![Frank Lloyd Wright’s Communism Defense Letter Goes Up for Auction
In 1957, Frank Lloyd Wright wrote a letter defending himself from accusations that he was a Communist sympathizer. The auction will begin Saturday, June 5, at 1 p.m. EST at Bay Area’s San Rafael Auction Gallery. Online bidding is accepted. [MediaBistro; Live Auctioneers]
August 19, 1957
My dear Commissioners one and all: The stormy time you have all had getting what you had a pretty good reason to believe was the best talent available to preserve and enhance your beautiful Marin County - - is characteristic of all political (public) efforts of the sort. You have done better than I - - because you did not loose patience. The “dossier” (so-called) which some scoundrel whose patriotism is his last refuge, always the way with the “dossier” - - had only one source of fact from which to quote, and that was taken from my own autobiography written when I returned from Russia 1939 and anyone may read. Alex Woollcott, my intimate friend alive then, told me that President Roosevelt’s comment upon it when he read it was “my sentiments exactly”. My own feeling then as now was sympathetic to the Russian people hating the form of gangsterism that was their government. All of the other items cited were wholly false. I swear I have never known an American Communist nor did I ever attend one of their meetings - - and do not know one now. Any use they could make of my name would be only because I was well known as an independent American liberal.
Full transcript.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3g7l6Ss4q1qbdu9qo1_500.png)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Communism Defense Letter Goes Up for Auction
In 1957, Frank Lloyd Wright wrote a letter defending himself from accusations that he was a Communist sympathizer. The auction will begin Saturday, June 5, at 1 p.m. EST at Bay Area’s San Rafael Auction Gallery. Online bidding is accepted. [MediaBistro; Live Auctioneers]
August 19, 1957
My dear Commissioners one and all: The stormy time you have all had getting what you had a pretty good reason to believe was the best talent available to preserve and enhance your beautiful Marin County - - is characteristic of all political (public) efforts of the sort. You have done better than I - - because you did not loose patience. The “dossier” (so-called) which some scoundrel whose patriotism is his last refuge, always the way with the “dossier” - - had only one source of fact from which to quote, and that was taken from my own autobiography written when I returned from Russia 1939 and anyone may read. Alex Woollcott, my intimate friend alive then, told me that President Roosevelt’s comment upon it when he read it was “my sentiments exactly”. My own feeling then as now was sympathetic to the Russian people hating the form of gangsterism that was their government. All of the other items cited were wholly false. I swear I have never known an American Communist nor did I ever attend one of their meetings - - and do not know one now. Any use they could make of my name would be only because I was well known as an independent American liberal.
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