comrades who have come to fight and die for Spain." Over the next few years Robeson tried several times to raise the money to make the film. He later complained that "the same money interests that block every effort to help Spain, control the Motion Picture industry, and so refuse to allow such a story."

In 1941 Robeson joined Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Vito Marcantonio in the campaign to free Earl Browder, the leader of the American Communist Party, who had been sentenced to four years imprisonment for violating passport regulations. Robeson became active in the Council on African Affairs (CAA), supporting their efforts to gain colonized African countries independence from European colonial rule.

His friends in the anti-imperialism movement and association with British socialists led him to visit the Soviet Union. Robeson traveled to the Soviet Union on an invitation from Sergei Eisenstein in December 1934. A stopover in Berlin enlightened Robeson to the racism in Nazi Germany and, on his arrival in Moscow, in the Soviet Union, Robeson said, "Here I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity.

Blacklisted Nonperson - Denied Travel Abroad

As early as 1935, British intelligence had been looking at Robeson’s activities. In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services, World War II predecessor to the CIA, opened a file on him. In 1947, Robeson was nearly killed in a car crash. It later turned out that the left wheel of the car had been monkey-wrenched.

After having returned to the United States in 1939, during World War II Robeson supported the American and Allied war efforts. After the war ended, his Council on African Affairs was placed on the US Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations and Robeson was investigated during the age of McCarthyism.

Due to his decision not to recant his beliefs, he was denied a passport by the U.S. State Department, and his income, consequently, plummeted from $104,000 in 1947 to $2,000 in 1950. The State Department denied Robeson a passport and issued a "stop notice" at all ports because it believed that an isolated existence inside United States borders not only afforded him less freedom of expression but also avenge his "extreme advocacy on behalf of the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa." However, when Robeson met with State Department officials and asked why he was denied a passport, he was told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries" He moved to Harlem and from 1950 to 1955 published a periodical called Freedom. His right to travel was eventually restored as a result of the 1958 United States Supreme Court decision, Kent v. Dulles.

Because of the political views, Paul Robeson's recordings and films lose all mainstream distribution. His biographer, historian Martin Duberman wrote that Robeson becomes "an outcast, very nearly a nonperson". A book reviewed in early 1950 as "the most complete record on college football" failed to list Robeson as ever having played on the Rutgers team and as ever having been an All-American. Months later, NBC canceled Robeson's appearance on Eleanor Roosevelt's television program.

In 1950, Robeson co-founded, with W. E. B. Du Bois, a monthly newspaper, Freedom, showcasing his views and those of his circle. Most issues had a column by Robeson, on the front page. In the final issue, July–August 1955, an unsigned column on the front page of the newspaper described the struggle for the restoration of his passport. It called for support from the leading African-American organizations, and asserted that "Negroes, [and] all Americans who have breathed a sigh of relief at the easing of international tensions... have a stake in the Paul Robeson passport case." An article by Robeson appeared on the second page continuing the passport issue under the headline: "If Enough People Write Washington I'll Get My Passport in a Hurry."[225]

In 1951, a smear piece titled "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd" was published in The Crisis although Paul Jr. suspected it was written by Amsterdam News columnist Earl Brown. J. Edgar Hoover and the United States State Department arranged for the article to be printed and distributed in Africa in order to defame Robeson's reputation and reduce his and Communists' popularity in colonial countries.] Another article by Roy Wilkins (now thought to have been the real author of "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd") denounced Robeson as well as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in terms consistent with the anti-Communist FBI propaganda.

Paul Robeson: On colonialism, African-American rights (Spotlight, ABC Australia,1960)

In 1946 Robeson led a delegation of the American Crusade to End Lynching to see Harry S. Truman to demand that he sponsor anti-lynching legislation. He also became involved in the campaign to persuade African Americans to refuse the draft. On December 17, 1951, Robeson presented to the United Nations an anti-lynching petition titled "We Charge Genocide". The document asserted that the United States federal government, by its failure to act against lynching in the United States, was "guilty of genocide" under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention.

