`Freedom of information'
Graham Greene
One idle moment it occured to me that I might find some amusement and even a little instruction by applying through a lawyer in the United States for the release of documents concerning me under the Freedom of Information Act. .I certainly found some amusement, but very little in- struction. In about 45 pages of material which were sent me, nearly 16 were blacked out in heavy ink. So much for 'freedom of information'.
A great many of the legible entries deal with my cousin, Felix Greene, well known to be a friend of China. Guilt by relation- ship? The press-cuttings section of the FBI had produced a large number of pages. Five pages are given up to a Washington News interview with Miss Rebecca West on 'The Meaning of Treason'. I am honoured to find my photograph in the company of Andre Gide, Francois Mauriac and Evelyn Waugh: less honoured by the other photographs of John Amery, William Joyce and Klaus Fuchs. The last sentence of the article has been underlined: 'This is the most devastating exposure of treachery yet made'. Poor muddled Miss Rebecca West.
Two whole pages are devoted to a gossip column by Walter Winchell, all for the sake of one sentence: 'Hollywood newspapers are not happy about America's most decorated soldier (Audie Murphy) taking the lead role in the film version of The Quiet American which libels Americans. The author of the book admits being an ex- Commy.' I was equally unhappy. I would have preferred a good actor. A mysterious paper called Counter Attack: Facts to com- bat Communism honours me with a headline, 'Graham Greene and Ho Chi Chips', and in another article they quote some words I spoke in Hollywood in 1952
about the black list under the heading, 'Who is Graham Greene's informer?' Another more intriguing memo from the FBI in 1965 to the Special Assistant to the President notes that 'Mrs Mildred Stegall has forwarded material being distributed by the Massachusetts Political Action for Peace ... which deals with the war in Viet- nam. With respect to the question whether or not the persons mentioned in the material are Communists, FBI files contain no information of a derogatory nature relative to the following individuals [blacked out]. In connection with the re- mainder of the individuals identified in this names check request, attached are memoranda concerning these persons, as follows: Graham Greene' — but alas, a complete blackout follows.
The authorities seem to have missed InY attempt to organise a mass resignation of the foreign members of the Academy of Art and Letters as a protest against the Vietnam war, an attempt which failed. My only sup- porters proved to be Herbert Read and Bertrand Russell.
One press cutting from the Miami News of 26 July 1963 certainly interests me. It tells how a Herbert Muhammed, son of the Black Muslim leader, 'flew from Mexico City yesterday with 86 persons, most of them Latin-American Communists, to take part in the celebrations in Havana. One name on the passenger list was Graham Greene. It cannot be immediately deter- mined whether it was the English writer of that name.' It was. I wish I had known that Muhammed was on board. It would have interested me to talk with him about his father.
I am glad to find in these documents an account of my being 'placed under guard in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and my deporta- tion from there by Delta Airlines to Haiti, an incident which I have described in Way of Escape. But they missed the fact that I refused to leave the plane when it reached Haiti and flew on free of charge to Havana, this in spite of 'local intelligence serviceS being advised'. They print two telegrams 1 sent from the airport cancelling engage- ments, one to my friend and agent, Mari Peter Brook in New York, and one to I eer Brook in Kingston, but they have missed the third which I addressed to Reuters to London telling them of my deportation. I am glad to see that my weight is given correctly as 180 pounds (they listed my date of birth wrong), for I had felt rather distressed reading that SAC (Special Agent in Charge) Honolulu, reporting on 01 January 1960 that I had arrived in Sydney via Fiji on the way to San Francisco, gave my weight as between 192 and 200 p01.111C1.5' that Ih aven ev never gone eb
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Ia0 certain h a Well, I can comfort myself, my watchers do make mistakes. The same report Con- tinues: 'Greene possibly identical with sub'ject Honolulu radiogram February 13 to Bureau, Los Angeles and New York, en- titled Thomas Graham Greene, security matter.' Perhaps it was T. G. Greene who weighed 200 pounds. Was T. G. that Other Graham Greene who haunted my life f°,,r two decades in the Fifties and Sixties an u whom I always failed to track down? But 'Thomas' all the same does ring a bell in MY memory, for it was the extra Christian name which I chose when I was baptised a Catholic in 1927 (I explained to the priest that I was taking the name of Saint Thomas the Doubter and not of Saint Thoinas, Aquinas). But after looking through all documents I doubt whether, even in the blacked-out sections, the security ser- vice of the United States were really capable of discovering my secret name.
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