The Delights of Intellectuality

Time was when the proceedings of anything calling itself the World Congress of Intellectuals would have been dignified and deadly dull. Last week, however, when such a congress met in Poland's Wroclaw (formerly Germany's Breslau), the spectators could not decide which ring of the circus to watch.

Over there, for instance, was the usually gentle Pablo Picasso, who got so steamed up at a formal dinner that he removed coat and shirt, or, as a lady intellectual said: "My dear, he stripped to his navel." And over there was Mrs. Julian Huxley, wife of UNESCO's director-general, in conversation with Jerzy Borejsza, an organizer of the congress. Intellectual Borejsza was as steamed up as Painter Picasso. Said he to Mrs. Huxley: "If my wife behaved at UNESCO as you have here, I would spank her bottom."

Mrs. Huxley was rebuked because she, her husband and some other delegates had shown their disgust at the billingsgate of the pro-Communist intellectuals, who formed a majority of the stacked meeting.

Hyenas & Jackals. Like the International Congress of Philosophy (TIME, Aug. 30), the intellectuals divided on the East-West issue. Alexander Fadeev, head sheep dog of the Russian writing pack, called Western culture "disgusting filth" and denounced T. S. Eliot, Eugene O'Neill, John Dos Passes and Andre Malraux. "If hyenas could type and jackals could use fountain pens," said Fadeev, "they would write such things."

This was too much for British Writer Edward Crankshaw, who complained privately to Russia's slick Ilya Ehrenburg. Explained Ehrenburg: "That was Fadeev's job. He had to define the enemy. But don't worry. Tomorrow it will be my job to smooth the enemy's ruffled feathers."

In his speech Ehrenburg admitted that "there is much good in Americans," then went on to recast Fadeev's insults in cleverer form.

The First Duty. The U.S. is preparing for a "barbaric war," Ehrenburg cried. Up rose New York's Dr. Bryn J. Hovde, director of the New School for Social Research. He said that the Russian talk was the kind governments use to justify a "premeditated military attack." If the Communists really believed all of Fadeev's charges, snapped Hovde, "then my own people can only judge itself terribly threatened and unite in preparation for the worst." Oxford Don A.J.P. Taylor, whose BBC contract was canceled because he was too "pro-Russian," told the Russians: "The first duty of intellectuals is to be intelligent."

The congress received a message from G. B. Shaw, who said: "I never send messages. This is final. I'm sure Albert Einstein could say everything about peace but I can't. Messages are boring."

The congress released a message signed by Albert Einstein. In the U.S., Einstein said that the congress had garbled a letter he wrote last July, suppressed a message he sent last week.

As the congress screamed to an end, the proCommunists introduced a resolution blaming the Western powers for provoking war. Some of the Western delegates would not vote for it. Feather-Smoother Ehrenburg snarled: "Idiots! Imbeciles!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.