Visit 13

So I actually didn't have enough time last time I visited the archive to, I think, satisfactorily go through the Good Fight folder. I looked at some other people's blogs and it seems like they were really excited about the folder, especially the interview transcripts, so when I went back, I reordered the box.

One folder I found had at the head: Department of State Office of Arms and Munitions Control. This folder contained letters concerning resources going to Spain--but not on the Republican's side. In 1937, apparently it was found that the Atlantic Refining Company of Philadelphia sent to "the Spanish Monopoly ... two and a half million gallons of gasoline." The reporter also talks of "the great number of automobiles which continue to pass through Portugal destined for Spain." I think there was only one response included in the folder which basically said, "We know. It's okay." So, great. It was funny because it seemed like the reporter thought the information he was about to disclose would be very surprising and illicit quick action. Nope.

Another thing I found that was very interesting was a folder called "Veterans Lists." It was interesting because it was I guess basically a log of the filmmakers' impressions of all the veterans they interviewed. A heading read, "Vets betwixt the Coast" and listed names under different cities and states. It was kind of funny to read because next to many names were comments like these: "nice but dull;" "not there long, opportunist;" "political, stubborn;" "incomprehensible, unpleasant." It gave a little insight into the process of narrowing down which veterans would be featured in the film and it even suggested that it was actually easier picking out the personalities than one might think.

Reading the Peter Carroll book, I came across the fact that the government demanded that the VALB list with the Attorney General as a foreign organization. Also in Carroll's book was the mention of a piece Hemingway wrote to accompany a bust of Milt Wolff. These two facts came together in this folder that contained a letter from the Subversive Activities Control Board to Milt Wolff listing 20 (labeled a-s) accusations of communist activity for each of which he must write a rebuttal 30 days after receiving it. The letter's purpose was obviously to intimidate and overwhelm. Still, in the same folder I found a copy of the piece Ernest Hemingway wrote about Wolff. I get really happy whenever I come across his words because I've read so much of his stuff and so much criticism of his work. Whenever I read something he wrote for the real world, it resonates with the values I see in his literature. So, I found what he wrote about Milt very compelling and beautiful: "He is a retired major now at twenty-three and still alive and pretty soon he will be coming home as other men his age and rank came home after the peace at Appomattox courthouse long ago. Except the peace was made at Munich now and no good men will be at home for long." These lines round out a comparison Hemingway of Milt Wolff to Lincoln, playing off his leadership of the Lincoln Brigade. The last line is so forcefully sad because of Hemingway's pessimism and the invocation of a loaded proper noun contrasted with that of a lost generalization. I wondered why this tribute was included in the folder. I wondered if maybe someone sent this piece on to the Board as an additional piece of testimony in defense of Milt Wolff.