The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2008, Side 15

Vol. 62 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
13
“Consider Laxness’s prestige would suffer
materially if we let it be known that he is an
income tax evader.”
The investigation continued and at this
point it was decided that the Treasury
Department could be trusted after all. In
Mar 16, 1948, Joseph Gorrell, Chief of the
Withholding Returns Section of the Bureau
of Internal Revenue gave a report on
Laxness’ tax status. In Mar 18, 1948 the
State Department warned the Icelandic
embassy that “It should be noted that it is
understood from the Bureau of Internal
Revenue that any action the Bureau may
take on the basis of tax delinquency in this
case would very likely involve the publish-
ing company and agents in the United
States rather than Laxness.”
This warning by the State Department
did not stop the American Embassy in
Icelandic from following the movements of
Laxness both in Iceland and outside the
country and reporting these movements to
the State Department. In a recently declas-
sified top secret “airgram” dated Nov 5,
1948 it is reported to the State Department
that: “Halldor Kiljan Lanxess has left
Iceland for the winter and has lately been
visiting France. He is believed to be in
Italy. It expected that he will get in touch
with Communist leaders in the countries
through which he travels and will write
articles for publication in Iceland and
abroad.”
The House Un-American Activities
Committee had begun its witch hunt in
1947 around the time of Laxness’ investiga-
tions. American writers during the late for-
ties and early fifties who were considered
leftist or had in any way supported the
Communist party, were not only blacklist-
ed, they were often jailed for refusing to
name names before Congressional commit-
tees. Successful novelist Howard Fast was
jailed for three months in 1950 for refusing
to give a list of donors that contributed to a
hospital built for refugees of the Anti-
Franco war. When Fast was released from
prison, he wrote an historical novel that his
publisher Little Brown planned to publish.
Pressure from the United States govern-
ment forced them to reject the book. No
other publisher would handle the novel, so
Fast published it himself. Spartacus became
a huge success and a movie based on the
novel was also successful.
If the American publishers were
attempting to wait out the controversy
before publishing more of Laxness’ novels,
the jailing of Howard Fast in 1950 (the
McCarthy era) and the blacklisting of
American screen writers, were all factors
preventing Halldor Laxness’ works from
being safely published in English.
American publishers had begun policing
themselves and in order to avoid a con-
frontation with the U.S. State Department
and the U.S. Congress, they quietly
allowed politics to determine what would
be sold to the American reading public.
The fact that Laxness won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1955 did little to interest
American publishers.
After Congress officially censured
Joseph McCarthy in 1954, the insanity of
the period began to subside. Giving
McCarthy full credit for the travesty of the
“red scare” may be giving to much credit to
a sad alcoholic who used immoral tactics to
further his career. The evil of the “red
scare” was fed and nurtured by the
American people and the popular culture
of the time. McCarthy died in 1957 but his
death did not end this especially horrific
chapter in American history. The
American press still felt the need to perse-
cute when Laxness won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1955. It would take sever-
al years to wean them off the “red scare
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