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Loyalties: A Son's Memoir
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist's recounting of the tense and intimidating McCarthy era and his own leftist family's persecution in the name of patriotism describes family life under forty years of FBI surveillance
- GenresMemoir
262 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Carl Bernstein
27 books577 followersCarl Bernstein is an American journalist who, as a reporter for The Washington Post along with Bob Woodward, broke the story of the Watergate break-in and consequently helped bring about the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon. For his role in breaking the scandal, Bernstein received many awards; his work helped earn the Post a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 28, 2013
This book is too much of a pastiche of personal autobiography and history to be entirely successful as either. The points it makes about the red scare of the 1940s and 50s could have been condensed to 40 pages, while the narrative about Bernstein's parents, and their friends, is disjointed. The book comes together best at the end, when Bernstein goes into detail about the hearing in which his father represented Emily Geller, a federal employee whose "disloyalty" consisted of nothing more than knowing the wrong people and being active in her union. It is typical of the narrative that, in the middle of a dramatic section about Geller's earing he interrupts the flow to put in a couple paragraphs about him and his father playing pool.
January 6, 2016
This is a painful memoir, an account of Bernstein's parent’s ordeal and his own upheaval during Harry Truman’s loyalty purges.
Bernstein reveals that his parents had been members of the Communist Party, a fact that J Edgar Hoover had tried but not been able to prove. His parents were persecuted during the 50s and the family was followed by the FBI for over thirty years, a time during which the authorities collected over 2,500 pages of documents about the family.
His parents vigorously opposed Bernstein writing and publishing this book, but Bernstein felt strongly that it was something he had to do.
He chronicles these frightening times and shows how easily government can deny its citizens the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.
Bernstein reveals that his parents had been members of the Communist Party, a fact that J Edgar Hoover had tried but not been able to prove. His parents were persecuted during the 50s and the family was followed by the FBI for over thirty years, a time during which the authorities collected over 2,500 pages of documents about the family.
His parents vigorously opposed Bernstein writing and publishing this book, but Bernstein felt strongly that it was something he had to do.
He chronicles these frightening times and shows how easily government can deny its citizens the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.
February 13, 2008
This is a mean spirited churlish account of Carl Bernstein's (of Watergate fame) parents who were communists and who, in Bernstein's view, threw there lives away in their devotion to a false God. The reason why I really liked the book, however, was that Bernstein discusses Marie Siegirst, my dear firend and the godmother of two of my children, who was brought up before government loyalty boards's who accused her of being a communist. She was successfully defended by Bernstein's father. One comes away from the book with the convition that as deluded Bernstein's father was, he was a far bigger man than his son.
February 13, 2011
Carl Bernstein's parents were progressive unionists who had joined the Communist Party. As an attorney, Bernstein's father defended loyalty cases brought under President Truman's Executive Order 9835, which allowed federal employees to be dismissed for subversion without basic due process rights like confronting their accusers. The book is a memoir of those times and Bernstein's parents.
Bernstein's findings are similar to what I saw reviewing the FBI file of relative who was a Communist:
"At no point in all 2,500 pages of their (his parents') files is there a single word about any remotely subversive activity, about any suggestion of disloyalty to the country, about any instruction from Moscow, from the CP, etc. Both volumes are really catalogues of associations and movements, seemingly designed to compile a dossier, not to learn anything about the real nature of their activities. At no point is a Communist meeting described; indeed very little has to do with the Communist Party except that the subjects have been accused of membership, and therefore their every movement will be scrutinized. The files never say what went on at a meeting to support this cause or that (though agents were present) -- only that certain people gathered in Inspiration House, or wherever."
Bernstein quotes from one federal employee whose wife was fired, and who himself resigned from government work due to the hearings. His sentiments I think sum up the era pretty well:
"We were so unimportant really. We were zeros. I mean who the hell were we? We were not in top agency positions. We were ordinary union members. But we had a point of view, on the question of race and the question of unions. You have to remember that Washington was a Southern town; it was Jim Crow including the government. All of the government agencies had separate dining rooms or separate dining areas for blacks and whites. In a sense we were radicals in that we were breaking Southern traditions. And there were some who also came with a point of view of politically coming out of the war and not wanting to see a recurrence of an international debacle. And although we were not important people, still we were there and we were active in these kinds of things. And in a place like Washington, D.C."
Bernstein's findings are similar to what I saw reviewing the FBI file of relative who was a Communist:
"At no point in all 2,500 pages of their (his parents') files is there a single word about any remotely subversive activity, about any suggestion of disloyalty to the country, about any instruction from Moscow, from the CP, etc. Both volumes are really catalogues of associations and movements, seemingly designed to compile a dossier, not to learn anything about the real nature of their activities. At no point is a Communist meeting described; indeed very little has to do with the Communist Party except that the subjects have been accused of membership, and therefore their every movement will be scrutinized. The files never say what went on at a meeting to support this cause or that (though agents were present) -- only that certain people gathered in Inspiration House, or wherever."
Bernstein quotes from one federal employee whose wife was fired, and who himself resigned from government work due to the hearings. His sentiments I think sum up the era pretty well:
"We were so unimportant really. We were zeros. I mean who the hell were we? We were not in top agency positions. We were ordinary union members. But we had a point of view, on the question of race and the question of unions. You have to remember that Washington was a Southern town; it was Jim Crow including the government. All of the government agencies had separate dining rooms or separate dining areas for blacks and whites. In a sense we were radicals in that we were breaking Southern traditions. And there were some who also came with a point of view of politically coming out of the war and not wanting to see a recurrence of an international debacle. And although we were not important people, still we were there and we were active in these kinds of things. And in a place like Washington, D.C."
October 6, 2017
Bernstein wasn't lying when he said he tends to write "circumlocutiously." Finding the linear threads in the book and matching them to a precise timeline of events can be challenging, but it's a wonderful read.
June 28, 2017
I thought there was alot of important material in it that is still uniquely relevant today. A Democrat president creates a loyalty test which negatively affects the lives of at least 8000 American families..Witch Hunt or Protection of the national interest? That is a theme that is never decisively determined in this book, but it is looked at from several angles over and over.
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December 6, 2017I loved reading about this American Historical event up until the last few chapters where it's basically just FBI files. I couldn't force myself to read through those. Those last chapters were just too bland. Otherwise, it was great! It's cool to see this from a new perspective, not the way you're taught in history class or the way we talk about it as outsiders unaffected by these trials.
February 1, 2015
Reading a son's memoir presents a bias, but of very public characters.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews