Official Visit

Stanger "ignored" the fact, Emmanuel writes, that the French government had sent the poet to the Eastern European countries on an official lecture tour similar to his journey to the U.S. in 1948. After his trip to the Balkans, the poet wrote some disillusioned articles for which the Communists have not forgiven him, and while in Rumania, he was branded an American agent by the Rumanian press.

Stanger then went back to "the France-URSS business," according to Emmanuel, and was assured that the poet was no longer a member. Other questions, some touching on communist publications that had carried his poems, concluded Emmanuel's first interview with Stanger. The poet was told to return on May 17, several days later.

Repeat Performance

On that date Stanger asked Emmanuel the same questions, heard the same answers. Then he told the poet that his case must be referred to Washington. "How long will it take?' said I. 'Three to four weeks.'" Emmanuel was expected at Columbus on June 17.

"I could not take the chance of keeping the Columbus people waiting," he writes. "Neither had I any desire to see the stupid information gathered about me in the hands of the FBI... And I was fed up with the whole business. I did what nobody else does... I took back my passport and my application for a visa."

A few days later, with the story whipping around Paris, Emmanuel was called by an "embarrassed" official and told that the Consul-General, Mr. Gray wanted to speak to him. On the 21st, Gray promised Emmanuel that he would ask for a special priority, but, would not predict what the State Department would decide. "I said I did not want any favor: just the ordinary routine. It was impossible for me to wait longer: I had then made up my mind not to go to the States... I did not want to be a suspected person ... on the FBI files."

Withdrawal

That night Emmanuel wrote a long letter to Mrs. Hsley, and at about the same time he wrote to Ohio State, cancelling the Columbus project because there was no hope he could get a visa in time to reach Ohio by June 17. But there were still three months before September, and Wellesley was counting heavily on Emmanuel's presence here this year.

So Mrs. Hsley began a long correspondence with the State Department, with the French Embassy in Washington, with Senators, with friends in France a correspondence which culminated in the letters of this month but which didn't get Emmanuel his visa.

At first Mrs. Hsley was assured that everything was all right. Early in June, a State Department official told her that a minor official in Paris had bungled, that the affair was cleared up, and that if Emmanuel re-applied he would get his visa with no trouble. This assurance, Mrs. Hsley regrets, was never put in writing.

A few weeks later, therefore, Emmanuel applied again. It was now six weeks after his first interview. He still had approximately nine weeks during which a visa would get him to Wellesley in time for the fall term. But there was still no visa. Instead "there was Mr. Stanger, with the same old questions which I refused to answer any more. He told me: you don't want to cooperate? No, said I: I only want the routine to begin."

Emmanuel had renewed his visa application early in July. Not until August 3, according to the State Department, did the Embassy report the renewal. On August 19, the State Department wrote Mrs. Hsley that an "appropriate" instruction was on its way to Paris.

No News

But on August 26th, Emmanuel told a friend that the Embassy had given him no news that morning. On August 27th, a Mr. McQuade at the Embassy said that "it all rests with Washington and you can't hurry Washington."