Ezra Pound's radio broadcasts, 1941–1945
American poet's fascist radio broadcasts led to treason indictment.
Ezra Pound, an American poet who had lived in Italy since 1924, recorded or composed hundreds of radio broadcasts for the Italian fascist regime during World War II and the Holocaust in Italy. The broadcasts, transmitted to England, central Europe, and the United States, contained deeply antisemitic and racist material and led to his indictment for treason by the United States.
Quick Facts
- Born
- 1885 in Hailey, Idaho
- First broadcast
- 23 January 1941
- Indictment date
- 26 July 1943
- Arrest date
- 3 May 1945
- Released
- May 1958
- Death
- November 1972 in Venice
Facts from the source article.
Background
Ezra Pound was born in 1885 in Hailey, Idaho, and grew up in Pennsylvania before moving to Europe in 1908. He lived in London and Paris, then settled in Rapallo, northern Italy, in 1924. His antisemitic views emerged around 1910, when he wrote that Anglo-Saxons had been nearly lost among other races and that only Jews could keep their detestable qualities regardless of climate. Through the 1910s and early 1920s, his writing singled out Jews; in 1922 he reportedly objected to the number of Jewish contributors to The Dial, and in 1927 he called Marcel Proust a vicious little Jew. From 1911 to 1921, Pound wrote for The New Age, a socialist London journal run by A. R. Orage, where he absorbed antisemitic ideas about finance capitalism, which he called usury or Jew usury. In 1918 he met C. H. Douglas there and became interested in social credit. After moving to Italy in 1924, Pound supported Benito Mussolini’s fascism. His mistress, violinist Olga Rudge, played privately for Mussolini in 1927. On 30 January 1933, Pound met Mussolini at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, giving him a copy of A Draft of XXX Cantos. He later wrote The ABC of Economics and Jefferson and/or Mussolini, and published articles praising Mussolini and fascism.
Broadcasts
Pound approached the Italian Ministry of Popular Culture on 15 November 1940, asking to speak about methods for fighting anti-Italian and anti-Fascist propaganda in Europe, Japan, China, and the United States. The Ministry sent telegraphs about Pound, including his racial background, to the Italian Embassy in Washington and several ministries. His first broadcast occurred on 23 January 1941, before the Ministry had received responses. The Italian Embassy replied on 26 February 1941 that Pound was of Aryan Race and had displayed friendly feelings for Fascism. A memo dated 5 March 1941 from the Inspector for Broadcasting and Television told the Chief of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Popular Culture that Pound would be entrusted with wording at least five conferences per month and drawing up two political notes each week. In the broadcasts, Pound attacked the United States, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Jews, praised Hitler's Mein Kampf, and recommended eugenics to conserve the best of the race. In 110 scripts examined by Leonard W. Doob, powerful Jews were mentioned in 71 scripts, Roosevelt in 50, Churchill in 37, Jews in general in 35, and Hitler in 18. He complained about Churchill and Roosevelt and their kike postal spies, told England that kikes had sucked out its vitals, and said no Sassoon, Rothschild, Strakosch, or Roosevelt was English and that England and America must delouse and get rid of their Jew gangs.
Indictment
The U.S. Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service tracked Ezra Pound's radio broadcasts. On July 26, 1943, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted him for treason while he remained abroad. On May 3, 1945, armed partisans seized Pound at his mistress's home and handed him over to the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps in Genoa. Five days later, on the day Germany surrendered, Pound told an American journalist that Mussolini was a flawed, very human figure who had lost his composure, and that Hitler was a saint and martyr like Joan of Arc, albeit one with extreme views. Pound was formally charged with treason in Washington on November 27, 1945. He entered the psychiatric ward of Gallinger Hospital on December 4 and was moved to St. Elizabeths Hospital on December 21. His lawyer successfully argued that Pound was unfit to stand trial, leading to a twelve-year confinement there. Following his release on May 7, 1958, which resulted from a campaign by his supporters, Pound returned to Italy. He died in a Venice hospital in November 1972 at age 87.
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