Decca, p.62
Decca, page 62
Before you decide whether to go for this whole idea, I should mention that there are conflicting views as to whether we should even attempt an interview in these circumstances. For example, Alex Haley (author of Autobiography of Malcolm X) thought not. His words were something like this: “It’s difficult enough to get political, revolutionary people to talk about themselves and their individual development without this additional handicap—you could only get something worthwhile by sitting down with George Jackson for many hours.” Conversely Maya Angelou161 (author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) thought it would be well worth a try—there’s nothing to lose, and it may deepen people’s understanding of yourself and your struggles, thereby having a special sort of usefulness to some readers; and it may do the book some good, which is the main purpose anyhow.
In his preface Jean Genet162 says your letters “perfectly articulate the road traveled by their author—first the rather clumsy letters to his mother and his brother, then letters to his lawyer which become something extraordinary, half poem, half essay…” An ex-convict put the same point to me in slightly different fashion: “He’s much more intact intellectually now than when he entered the prison system. In the first letters, there’s no hint of the cohesive, coherent thinking at the end of the book.”
The objective of the interview is to trace this road, not just in political terms (which you have already done in the autobiographical letter to Greg Armstrong163) but in terms of intellectual development. Or, to put it another way, how did you become such an astonishingly good writer and what are the lessons in this for others?
Another objective is to answer questions about which other writers are curious—were you able to correct your own galleys and to see the book in all stages of production as “free-world” authors do? Are you permitted to receive letters from readers of your book, how many have you had, what do they say? These questions will be posed in the following pages.164
To Virginia Durr
Oakland
March 7, 1971
Dearest Va,
… PRISONS. I know, it is a drear enough subject—funerals were so much jollier. But mine wouldn’t be another “ain’t it awful” book, that is, I hope it wouldn’t. I don’t really want to do a book on prisons but the awful thing is I think I’ll have to. It’s like quicksand, and I’m getting sucked down under.
For example: Early in Jan. I got a letter from a prisoner in McNeil Island Federal Pen, a long & smashing letter … asking me to come up and investigate convict complaints, and to be their “spokesman.” Well I couldn’t do that (as there’s no point in spoking about things one is not informed on) so I wrote back (via his wife, he can’t get letters from the likes of me) a generally gung-ho letter about how similar their grievances are to those of the Cal. prisoners etc., and to keep in touch.
Next thing you know there’s a full-fledged strike in McNeil, started on 22 Feb, the whole place shut down tight, all cons. refusing to go to work. Curiously, there’s a total news blackout all over the country about this, although (according to Tom Murton,165 former warden of Arkansas prisons, the one who told about mass graves etc) this is the first strike in a federal pen. since the 40’s. A prof. from U. of Washington came & told us about it, & asked me to go up to Seattle, so I did, this past week.
Va., it was a circus. I got a total runaround from the Warden (he said he would be too busy to see me), so I started at 6 a.m. Seattle time, 9 Washington time, to call the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, various congressmen, senators (six of them), to insist on being allowed on the Island. I got several local newsmen to go along with me: CBS television crew, UPI man, Seattle Times man. I said let’s just go, and insist on being allowed on the island. So we did. I didn’t even bother to call back the Warden, just went along to the dock, which is 1 ¼ hrs. driving time from Seattle. We arrived. We got to the heavily guarded dock. The heavy guards sprang forward: “Are you Miss Mitford?”; “Yes.” “You can be admitted. Stand back, all of the rest of you, you are not admitted.” Fury on part of local newsmen, we waved a sad goodby to each other, they took pix of me waving from the boat. Pure surrealism.
Well it’s far too long & boring to go into the whole thing, and not a smidgeon of marital strife & all those things that you find so fascinating to recount, because I forgot to ask the warden if he was even married, let alone divorced. DUE PROCESS, Va, I swear it’s far more interesting. Ask Cliff.
