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119 14 Artists Are to Watch When a thing seems to be so, kangaroos usually hop to the conclusion that it is so. —Crockett Johnson, Who’s Upside Down? (1952) On 6 February 1950, Crockett Johnson signed a friend of the court brief supporting the American Communist Party in United States v. William Z. Foster et al., the trial of the final member of the New York Twelve. Three days later , Senator Joseph R. McCarthy claimed to have a list of fifty-seven State Department employees who were members of the American Communist Party. By the end of April, the FBI’s New York Division identified Crockett Johnson as one of “400 concealed Communists” and began compiling a file on him.1 According to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, communists sought to influence the United States through “five principal areas” of “thought control”: “open” party members, concealed party members, fellow travelers, opportunists (who supported the party for personal gain), and dupes. A concealed party member such as Crockett Johnson was as dangerous as an open party member,“if not more so.”The“concealed communist, because he is not known as a communist, can often advance the Party’s cause among people and in organizations where an open member would be scorned.”2 Though Crockett Johnson was not a “concealed communist” in the 1950s, his FBI file noted his work for New Masses and his support for both Ben Davis and radical politician Vito Marcantonio, who represented East Harlem in the U.S. Congress for fourteen years between 1935 and 1951. But Johnson had drifted away from his close communist ties of the 1930s and had become more of a socialist. The FBI file mentioned that Johnson had spoken at a February 1944 program sponsored by the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship but neglected the fact that the two countries were allies at the time. Other “subversive” activities included supporting civil rights for African Americans and the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil 120 Artists Are to Watch War. On 4 August, an FBI agent knocked on Krauss and Johnson’s front door. When Johnson opened it and began talking to the man, a second agent covertly took Johnson’s photograph.3 Dave Johnson and Ruth Krauss’s social circle included several people targeted for their alleged political beliefs. Dr. Shelley Trubowitz, who became a friend and neighbor when he moved to Rowayton in 1951, recalled seeing the couple at parties with John Howard Lawson, who along with the other members of the Hollywood Ten served a one-year prison sentence in 1950–51 for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Howard Fast, an unapologetically leftist writer, was another acquaintance of Dave and Ruth’s who served three months in prison for contempt of Congress.4 Though Johnson was of a satirical turn of mind, his published work during the early 1950s makes almost no references to the FBI, HUAC, or Senator McCarthy. In contrast, in the 1940s, Johnson made fun of the Red-hunting activities of the Dies Committee, as HUAC was known at the time. In Barnaby strips from November and December 1943, the O’Malley Committee, run by Barnaby’s fairy godfather, launches an investigation into that notorious Red, Santa Claus. In one of Barnaby’s few allusions to McCarthy, in a May 1950 strip, O’Malley, concerned that the U.S. Census is overlooking his fellow pixies , undertakes his own count. When McSnoyd, the invisible leprechaun, objects , “That’s a phony G-man badge,” O’Malley responds that it is “genuine plastic.” But McSnoyd still will not cooperate, saying, “You can’t pump me, O’Malley.”5 Whether or not readers of Barnaby perceived Johnson’s subtext here, McCarthy was certainly on people’s minds. On 8 May, Ursula Nordstrom wrote to Krauss,“From behind the Iron Curtain comes the Czech edition of The Growing Story. I think it looks darling.We’re sending you a couple of copies right away. No doubt McCarthy will check up on you shortly.” By 28 July, the FBI was indeed checking up on Krauss. One report noted that in 1945, she and Johnson had attended the American Society for Russian Relief’s “tea party to launch the‘Books for Russia’ campaign.”Agents investigated whether Johnson and Krauss had applied for passports and checked up on her correspondence with an“L. Krauss” in Baltimore—her mother.6 Though less inclined to...

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