revolutionary way to raise money for the ships exterior restoration. .. today people want to be entertained. and they balconies. [inaudible] [laughter] today people want pertainment. that, i mean, it's the hope she

will be turned in to a floating attraction. if the plan does not work out, she goes to the scrappers like most other ocean liners before her. >> let's get the microphone so we can record this. -- [inaudible] is the conservative sei doing anything to [inaudible] the creating of the physical elements of the ship? >> yes. they are hired a retained skilled caretaking operation, which basically pumpeds out ship -- her pump isn't operating. if any leaks are patched, so there's not the point where they can refaint. they're making sure she's well secured and not leaking. she's actually -- the hull is in good condition. it's 92% original. high quality steel and alumni.

structurally she's in good shape. outside is the rusting and peeling paint. >> i was struck by the fact you said the hull plate is made by lincoln steel. were the they the suppliers of steel? >> they built the underwater portion of the lull, below the water line. it escapes me who built the above-portion. it might have been u.s. steel. but i'm not positive. >> [inaudible] as you look to conservativeship and something that is attraction, are there other models in the country or around the world that are similar to this that are serving as a guide or role model for what you hope accomplish. if not, what are you looking forward to sort of form of your

. >> the two ocean liners that been preserved as stationary attractions, one, of course the qirs queen marry which was on long beach. the project with that project, they really placed her far away from any sort of central business district. she's off the container port and development around her languished. she's kind of there isolated on long beach, and they also ripped out what made her interesting. everything below the superstructure and the engines. she's struggling. another example, which is more recent is a ship similar vintage called ss [inaudible] which was clothed in 1959 she sailed until 2001. she was the ho land-american flag ship. a beautiful ship. she's a stationary hotel in her

home port. she was almost sold for scrap and they have a done a wonderful job conserving her. >> i just returned from dubai and they had the ship there and they were redoing that. that is powerful. >> yes. i should have mentioned the two. she was taken out of service in 2008, i believe, she was serving 40 years at sea which is impressive. the town turn of the economy affects that project. it seems like there's -- she was sitting there fully operational. they could fire her up again. i think the project restarted. this is talk about scrappers. i think they're moving ahead with redoing that. and everything totally ripping her apart and redoing her. i think now the line is more let's keep her more as she was. >> [inaudible]

for the -- [inaudible] i think that was '82. >> ship in 1961 on minute way to graduate school in england, and -- [inaudible] you knew you were going faster than you had ever gone on a ship before. [inaudible] [laughter] [inaudible] [laughter] >> she even show he was a large

ship, he did roll, and there was a story. he did not have stablizers they would have nothing of it. the two queens were outfitted with them. one story i heard from a stewart who was standing outside the dining room was they were all dressed up and felt the ship make a telltale movement and it was u hoe. it was a freak wave. the ship went over. it was early in the ship's career before they enalled seat belts under the chairs. everyone went flying to one side of the ship, and he said it was -- he said no one got hurt but he said he started laughing and then the chief steward comes in and screaming said what are you doing? why don't you help the people? he slips in so. food and lands on the rear end and then he said it was funnier.

and he said this the chief steward never had a hair out of place. he was smeared in food. the united states would frequently pass other liners and at the respect distance, it was considered bad form on the atlantic to go up to close to a slower ship and zoom past. it was considered poor form. the first captain did that once. he passed by the queen elizabeth, and the one reporter said i understand thrfsz a race between you and the queen elizabeth. there was no race, he simply raced away from her. [laughter] >> steve, you were preservationist builds can be protected through designation is there any type of designation like this for boths. if so have you looked in to

that? >> gooded question. the ss is on the national register for historic places, and that is a very much an, you know, it's a destination which does allow developers to use tax creditses to regodevelop the ship. one possibility is the national historic landmark which the academy of music or other landmarks, you know, that's a possible designation which allows for greater protection and benefits. >> [inaudible] my concern is the ss -- millions of dollars to preserve it. i hope it does. i very much support that. on the other hand on the other land the 0 olympian needs millions of dollars. i can tell you the new one is going to need millions of dollars and they're going