The point is the Bureau of Prisons had told me there is a long-standing rule that reporters cannot interview inmates. Why, said I? Because to allow such interviews would be an infringement on the inmates’ right of privacy. You must be kidding, said I. Not so, said they. Then I said you are not only kidding, but lying. I have a letter from a prisoner asking me to come & see him, so I shall do that, as he has waived the right to privacy you so kindly conferred on him against his will.
So I got to the prison—it’s a very pretty island, reminded me of Inch K. in some ways. Was received by the warden. “So, you made it here?”; he said, in his charming and disarming way. We had a good giggle over that. All his important meetings had vanished like summer snow. Two hours we spent (seemed like 5) on the interview. VIP treatment all the way. E.g.: I asked, “How big are the solitary confinement cells?”; Instead of saying oh about as big as from here to there, warden snaps fingers, tells a flunkey, “Get the precise dimensions of those cells for Miss Mitford, please.” After a bit, said flunkey returns with some square foot statistics. This was not what I was after, actually. I did make the warden go through all possible paces (went through the strike demands one by one with him, got a profile of prison composition, etc). Then asked to see Charles Armsbury, the con. who had written to me. “I haven’t the authority to let you see him.” “Who has?”; “The Bureau of Prisons.” Back to square one, the B. of P. having told me that only the warden could grant that right … Lots more transpired. Eventually I said to the warden, “I have a message for Charles Armsbury. Will you give it to him?”; “Yes.” “The message is: I came over to see you, was denied the right to do so, but shall be back shortly to visit you after a few things get straightened out.” Then I left, VIP all the way, because the asst. warden took me back to the dock in his private speedboat!
Following morning, press conf. called by ACLU, which is filing suit on behalf of numerous plaintiffs (Newspaper Guild, various reporters, me, etc) to force authorities to let us interview prisoners. Smashing turnout: all four TV channels, all Seattle newspapers. A Washington Post stringer showed up later, saying the Wash. Post wanted an interview. So possibly the amazing press blackout is ended? Not too likely, I don’t know if the Post carried anything. The strike demands, I forgot to tell about. They are EXTREMELY MILD, minimal, and the strikers don’t even use the word Demand, they call them Proposals. Thirteen proposals. Most of them are merely proposals that the fed. regulations be carried out!
I was only in Seattle 2 nights, but it seemed like 2 months. Va, I’m actually v. lazy, by nature, and getting more so. So it was quite a switch to be going to bed at 2 a.m, getting up at 6, no nap, pure work all the way—and actually survived. Adrenaline, I think. It seeps up & rescues one in places like Seattle, don’t you agree?
The newspaper people couldn’t have been more smashing. They really sprang to life, helped in all ways….
ACLU is quite uncertain if its suit will prevail; probably not, they fear. So I shall have to plough on, via all those friendly legislators (the ones I called, beginning 6 a.m.) who swore they were in favor of freedom of the press & due process. I can see that now, for my sins, I shall have to muddle around in the federal prison system. I should very much like to find out how they arrived at their quaint way of protecting inmates’ right of privacy and a few other things. …
Sorry for such a terribly long letter with no juicy bits, merely facts of MY life for the moment,
Lots of love,
RSVP, Decca
To Vivian Cadden
Oakland
April 9, 1971
Dear Viv,
How are you? Where are you? And when are you? Coming this way, I mean….
Guess who I had lunch with today? You will never, so I’ll have to start at the beginning (comedy in a few acts):
Act I. A couple of weeks ago Shana Alexander called up Bob, but got me by mistake, to find out how to reach Margaret Burnham166 —she wants to see Angela Davis,167 and has been told M. Burnham is key to that. So I rather coldly gave her the phone number of Al Brotsky (old friend of ours, in the Davis case, works with Burnham). But I did then take the precaution of calling Al to explain that I was not particularly sponsoring, or introducing, Shana into this scene, had merely given her his number.
