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18 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
mentioned him. He was a federal prisoner and in no position to
sue for libel, so he was a tempting target. The jackals of the press
usually described him by such epithets as "the crazy traitor", "the
convicted traitor", or "the mad poet". Not only was it libelous to
term him a traitor when he had not been convicted of treason, let
alone tried, but the continued usage of such terms by the press
over a period of years made it impossible to assure him a fair trial.
Public opinion was carefully schooled to believe that he was guilty
without having been tried. The background of his broadcasts, which
will be revealed for the first time in this book, and which explains
why he risked the death penalty in order to defend the Constitution
of the United States, was never discussed by the American press.
In the preface to one of Robert Harborough Sherard's books,
Lord Alfred Douglas writes, "I always had an instinctive feeling
that once Oscar Wilde had been sent to prison, prison became the
obvious goal for any self-respecting poet, and I never rested until I
got there. It took me about twenty-five years to do it, but I succeeded
in the end, and I did six months' imprisonment in the Second
Division for libelling Mr. Winston Churchill about the battle of
Jutland. The result is that I am one of the very few Englishmen of
letters now living, or who has been living since 1895, who can go
to bed every night without feeling more or less ashamed of being
an Englishman." 4
The imprisonment of Ezra Pound caused some uneasiness among
America's men of letters, although they really had nothing to fear,
for, no matter what sort of regime came to power, they would still
be considered harmless.
Pound was flung into Howard Hall when he was brought from
the death camp at Pisa in November, 1945. He was surrounded by
rapists and killers who had been adjudged criminally insane, often
as a result of clever maneuvering by highly-paid attorneys. In this
milieu, it was not to be expected that he should survive very long.
He lasted eighteen months there, shut away from the daylight,
among men and women who screamed day and night, foamed at the
mouth, or tried to choke one another. Those who wallowed in their
own filth had their clothes removed.
After thirteen months in this dungeon, Pound was removed to
the less turbulent atmosphere of the "Chestnut" ward, a section of