The Dartmouth Review The Dartmouth Review The Dartmouth Review 25th Anniversary Gala

    The Dartmouth Review     Dartlog     Subscribe     Indian Store     Donate

 

Friday, January 24, 2003

Robeson

Reader Troy Blanchard sends in a link to this article, though Dartlog in no way vouches for its central premise:
Did the CIA Poison Paul Robeson?

Paul Robeson, the black actor, singer, and political radical, may have been a victim of CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb's MK-ULTRA program... In the spring of 1961, Robeson planned to visit Havana, Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The trip never came off because Robeson fell ill in Moscow, where he had gone to give several lectures and concerts. At the time, it was reported that Robeson had suffered a heart attack. But in fact Robeson had slashed his wrists in a suicide attempt after suffering hallucinations and severe depression. The symptoms came on following a surprise party thrown for him at his Moscow hotel.
...
Robeson never recovered from the drugging and the follow-up treatments from CIA-linked doctors and shrinks. He died in 1977. Robeson, Jr. has been pushing the U.S. to release classified documents regarding his father. He has already unearthed some damning stuff, including an FBI "status of health" report on Robeson created in April of 1961. "The fact that such a file was opened at all is sinister in itself," Robeson recently told the London Sunday Times. "It indicates a degree of prior knowledge that something was about to happen to him."

Of course, Dartlog stands behind the conclusion a reader might draw: that Paul Robeson, Jr., is a nut-job.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 3:41 PM

Comments

Post a Comment (we enforce our comments policy)

Copyright © 1996-2008 The Dartmouth Review