Act II. We get carbon from Shana of her letter outlining her desire to become the “official biographer” of Angela Davis. She had sent it also to Bettina Aptheker and the lawyers in the case. Bettina, whom I see a great deal & adore, she’s a smashing girl, mentioned this letter to me and said “Who is she? Is she Black?”; Aren’t these party stalwarts marvellous; B. is in charge of P.R. for the Davis case! But I believe that her total innocence of that scene is some protection, in a weird way.
Act III. I’d arranged to meet Bob downtown for lunch today. He arrives, announces a mystery guest is coming—she soon does, Shana herself, with a v. drab Black lawyer in tow. They are more or less killing time waiting for their appointment with Margaret Burnham; Shana had called Bob, saying let’s have lunch, so he said do let’s. In passing, please note that she’s been after Bob all this time, not so much me. Oh dear she is a rum one. But, to proceed: I deftly changed the subject to Famous Writers, and told Shana that poor Bennett is now a bit under the gun, as a lawyer from FTC was here the other day—he tells me they’ve taken depositions from B. Cerf, Rod Serling,168 the execs. of the school etc. etc. and are really pursuing their investigation. So the drab Black lawyer starts asking about it, & Shana explains how I’d written this article which she turned down. “Why did you?”; asks the Black lawyer. Shana pouts, doesn’t answer. I said, Well, you didn’t think it was very good, don’t you remember? Shana: “Decca, you’ve got to see my position—I was trying to get McCall’s to be better than the usual women’s magazines, have better fiction etc., and to antagonize all those people would have been, I thought, a very bad move. But I tried to get them to stop taking ads from the school, I tried to get Bennett to resign….”
So this time she changes the subject—back to the Angela Davis case, the difficulty of getting in to see her etc. I said there’s no difficulty at all, all you have to do is to get Angela’s permission, permission of her co-deft. Ruchell Magee,169 and both sets of lawyers. Which is true. (I forebore to rub it in by saying that I’d had a long chat with Angela and Bettina the other day.)
Shana asks me what I’m doing, and I tell about PRISONS. She asks if I’ve any sort of outline, or plan, for the book? No, alas, say I; I’m still mucking about on the fringes, very unsure of what tack I’m taking or what to cover or how. So Shana, very sympathetically, writer-to-writer like, “That must be so hard—such a vast subject—and not having found any approach.” I know (I said), I’m afraid it won’t be very good, just like the Famous Writers article. OH DECCA, she said. I think I got to her, at last!
But honestly don’t you think this is all really very extraordinary, the way she’s pursuing us, of all people, for entrée? I’m trying to figure out her whole character. In a way, she’s awfully like B. Cerf (the sophisticated us-folks-up-here bit, we all understand it, no hard feelings etc). I wonder if I could somehow be the official biographer of Shana Alexander? I must ask Bettina for permission next time I see her
Much love … Decca
To Raymond Benedict170 Oakland
July 12, 1971
Dear Mr. Benedict,
Thanks very much for your extremely interesting letter of 7 June, and apologies for not answering sooner
Actually I was quite aware that the last para. of my Atlantic article was a cop-out.171 I’m now writing a book on prisons, in which I hope to do better. But shall need a lot of help, and I now proceed to solicit your help:
In the book the first thing to do (it seems to me) is to describe. Some of the points in the Atlantic article will be much expanded, and the picture will be one of total failure of prison “reform,” and will point out the shallowness, superficiality—perhaps even dishonesty?—of aforementioned prison buffs, who are all good kind people with the best interests of convicts at heart. At least that’s how they think of themselves.
Proposals. That’s going to be a lot tougher…. Because supposing the Calif. prisoners win their major demands (end to indeterm. sentence,172 abolish Adult Authority, due process at all stages from prison disciplinary proceedings to parole hearing and parole revocation etc.), then what?
Oddly enough the “vast and radical reform” that you speak of is an implicit recommendation of even people like Ramsey Clark and the Pres. Crime Commission Report. They all talk blandly of abolishing the slums, providing full job opportunities, education etc. etc. for all—without, perhaps, realizing that this means redistribution of wealth. Which in turn means a long & bloody fight, because when and where has any ruling class gladly surrendered its wealth?