asking. you have a number of different boats asking for this. my concern -- not only my concern, the other way. if you have the ss united states stay here and be successful, i think, part of a much larger overall plan, i've participated in just about forum that talk about the transatlantic develop and every forum comes out with the same answer bring up in the ss united states as an iconic center piece for that kind of development. that was the general conversation up until about two years ago or a year ago when they said new, we are not begin to do that and now we have a plan here in philadelphia that talks about viking trail along the river with little ports. that's our new plan. so i'm concerned that the city government, federal government,

state government have seem to abandoned the whole general grand idea. to you have any thoughts on their support or lack of support? >> well, i'm not one to ask regarding the ship's potential place in philadelphia except for the fact that philadelphia is one city we're looking in. the ship has so much national appeal that new york is a possibility, you know, miami, other cities. it's not just a philadelphia thing. i don't think. i think it would be wonderful if she was here and one thing she can be used for because she's unlike new jersey she's not shopped upped in. you have large spaces can be used the passenger cabin area have been gutted. so you a blank slated in to develop. so i think it would be wonderful if she was here, but i think the conservative sei is looking at other alternatives as well not just philadelphia.

>> you spoke in the time line of [inaudible] the national register placement expand the twenty month deadline. is there any way to expand the twenty month deadline. i think that's what i'm asking. >> there are two ways. first, this new fundraising product gets off the ground in the public gets involved. second is if there are firm possibilities of real estate deals takes place. -- those are the two ways the ship's deadline can be extended. if there are firm have viable opportunities in the future for

that to happen. it if the public rallies around the ship. i believe the new fundraising initiative will allow people, one thing i have discovered is people and i've discovered here tonight as well. the ship carry other million passengers in 17 years of service. and carried 1,000 crewmembers on each crossing. that's a lot of people with some connection to the ship. and people who don't have. my father grew up in on a farm wyoming. i built the model of the ship as a kid. it has a national appeal. people still remember it. i think that -- i think that will help with the campaign. i think a real estate deal will save the ship. my grant parents travel on the sthip in the late '50s and my

grandma told the story about how wonderful it was. in 1996 when we were looking at colleges in the philadelphia area, we were driving overt bridge and the ship arrived. i was in the car with my prarnts, my brother and grandmother, i we were driving on the bring i had known about the ship. there it is. my grandma is a i remember that ship. gap and i were on it. and there are so many stories of people, you know, who traveled on it or associated with it come philadelphia and are like, oh my god, it's here. it's still here. a lot of people thought it was in scrap years ago. it's still here. >> [inaudible] a postcard from my father in 1952 to my dear cheryl, daddy is on the best and biggest boat

right now. scottsdale when you grow up you'll be able to ride on one of them. [laughter] i have always had this and i kept it for some reason. wonderful little postcard i've kept forever and here it is. >> one thing i discovered is that people, children, who travel the ship with children loved it. i think it had the same feeling of wonder. when you first saw the ship in delaware river, the first thing that came to the mind was wonder and awe. there was a touching moment when the ship finishings a second set of sea trials. she comes in the new port news and has a big broom latch to the maises. he gone faster than any other ship before but no one would say how fast. they got off the ss united

states. his wife is there watching the men come off. and then she observes him leave the ship and get away from the crowds and sit down on the dock and put his chin up to his knees and looks at the ship like a child looking at something that he's proud of. and i think terrorist that feeling of awe and wonderment. i think they lost that today. i think the ship represents that being wowed or awed like that. americans love to build things. we love pictures of watching the chrysler building or empire state building going up. we love these things. the srks s united states is an example of us as a nation of builders that question need to revisit. >> [inaudible] with respect -- spend so much time talk abouting her, this might be quite obvious, it's worth mentioning in case anybody the room doesn't read if. it's right there you can see

her. i don't have to leave the seat. the smokestacks are red. [laughter] >> steve, you -- [inaudible] about the architect's dad most don't know that his granddaughter is the head of the conservative -- whaibtd his children, son, daughter what do they come in to this family or thought of the legacy today on are they alive? are they free of charge on daddy's boat. >> yes, susan gibbs is the executive districter of the ss and she is a wonderful and capable person who really she didn't hear about the ship growing up from her father. william francis gibbs had two

