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240 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
have not spoken to the troops, and have not suggested that the
troops should mutiny or revolt. . . . At any rate, a man's duties
increase with his knowledge. A war between the United States is
monstrous and should not have occurred. And a peace without justice
is not peace but merely a prelude to future wars. Someone
must take note of these things. And having taken count must act
on his knowledge, admitting that his knowledge is partial and his
judgment subject to error." 7
Biddle made no reply, and the indictment continued in force.
When Pound was mentioned in literary periodicals, he was now
condemned as a "Nazi", although he was persona non grata with
the German government. He had publicly criticized Hitler as being
"too hysterical", and at no time was he on good terms with any
official of the Nazi regime. This was proven when the German
government, reflecting the widespread distrust of him, refused to
grant him a visa to travel to the scene of the Katyn Forest massacre.
Katyn was one of the great scandals of the Second World War.
Stalin had determined to end Polish resistance by classical Communist
means, that is, by eliminating the educated classes who
were capable of leading a resistance movement. Several thousand
Polish prisoners in this category, including doctors, professors,
and army officers, were taken into the Katyn Forest, despatched
by small-arms fire, and buried in mass graves. When the Germans
recaptured the area the following spring, peasants led them to the
scene of the atrocity. Hoping to show the Americans what their
Soviet allies were really like, the Germans invited Red Cross representatives
and newsmen and writers from various countries to
visit the scene. When Pound applied for a visa, he was refused.
The official United States propaganda agency, the Office of War
Information, took its lead from Radio Moscow throughout the
war. Moscow attempted to cover up the crime by claiming the Germans
had massacred the Poles, and Elmer Davis, head of the
OWI, echoed the Communist line. After the war, a Congressional
investigating committee proved decisively that the Russians had
committed the massacre.
Pound was the first American ever indicted for treason for
opinions aired on the radio. Government officials long hesitated