Frederick Vanderbilt Field – Anthony G. Flood

“You’ll never regret it!” Gus Hall welcomes me into the Party.

[A shorter version of this was published two years ago under the title “The anniversary of a foolish decision.”]

Yours truly, freshly minted young Communist and Xavier Military Institute (High School) senior, 1971

Fifty-five years ago today, on a muggy Tuesday evening, I arrived at 23 West 26^th Street, Manhattan. The Communist Party USA was headquartered there, and I was about to be enlisted in its ranks.

Decades later, I learned that in the 1940s, members of the Council on African Affairs, including W. E. B. Du Bois (chairman), Paul Robeson (vice-chairman), and Alphaeus Hunton (educational director), met there to further the cause of Pan-Africanism. Ironically, out of the offices of that edifice and its neighbor, Number 21, built in 1881, the real estate empire spawned by John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) conducted its business.

The diary entry of Xavier High School student and research assistant to Herbert Aptheker for May 25, 1971, reads:

Got over to 23 West 26th Street [headquarters of the Communist Party USA] about 6:45 [P.M.]. Whatta nice place! The meeting was on the third floor, where pictures of famous comrades and covers of magazines and pamphlets were displayed. Gus [Hall, 1910-2000, General Secretary of the Party] answered questions very well. He described how the Party operates from top to bottom, about international relations. My questions concerned the time a college student needs to be an active member and about the 2 vouchers + age stipulations [minimum age, 18]. Rasheed [Storey, 1936-2016] and Gus were the vouchers and I was let in even though I[’m] still 17!!!! I really feel like a complete person. As Gus said to me, I’ll never regret it.

The former lumberjack and steel worker congratulated me with a handshake that risked rendering useless my guitar-pick-holding fingers.

I really have commitment and the enthusiasm and the vision. I’m proud of the Party. I want to make the Party proud of me. [See also Anthony Flood, “Herbert Aptheker: Apothecary for a Red Teenager,” October 25, 2018.]

The building where my formal turning to the political dark side occurred has a storied past. (See “The Astor Offices at Nos. 21 and 23 West 26th Street,” The Daytonian, Saturday, August 4, 2012.) John Jacob Astor IV (1864–1912) was a passenger on the Titanic. His son, Vincent (1891-1959), “commissioned the architectural firm Peabody, Wilson & Brown to give No. 23 a neo-Federal facelift in 1922. Only two years later he sold the building for $30,000 to Frederick Vanderbilt Field (1905-2000), a Communist who wrote for the Daily Worker ….”

Thirty-thousand dollars, a century ago. That wouldn’t buy you a bathroom in Manhattan today. And, yes, a Vanderbilt. One of the most intriguing and revealing autobiographies I’ve ever read was his From Right to Left (Lawrence Hill Books, 1983).

May Day flashbacks: Memories of a Communist and working-class leader — Same year, 1971: Gus Hall, in hat (above “MU”), marching on Fifth Avenue in New York City [People’s World Archives]. I believe the bespectacled gent to Hall’s right is Arnold Johnson (1904-1989); James E. Jackson (1914-2007) is the second person to Hall’s left.

On June 9th, two weeks after my induction, I attended Xavier High School’s graduation ceremony at Hunter College (Lexington Avenue and 68^th Street). My diary records my regret at missing a talk by James E. Jackson (1914-2007) at the Center for Marxist Education, located at 29 West 15^th Street. That building, now a co-op, abuts a 21st-century extension of my pre-Civil War alma mater.

Midday on September 18, 1974, I met fellow Aptheker research assistant (and non-communist Civil Rights Movement historian) Hugh Murray for lunch; at six, I’d meet my then-closest comrade and friend, Kurt Stand, who would be convicted of spying for East Germany in 1998, “to discuss a great decision I feel I must make once and for all.”

On September 23rd, internally still a Stalinist, I entrusted my resignation letter, addressed to the comrade who chaired the meetings, to the doorman of her building located at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street. “Now I can relax and decide more clearly what I’m going to do with my life.”