sons and one don't son from the wife's first marriage. but the children didn't seem interested in pursuing navel are techture. his wife -- [inaudible] her father was paul with the famous law firm. she was supportive of her husband. she traveled the ship frequently. he only traveled on the ship one. on the may voyage there was reporting of him popping up on odd time. the wife was describe the ships as family are boat. she loved traveling on the ship. there was one strange moment when william francis gibson asked do you love that ship more than your wife? and he he replied you're 1,000% correct. apparently she wasn't bothered by that. susan has been involved since 2003 or 2004, and she has

basically -- she was briefsly working with international relationships and she's focusing her energies full time on shaving her grandfather's ship. she's behind the project. she's done a tremendous job. >> how much time is spent on board? [inaudible] >> first it was a sort of sen of adventure as you're going in to a ship that's been out of service for so long. and there's a sadness because the ship has been so stripped, i mean, you go inside and stripped to the bear bulk heads. you see little bits and pieces behalf it once was. you see a couple of shares chairs ticking up. you climb up the staircase in

the darkness, and then you end up on the deck with the first class cooperations accommodations were and you see the big rooms and you try to imagine what it once was. you go in to the ballroom and you see the dance floor, the circular dance floor is there tps. pealing at the edges. big dance floor. you look on the stage and you think, that's the stage where duke eeling ton once played a set in the late '0s for the passengers when the organize stray was on tour. the day that they made the announcement in july 1st of 2010, i stood on the first class deck and took out my phone and i called my grandmother who was in a retirement home out of new york city and i said, grandma, i'm here where you and grandpa were all those years ago. and i think there's that -- once you're on board and you begin to feel, you know, dc

overwhelming. i don't believe in ghost. if there are any, there are on the ship. the bridge is an incredible place. you're 12 stories above the water line. and you think, i've seen video, film of the ship going through a hurricane, waves break over that bow, they are gettings toed around like a toy boat and thinking this is what the ship was facing. and transatlantic liner there's no room for error. they are not built like the cruise ships today. if they had to slow down in a storm, they would use their reserve of tower make up extra time. they had a schedule they had to follow. >> what kind of photographic roshed record of interior do you have. [inaudible] of the better stations be like? what kind of information do you

have? >> there are pretty meticulous records of the ship's construction. city new port news has all the construction documents. so we know where everything was. there's extensive photographic records of the ship from shores and magazines. they could be reconstructed. the question is, which spaces would we want to use for restaurants, he might -- the developer might have other ideas for what spaces could be used for them. but they want to recreate at least some of the principle faces on board like the first class droofm or ballroom and have one large space dedicated for a museum. but in terms of reconstructing for the passenger cabin. you look at them. you see the outlines on the floor. the cabins are fairly small i

today's standards. you think that, you know, the superrich would occupant cabins and even the big suites are -- i'm surprised how small they were. i think the idea was back then, you didn't spend a lot of time hanging in the cabin. you were outed in the public rooms in the mainway. >> we have time for one more question. >> somebody has to do this. >> thank you. i just want to say that -- not being very greedy as far as how much space they want for the museum. they conservative about 25,000 square feed for the mow seem. the ship has over 650,000 scare feet. that's quite a bit. several venues on a ship like that and i don't i know the preservation for the conserving

the people like to think of keeping it the way it was. it's not going to be sustainable. no ship museum in the entire world that is sustainable. you have to have a viable commercial component to it. and that's with a we're planning to do down in the city of chester. >> and that's a good point. and that the ship, you know, you have to be able to -- the ship has to be flexible and i'm not directly involved in the redevelopment effort. you can't make it -- you can't. portions you can. you can imagine yourself being on the deck or bridge and that can be restored as was. but any redevelopment has to be practical. >> i want to bring this to a close. i want to thank you so much, steve, for your unique insight and very revealing details about

the boat tonight as well as i read the book. it's a great read. i wish you all the best. there's a book here, folks, steve is here if you want to get an autograph book. also on august 1st, we're going have a tour of the delaware water front focusing pretty much on the ss united states. and steve is going lead the discussion. there's going to be happy hour set up. you can fine the information on the postcards that were on your seat. we have 71 people coming already. it's a big boat. we many more people than that if you're interested. but thank you for your time in coming out tonight. [applause] [applause]

all this week watch c-span for live gavel to gavel coverage of this year's republican national convention in tampa, florida. watch every minute, every speech. here on c-span duo, it's booktv all day every day throughout. conventions with highlight from the past year of non-fiction authors and books. on c-span 3 also throughout the convention, 24 hours of of american history tv. be lectures, oral history and a look at historical americansighteds and art artifacts. >> i would say that i'm working from 9:00 to 3:00. most writers who say they write for seven or eight hours a day are exaggerating. you just can't. you sort of lose it after awhile. you essential lose it when you're working on a novel.