I think my book should certainly press for all the immediate demands, some of which are already before the Calif. legislature (e.g. the bill to abolish solitary confinement) and some of which are pending in court cases. If it could help to bring some of those about, it’s still worthwhile. However, the whole history of prison reform is the co-option by prison administrators of well-meaning reforms.
In August, I’m going to a five-day conference—the 101st annual Congress of the American Correctional Association. In preparation for that, I’m scanning through the published volumes of proceedings, from 1870 on. There is much to be learned from these about the underlying punitive purpose of the indeterminate sentence and other reforms instituted over the years. Here is a revealing bit from Prisons and Beyond by Sanford Bates,173 a book written in the thirties: “One of the practical reasons why more privileges are given in the prisons of today is the possibility of depriving prisoners of these same privileges, as part of the imposition of punishment. If all inmates are at a dead level of misery and deprivation all the time, how can we differentiate between those who conform and those who do not?”; …
So, as you can see, exploding the reformers is relatively plain sailing. Fundamental proposals are far harder to come by, and here is where I should much like your views, and those of others:
1. Almost everyone, including wardens if they are leveling with you, will say “75% or 50% or 95% of the inmates don’t belong here, could just as easily be on the streets.” But then of course somebody has to decide which those are, which puts us right back where we were, in the grip of behaviourists, people-changers, guards etc. who make these determinations about prisoners.
2. Even official govt. reports say prisons are meeting none of their stated functions (reform, deterrence etc).
3. What are your deepest thoughts about the future of prisons—should there be prisons? If so, who should be in them?
In my view, just as do-gooding suggestions of whites about improving the lot of Blacks are pretty much doomed to failure—because only the Blacks themselves have the real insight to formulate their own program—so do-gooding suggestions of people like me about prisons won’t do much good, unless they express the views of the prisoners.
I hope you’ll write back soon….
Yours sincerely, Jessica Mitford
To Marge Frantz
Miami Beach
August 17, 1971
Dearest old Marge,
In spite of extreme infidelity of you not writing me here, here is an account of the ACA174 convention to date (highlights of).
The exhibits are smashing, vast halls full of them.
In a way, they exemplify the Correctional contradictions: here a booth of learning materials, simplified high school courses etc., and next to it one that looks like a medieval torture chamber: huge thick chains, restraining belts and handcuffs of all kinds, and the latest kind of mace etc: “The Advanced ‘Han-Ball’ Tear Gas Grenade” is the one I liked. The leaflet says “It instantly pours out a dense and continuous cloud of CN or CS tear gas right at the place where it will do the most good.” The leaflet describing the chains for “maximum security in transporting prisoners” tells how to tie him up, and adds “Other uses will readily suggest themselves to officers who become familiar with this equipment.”
The first night there was a memorial service for those who had passed on (wardens etc., natch, not prisoners who had passed or been caused to pass)….
Lots of frenemies175 here: good old Joe Spangler176 came nuzzling up in the bar yesterday. Actually, snarling with rage he was. “There’s been a lot of discussion of that article of yours.” Oh, good! I do hope you liked it?”; “Liked it! It’s the most diabolically clever hatchet job I’ve seen yet.” Marge, that pleased me no end as you can guess. “We spent hours with you and your friend (you177) explaining everything, how we have the most dangerous prison pop. in the country, and you put in none of that.” I said sorry but space limitations …but that in my book I’d put it in, and also put in how Robin Lamson178 says it isn’t true.
Dr. E. Preston Sharp (exec. secretary of ACA, who invited me) seems a bit nervous now that he did. He asked me up to his room and begged me to tell the truth about Corrections. So I said of course I will, I always do. He said the trouble is so many writers only print the inmate’s side, never tell what the corr. people are doing. I said I’d put in everything the corr. people say, that’s why I am here….