To resign was a wiser decision than the one it negated, but it could not reverse the latter’s effects.

The anniversary of a foolish decision

Yours truly, Xavier Military Institute (High School) senior, 1971

The diary entry of a Xavier High School student[1] and research assistant to Herbert Aptheker[2] for May 25, 1971, reads:

Got over to 23 West 26th Street [headquarters of the Communist Party USA] about 6:45 [P.M.]. Whatta nice place![3] The meeting was on the third floor, where pictures of famous comrades and covers of magazines and pamphlets were displayed. Gus [Hall, General Secretary of the Party] answered questions very well. He described how the Party operates from top to bottom, about international relations. My questions concerned the time a college student needs to be an active member and about the 2 vouchers + age stipulations [minimum age, 18]. Rasheed [Storey, 1936-2016] and Gus were the vouchers and I was let in even though I[’m] still 17!!!! I really feel like a complete person. As Gus said to me, I’ll never regret it. I really have commitment and the enthusiasm and the vision. I’m proud of the Party. I want to make the Party proud of me.

Three years and three months later, on September 18, 1974, I met fellow Aptheker research assistant (and non-communist historian) Hugh Murray for lunch; at six I’d meet my closest comrade and friend, who will remain unnamed “to discuss a great decision I feel I must make once and for all.” On September 23rd, still a Stalinist, I entrusted my resignation letter, addressed to the comrade who chaired the meetings, to the doorman of her building located at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street. “Now I can relax and decide more clearly what I’m going to do with my life.”

To resign was a wiser decision than the one it negated, but it could not reverse the latter’s effects.

To be continued, as time permits.

Notes

[1] Two weeks later, on June 9th, I attended graduation at Hunter College, Lexington Avenue and 68^th Street. My diary entry for that day mentions my regret at having missed a lecture by James E. Jackson (1914-2007) at the Center for Marxist Education, located at 29 West 15^th Street. That building, now a co-op, abuts a 21st-century extension of my pre-Civil War alma mater.

[2] Anthony Flood, “Herbert Aptheker: Apothecary for a Red Teenager,” October 25, 2018.

[3] A holding of the John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) estate, the building has a storied past. See “The Astor Offices at Nos. 21 and 23 West 26th Street,” The Daytonian, Saturday, August 4, 2012. John Jacob Astor IV (1864–1912) was a passenger on the Titanic. His son, Vincent (1891-1959), “commissioned the architectural firm Peabody, Wilson & Brown to give No. 23 a neo-Federal facelift in 1922. Only two years later he sold the building for $30,000 to Frederick Vanderbilt Field (1905-2000), a Communist who wrote for the Daily Worker ….” Yes, a Vanderbilt. One of the most intriguing and revealing autobiographies I’ve ever read was his From Right to Left, Lawrence Hill Books, 1983.

1949: What were my influencers doing?

Last December 15th in Birdland, 1949-1965: Hard Bop Mecca, I marked the 70th anniversary of the opening of that legendary Jazz club on Manhattan’s Broadway off 52nd Street. Over the weekend I wondered what else was going on that year, but not the trivia one can learn from Wikipedia, such as:

- President Harry S. Truman’s inauguration in January
- Astronomer Fred Hoyle’s coining of “big bang” (a term of disparagement) in March
- Hamlet’s Best Picture Oscar win later that month
- The opening of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in February at the Morosco (six blocks south of Birdland’s near-future site)
- The Soviet Union’s successful A-bomb test in August and Truman’s sharing that news a month later
- Twin Communist victories: the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on the first of October and of the German Democratic Republic a week later.

World War Two was in the rearview mirror. but the Cold War with its threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction was straight ahead.

No, I was remembering what writers who influenced me over the past fifty years were doing in 1949. Most of the embedded links below will take you to posts that elaborate upon that influence. Continue reading “1949: What were my influencers doing?”