because the edges of your imagination start to blur after i would say best case about three hours. but even when you're writing a non-fiction book, you know, you may be putting three good hours of pounding away and the rest of it is research, looking the e-mail, making another cup of coffee, that sort of thing. finks usually begins with a theme for me. you know, identity, redemption, art, fame, things like that. but the whole process really picks up steam when i start to ground some some of my thoughts in a scharkt who will become the protagonist and that character becomes sharper and sharp to me. i think all writing is affirmative good. only because it leaves a piece of yourself behind. let's say you're blogging all

through your 120s and let's say almost no one reads your blog. but twenty years from then, you will have children and you can show them what you wrote and they will understands things about you they might not understand otherwise. , i mean, what i always say is write even in the most basic form, a letter, a poem, a note to someone, it conifers an immortality. we've all had that experience of loving someone, of losing them, of opening a drawer and finding a card they have signed or a letter they wrote and thinking still alive. still alive in some way. so i think the more writing; the better. >> any regrets about anything you have written? >>, you know, i think regrets are things that a good column nist, i would like to think i

was a good columnist gets out before she publishes inspect in other words you spend a fair amount of time at the computer backstopping yourself. when you're writing about your family constantly and even writing about events parking lot of your brain is thinking how will this feel in ten years? how une qif call do i want to be about certain things? so i think you do a lot of -- i wouldn't at all call it censoring. it's more taking the long view. and because of that, i don't really have any regrets about anything i've written. >> any advice for writers? >> yeah, i mean, don't wait for inspiration. i don't know where she is, but she's not coming. or at least she's never coming here. i never see her. occasionally there's like a fleeting fly by and then she's gone again and then it's about

hard work. the hard work part does not largely consistent of thinking about it. people say to me all the time. i'm thinking about writing a book. no book ever gets written about thinking about it. at the certain point you have to sit down and sit down whether you feel like it or not. and i think too often people think that if you're going write well, it must be because you wake up in the morning and your heart sing. my heart doesn't sing because i constantly think it's not going to be any good. and it takes at least an hour of pounding it hour before it's like here we go. and so if you wait for that moment to come before you sit down, you won't do it. spend this weekend clonal bo

ohio as booktv and american history tv join the local content vehicle to look behind the scene of the history and literary life of ohio's largest city on booktv on c-span duobrows the rare book collection at ohio state university. and raldolf charged murder from colonial times to the present on american history tv on c-span 3 learn about ohio's connection to our 16th president. also discover how the prehistoric people created and used the largest question metic earth works in the world. history you are and literature with booktv, american history tv and c-span local content vehicles on c-span2 and 3. alice kessler-harris recounts the life of hellman. she was the author of numb numerous plays including "the children's hour" and

"littlefoxes." this is about an hour. [inaudible conversations] thank you and thank you for coming. it was nice of you to be here this evening. i look to start by talking about we botder with lillian hellman and i'm doing read something from the book so you can get a sense of who she was. i start by the why bother question for the following reasons. there have been several biographies of lillian hellman, she was after all, the most famous 20th century female playwright for many years until the 1970s, when female play whrieghts began coming out of the woodwork. and as such, she was a figure to

be reckoned with. she was a celebrity in her own right. in addition to being a playwright, she became the screen writer and she was responsible for films like dead end kids of the 1930s, "the chase" of the 1950s films you might have heard about. she still most famous for those plays of the "littlefoxes," "the children's hour," watch on the rain, which are repeatedly played as films not as plays on late night television. tune in almost any week and you can find one or another of them. so the question is, is there have been other biography of the playwright, why do another one? and my answer is this isn't a biography at all.

