The case of Pierre Emmanuel actually began in May 1948. "I was asked by our Foreign Ministry," he wrote to the CRIMSON, "to give a series of lectures in the U.S." He applied for a tourist visa, and after questioning him twice, the Embassy granted it. "As a writer," he reports, "I was suspected, and had to prove I was not a communist, which I suppose I did, since the visa was granted. The main difficulty seemed to be that I had been a member of France-URSS until the end of 1947. But many non-communists, who are now strong anti-communists, were my fellow members at the same time." (France-URSS is a pro-Communist publication.)

Emmanuel spent two months in the U.S. in the fall of 1948. He found his trip "extremely pleasant." Under the auspices of Alliance-Francaises he lectured on cultural subjects, and he met many persons in and around Boston.

One of the persons Emmanuel spoke to was Le Roy C. Breunig, assistant professor of Romance Languages and Literature, who calls it "preposterous to accuse him of being a Communist." According to Breunig, Emmanuel is a serious, tense, individual, completely wrapped up in his literary work. "Above all, he is an artist," the professor reports. "He seemed a man predisposed to like America," Breunig goes on. "He praised America and the spots he had visited... (He resembles) the epic nature of Victor Hugo... (is) quite sure of his own importance, not modest, but not unpleasant."

Girls Delighted

Emmanuel's 1948 itinerary included a weekend at Wellesley. Mrs. Hsley reports: "The girls were delighted; we were charmed." It was Mrs. Hsley who suggested to the Wellesley faculty that the poet be offered the Mary Whiton Calkins Professorship for the 1949-1950 academic year. (The Calkins Professorship shifts from department to department each year.)

Emmanuel, who had been a teacher before, accepted immediately. A short while later, Ohio State University asked him to lecture at its summer session in 1949, and this offer too, was accepted, and the arrangements made.

The poet late in 1948 returned to France and his job as head of the American service of the French government's short-wave broadcasting system. In April, 1949, he walked into the American Embassy on the Place de la Concorde in Paris and filed application for a new visa.

Routine

The first visit consisted only of familiar routine. Emmanuel filled out some forms, was assured by the entry clerk that he would get his visa as soon as he was interviewed by the vice-consul, and was told to return in May.

About three weeks later, on the appointed day, Emmanuel was questioned by Mr. Stranger, the vice-consul. (The consul's record of this interview has not been made available, so everything known about the questions and answers of that afternoon comes from Emmanuel.)

First, according to Emmanuel, Stanger wanted to know if he was a Communist. "I said no." Then Stanger asked him to explain his former close affiliation with a French weekly, Les Lettres Francaises. Emmanuel told the vice-consul that the National Committee of Writers had formerly controlled that publication, which had only recently fallen into the hands of the Communists.

Quiz

Then came what Emmanuel calls "a rather queer question." Stanger asked: were you a friend of Jean Richard Bloch? Emmanuel writes, that Bloch, who died in 1947, "was an important French writer, President of the Association of the French Press, and also a communist." Emmanuel answered Stanger that he had met Bloch several times, but could not call himself a friend of his. Why then, Stanger asked, did you attend his funeral?

Emmanuel explained that many non-Communists, regarding Bloch as a man of letters and a journalist, had paid their respects at his grave.

The vice-consul brought up a trip behind the iron curtain that Emmanuel had taken in 1947. Stanger insisted, Emmanuel reports, that because of this trip "there was a strong suspicion that I may be a Communist."