Word: bernsteins
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...member of the Communist Party. His wife Sylvia, also active in progressive causes, did the same three years later in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The family found itself shunned by many of its neighbors, friends and even relatives. The FBI kept the Bernsteins under surveillance for years (Bernstein's bar mitzvah is duly described), accumulating 2,500 pages of files that pop up in the book...
...Young Bernstein's reaction was to become a patriotic rebel -- class air-raid warden, supersalesman of Defense Bond stamps, proud wearer of an I LIKE IKE button -- and a marginal student who eventually skipped college to become a newspaper copy clerk. He also, quite understandably, became interested in whether his parents had actually been Communists. When he was eight, he first blurted out the question to his father. "I remember the silence that followed and my not daring to look at him," Bernstein writes. "My question offered no escape; there is no Fifth Amendment for eight-year-olds." His father...
...loyalties" of the title thus refer to more than just the allegiance Bernstein's parents had to the Communist Party and to their Government. The real struggle in the book is between Carl's loyalty to (and love for) his parents and his search for the truth about their lives. At times his quest becomes traumatic. Bob Woodward makes cameo appearances, comforting his former partner when he breaks into tears at the memory of a childhood schoolmate calling his mother a Communist...
...probing such sensitive spots too deeply, Bernstein may be doing the reader a favor. As it is, the book fairly crackles with emotional intensity and unsettling historical questions. With his rich depiction of his parents and pungent evocation of the period, Bernstein has been able to explore his controversial issues with the finesse of a jazz musician bouncing around themes that might otherwise be too hot to handle...
...honesty, Bernstein upholds the honor of his parents. They were never subversives, never disloyal to their country, he says. His sensitivity to Alfred and Sylvia (both still living) means that he never quite penetrates the deepest questions: Exactly why did people like them join the Communist Party? Just what did they do at their cell meetings? Was there in fact some danger in having people working for the Government whose loyalty was also to the Communist Party? And, on a more personal level, does he feel he has betrayed the father he clearly loves very deeply...