and i approach lillian hellman -- not as a biographer that is not as somebody interested in exploring the entier yourty of her life but somebody interested in thinking about what she tells us about 20th century america. that is how can you look through lillian hell march and learn something about 20th century life? i think that is an important thing do for several reasons. and it's the particularly important do with lillian hellman she, as i say in the book, i describe her as a juicy character. i mean, she's a juicy character because she touches so many aspects of 20th century history, and those aspects that got me interested in working on her. so for example, she's a woman

who manages to make it in the theater world, at the moment in time when women aren't playwrights at all, or if they are, they are playwrights of what are called domestic dramas. that is dramas in which women enact or e enact the roles of women. hellman is not interested in that at all. she's interested in being a serious playwright. she's a serious dramaist. she wants to engage the big subjects of the main one that she deals with and deals with us and money and the corruption that money brings. but she's interested -- she calls herself a moral playwright. not a political playwright. although some people think of her as a political playwright. she's interested in things like truth and honesty in the meaning

of the big lie in exploring the corruption of human life and the way in which people get corrupted by the family sometimes. but by the life that they live around them. because she's a serious playwright, people don't take her very seriously until she produces at the age of 29 her first great play "the children's hour" and suddenly "the children's hour" which runs on broadway for about a year and a half, "the children's hour" make her reputation. makes her reputation and places her immediately in the ranks of top american playwright. for many years, you know, when you see the lists of the top ten

playwrights in america, she's in there. and then suddenly she stops being in there by the 150s her days pretty much done. she writes one more great play, the end of the 1950s and then she pretty much stops writing plays. so here she is, a woman who makes it. she's a -- what i call a self-made woman. that is woman who mans against all the odds to become rich on her own -- out of her own pen or talent, if you like. so she doesn't marry well, she marries once, but then divorces, and doesn't marry again. she comes from her mother's family, had a good deal of money, but for a variety of

reasons, it took lillian until she was about 70 years olds to inherit her share of that money. and even then, it wasn't enormously significant. her father's family is relatively not poor, but certainly not, you know, a very middling kind of family. and so lillian is left to make it on her own. and she does. that's a rather unusual circumstance for a woman who is born as she was in 1950, so she comes to maturity in the late 1920s and early 1930s. it's a moment to in time when most women, if they managed to make it at all, make it by inheriting money omar i or marrying in to money.

not lillian, she's a self-made woman. she's also a political woman, following her own heart, in the 1930s, organizing screen writers gilgd, dramaist skills. she's a labor organizer, joining the communist party, along with multiple members of the entertainment industry and her friends, quitting l. communist party after couple of years and following her own political path. some people call her naive political person, but still, to find a woman who can both manage to make it and who is political, that's already sort of two balls she's juggling in the air. and finally, she is a -- what can we call her but a

celebrity. she becomes partly through the talent as a play writer and screen writer, partly through the force of per son that she becomes a celebrity. it she hangses out in 1960s with jackie kennedy and arthur junior with little archie or the -- william, norman may already, you name it, she's part of a community of celebrity people. she's famous for her dinner parties and her other parties. she's an entertain -- she entertains. ed monday wilson call her the queen of the cocktail belt in the 1960s. so she has a kind of presence in person in of herself. so here's a woman then who touches a varietity of strands

of american history, and yet, she's a woman who goes down, if you like, in the late 1970s, she's labeled a lier, labeled a stay lymphist. her plays are dismissed, and after that rapid rise and success, she ends her life no or notorious rather than famous. so one of the questions i'm interested in as a historian is how do we understand this? how do we understands what happened to her, not as a product of her personality, which, if you know anything about her, you know was not very pleasant to say the least. she was had a reputation for being nasty and mean spirited

and -- she swore, she smoked, she was awfng angry, you know, she was in sort of in-your-face aggressive person. it certainly wasn't her personality that made her famous. although her personality i think was part of what brought her down at the end. ed in the end, i think the way to understand lillian hellman is not understanding her per son that so much as by understanding that per son that in the context of the shifting politics in reality of the 20th century. that's what the books tries do. what i'm going do is read you some paragraphs from here and there to see if i can't give you

