Al Lannon: A Communist kept the faith

Second String Red: The Life of Al Lannon, American Communist, by Al Lannon Jr., Lexington Press, $37.

Writing a biography of one's father is a difficult project for anyone to undertake. There is always the problem of trying to see the person objectively - how to avoid being too favorable and coming up with a "puff piece."

On the other hand, focusing too hard on the weaknesses and shortcomings of the subject and winding up viewing him or her as some kind of villain is also to be avoided.

When the person being written about is your father who was a prominent leader of the Communist Party, USA, a waterfront organizer during the repressive years of the Cold War and was convicted and served time in prison under the Smith Act for the "crime" of advocating socialism - that is indeed a formidable task, especially when one's own views are strongly anti-Communist, as Al Lannon Jr.'s have been for the past 30 years.

To say that this biography does not do justice to Al Lannon Sr., either as a literary work or as history, would be a gross understatement. The author's strong anti-communist bias leads him to rely heavily on the unreliable files of the FBI, the writings of numerous ex-Communists who turned actively against the Party after leaving it, and to selections of writings taken out of context from other sources. Taken all together, they give a very distorted picture.

As one who knew Al Lannon Sr. well over a period of 33 years from 1936 to 1969, saw him in action under great physical and mental pressures, felt the impact of his persuasive and powerful personality and witnessed his ability to lead and inspire those he came in contact with - this so-called biography is a pitiful attempt to reduce the figure of his father to the image of an FBI caricature.

Not that Lannon Sr. was without his faults or mistakes in judgment at various times. His subjectivity and suspicions of plots against him were among those.

He may not have been as sensitive to his son's problems as he might have been, but I have not seen many people who were as dedicated and caring about his wife and family while working under the constant pressures of personal, physical and political attacks as Al Lannon was.

And the many unfair and slanderous references, which the author makes about the intimate personal life and attitudes of the members of his family, give a gossip-column atmosphere to the book that is demeaning to all, and especially to the author for descending to that level.

In judging a person's life, unless that person is a truly evil and irredeemable character like a Hitler, one generally tries to see that person's role and career in the overall sense of whether their good qualities and achievements overshadowed and dwarfed their shortcomings. In Lannon Jr.'s view, his father's Communist convictions made that kind of an appraisal impossible.

From this reviewer's standpoint, Al Lannon lived his life fully in accord with his credo, which he found in the book How The Steel Was Tempered by Nicolai Ostrovski:

"Man's dearest possession is life, and since it is given him to live but once, he must so live as to feel no torturing regrets for years without purpose; so live as to not be seared with shame of a cowardly and trivial past; so live that dying he can say: 'All my life and all my strength were given to the finest cause in the world-the liberation of mankind.'"

- Herb Kaye