In 1952, Robeson was awarded the International Stalin Prize by the Soviet Union. Unable to travel to Moscow, he accepted the award in New York. In April 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, Robeson penned To You My Beloved Comrade, praising Stalin as dedicated to peace and a guide to the world: "Through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage." Robeson's opinions about the Soviet Union In his opinion, the Soviet Union was the guarantor of political balance in the world.

In a symbolic act of defiance against the travel ban, in May 1952, labor unions in the United States and Canada organized a concert at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Robeson returned to perform a second concert at the Peace Arch in 1953, and over the next two years, two further concerts took place. In this period, with the encouragement of his friend the Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan, Robeson recorded a number of radio concerts for supporters in Wales.

Poisoning

In 1955, after over seven years of heavy FBI surveillance and near universal blacklisting, at the age of fifty-eight, Robeson is hospitalized for a prostate operation. Prior to the operation he expresses to his son, Paul Robeson, Jr., fear of what might "be done" to him by the US Government while he is under anesthesia. Robeson's recovery is lengthy and coupled with depression. First becoming manic with energy, obsessing daily over the pentatonic scale and the connectedness of universal music theory and then lapsing eventually into a withdrawn depressive state where he saw virtually no one.[2] Robeson's doctor feels there are deeper psychological issues brought on by the combined stress of his prostate surgery and government harassment.

Following the CIA/Belgian assassination of anti-colonialist leader Patrice Lumumba, Robeson starts to question his safety in London. Disagreeing vehemently with his wife Eslanda who wants to stay in London and deciding he is ready to return to the US and assume a role in the civil rights movement he helped build, he planned extensive travels. IN the spring of 1961, Robeson planned to visit Havana, Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The trip never came off because Robeson fell ill in Moscow, where he had gone to give several lectures and concerts. At the time, it was reported that Robeson had suffered a heart attack. But in fact Robeson had slashed his wrists in a suicide attempt after suffering hallucinations and severe depression. The symptoms came on following a surprise party thrown for him at his Moscow hotel

Robeson’s son, Paul Robeson, Jr., who investigated his father’s illness for more than 30 years, believes that his father was slipped a synthetic hallucinogen called BZ by U.S. intelligence operatives at the party in Moscow. The party was hosted by anti-Soviet dissidents funded by the CIA. Among his FBI “status of health” report on Robeson created in April of 1961

Robeson left Moscow for London, where he was admitted to Priory Hospital. There he was turned over to psychiatrists who forced him to endure 54 electroshock treatments. At the time, electro-shock, in combination with psycho-active drugs, was a favored technique of CIA behavior modification. It turned out that the doctors treating Robeson in London and, later, in New York were CIA contractors. The timing of Robeson’s trip to Cuba was certainly a crucial factor. Three weeks after the Moscow party, the CIA launched its disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. It’s impossible to underestimate Robeson’s threat, as he was perceived by the U.S. government as the most famous black radical in the world.

As Alexander Cockburn points out: "Robeson’s case has chilling parallels to the fate of another black man who was slipped CIA-concocted hallucinogens, Sgt. James Thornwell. Thornwell was a U.S. Army sergeant working in a NATO office in Orleans, France, in 1961 (the same year Robeson was drugged), when he came under suspicion of having stolen documents. Thornwell, who maintained his innocence, was interrogated, hypnotized and harassed by U.S. intelligence officers. When he persisted in proclaiming his innocence, Thornwell was secretly given LSD for several days by his interrogators, during which time he was forced to undergo aggressive questioning, replete with racial slurs and threats. At one point, the CIA men threatened “to extend the [hallucinatory] state indefinitely, even to a point of permanent insanity.” The agents apparently consummated their promise. Thornwell experienced an irreversible mental crisis."

His health never recovered, and he lived the last decade and a half of his life in retirement.

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