a sense who she was and what i've done here is to pick some of the pieces that illustrate both her give you both a sense of her as an individual and at the same time try to provide a sense of somehow she fits in to these various world that she's in. and i can start there few of us -- if you want to ask questions in between, we can do that or ask questions at the end. whatever works is fine. so lillian hellman is a my right. she worked hard at her plays. this was her she imagined herself in to the end of the life when you asked her who she was, she was a writer. she had then decided a writer. she identified not as although

she was born in new orleans, so she identified all her life though she left most of it in new york and hollywood. she always identified herself as a southerner. she was a southerner, she was a jew, she was a political person as we have said. if you ask her who she was. she understood herself as a writer that is how she managed to make it. yet, she sometimes wrote plays, you know, was not unusual for her to tell us that she written nine drafts, for example, of the "littlefoxes" before it came in to production, and each draft was read and criticized by her friend and companion daschle hammett who some of you might want to ask questions about later. not only did she write

carefully, she understood every word that she wrote as belonging to her. she didn't want anybody ever to change her words or language. so she was as the book indicates, a rather difficult person to work with. if you know anything about theater, the directors and actors often speak lines a think then want to move or shift a little bit. lillian, however, would have none of it. she was involved not only in the writing, but in the casting of her plays, she often didn't have the final word but she sat in on the selection of directors and actors in her plays. and she very often would sit during the rehearsal often making noises that were not welcomed to the actors. so here's a piece that i'm going

to read for you. as her place came closer to opening night, she became increasingly nervous. pacing through rehearsals, drinking and unable to sit still. i've never felt anything but fear and resentment than what was private is now to become public. what was mine is no longer mine alone. she told a hard audience more than anything else the commitment takes place on that day and finally commitments a final having to stand up, stand besides, take responsibility for, open yourself to, is for me an act of such proportion that i have never in all the many first days of have came ceased to be my kind of sick. often pendleton, who a director

who directed the 1981 production of the "littlefoxes," that starred elizabeth taylor as regene that provide a vivid picture for bhaiferred behavior on such occasions. there wasn't one scene, said pendleton, that could make it to opening night without her saying she hated it. he affirmed. toward the end of the new york previews, hellman still unhappy with how things were going stormed out of the theater at the second intermission, and in full view of the preview audience pounded her cane on the ground to emphasis how much she hated the performs. pendleton said of himself, i just lost it and i started yell, the lobby is jammed, people are ordering drinks in line, and i started yelling. this is the worst night of my life!

sorry about the expletive. it's a literal quote to which hellman yelled back. every night i see this fucking production it's the worst night of my life. he left the theater unable to watch act three of the opening night of his own play. he walked around the block several times threatening to quit the show until the curtain came down then he retreated with some close friends to an on secure bar where he thought nobody could find him. just a few minutes in to their first drinks, hellman who had tracked him down, called on the trfn. you still angry she said to him? and then replied, and he described himself as finding her question enchanting.

we laughed for a few minutes about our blowup, he remembers, and i had a wonderful hour or so of drinking with my friends. the relationship mended, the revival turned out to be a critical success. gives you a sense of lillian hellman as a person who could lose it, who could scream and yell in public at the directer of her own play which was about to open, and yet ten minute later, or half hour later, she was smiling and charming. she had forgotten it. she was someone would explode and make friends again. she would become angry and sometimes violently swearingly

angry. and sometimes the anger would last a lifetime. but often it would be an anger that could be calmed as soon as she was brought to her senses as it were. that's lillian the playwright. and there's lillian the political person. and here's another kind of lillian that we need to take a look at. a lillian who has quite a different sense of what the world is about in the way she sits in to it. she is by all accounts, a big player, if you like, in the communism and in the political conflict of the late 1930s '40s. if you know something about the conflictses, you know that they are royaled with factions and

sectarianism on the left as well as between the left and the center, if you like. so there's a cp u.s.a. the communist party which antagonistic to the socialist and you can go on down the line. hellman from about 1937 on, identified with or although she was not a member of the communist party, most likely that her daschle hammed was. many people in the entertainment world of the period people who had stung by the great depression and who wanted to bring some sense of economic security to the country, to curb the appetite of rampant csh -- the interest of money.

hellman fell in to almost naturally a group of people who felt like that. so her best friend dorothy parker, for example, was a member of the party. numbers of screen writers who's names you'll know, john howard lawson is the one i'll mention later we're going to be blacklisted as hellman herself would be were party members. as for awhile was her the directer of the first four of her plays, herman chum lane. so it shouldn't surprise us that hellman rotated in to that politics, and she joined the party in 1939 been she quit the party in 1941 by all -- everything that we can learn.

she remained what i have done call a self-traveler. that is she did not reputeuate either the sowf yet union. she would not repudiate the commitment to what she saw a social justice. she was no longer a party member. she disliked and would not even when she was in the party be disciplined by the party or follow party dictates in any sense either ideological or in terms what she did. but still, she believed in the idealism, the utopianism that the left-wing represented. the result of that, was that all that was fine slodges the u.s. was allied with the soviet union

in world war ii. when world war ii ended, we know the beginning of the troubled began. the beginning of the attack on the left, and hellman, who didn't want to repeat yat the former associations, got caught in this. hellman then returned -- sorry, at the end of war makes a trip to the soviet union. they're doing a production of the "littlefoxes," and she's invite as a cultural figure to come to the soviet union. she makes a trip in the winter of 1944, and 1954, and comes back from the soviet union in this short section describes what happens then. hellman return from the soviet union in march of 1945 convinced that the direction there had been so intense that the soviets would never want war again.

as she had been moved by the suffering of the spanish and the spanish civil war, so she was touched by that of the russian people who had lost as many as 0 million lives and destroyed cities she had seen with her own eyes. she had stopped in london on the way back to help with film and she wrote to her friend, found herself in a knee bomb barrage. i heard the bomb land and nothing happened until the screams. by the time i got to the bomb hole, a man was sitting in the hole. one of the arms lying across from him. two children were allying across the trouble. a rubble between them. an old man was being carried in to a house and the woman was holding her skirt against the face. had she seen these things? did she imagine them? it didn't matter. lillian had enough of war.

in the early post war days, she lead her name to several groups that focused on how to construct an enduring peace. there's a great deal of war talk now she wrote to her lover then john. while i don't mean it's historically possible i would not surprised at anything. such affairs dire sister the peace at the time. the idea drew the support of all kinds of individuals. in march of 1946, she chaired a tea for the woman's committee of the national council of american soviet friendship. held at the soviet council in new york. it meant to encourage notable american woman to extanned a hand of friendship to soviet womans. participates crafted a message that included the sentiment that we dedicate ourselves in you to the furtherance of friendship and peace among the women of all countries. it expressed hope that the new

world would bring peace and security and happiness for our children and for us. at the time, such activities appeared relatively benign. a year later, the group appeared on the attorney general's list of subversive organizations and the report of this tea and the worn response it which came from the soviet women anti-fascist committee found the way in to hellman's fbi file. yet the other signatory on the message included such notables as mrs. quite eisenhower, mrs. franklin roosevelt among hundreds of others. even as they spread their territorial umbrella over much of eastern europe. she remained a staunch believer in peaceful coexistence.

quarrels start and quarrels end she told one audience. it is not right to weigh large things on smawm small scales. it no longer matter whose fault finance matters that the came be stopped and the arms and legs and heads and faces not be used to find out who was right, and who was wrong and who said what on what day. to stop the game required it talking to the enemy. he knew that communist played a substantial and often dominant role, -- excuse me in many -- excuse me. she knew the communist play that substantial and often dominant role in many of the organizations she joined, i did

not really care, she writes, i felt as they did, that the russians really did not want war and that this was what counted most. i was dpoided by a feeling that russia would never again seek wars as a means of settling international controverts she wrote later. right or wrong, that's the hellman who is a fellow travelers as she was committed to peace. and to peaceful coexistence. one of the results is that within 1949, she organized a conferenced at the waldorf astoria hotel. this waldorf conference officially called the cultural and scientific conference for world peace was a product of the national council of artists and professional which she was a member and which itself had

communists members. there were many groups at that period that had both communist and noncommunists members and that was one of the them. she was chitted to working -- submitted to working with anybody who was interested in peace. among the original signatory to recall for that conference were paul, a known communist on the one hand, lewis undermeyer, lye us in, scientists and others who had no such connections. eventually about 600 people signed the invitation, and that invitation lead to the construction of a conference which included eventually 3,000 people meeting at the waldorf-astoria along with a counter conference