Evening star., 1951-05-13
Hede Messing Tells Her Own
| EnIiqhteninq Story

vle1lIld-DOTIl I1Guc MdSSl1lS, tIlC
ex-C Communist spy who gave tes-
timony against Alger Hiss at his
second trial. appeared briefly on
the local scene the other day for
the double purpose of testifying
before the McCarran committee
and to stir up interest in her new
and enlightening memoirs, This
Deception"
AS one who has publicly re-
nounced communism and all its
works, Mrs. Massing is repentant
but not especially embittered or
downhearted. Each Of her three
marriages has been to a Com
munist-her first at II was to
Gerhart Eisler. Not that she just
married into the party, she is
frank to say. An insecure child
hood and a good deal of tempera-
ment made her susceptible to
party promises and strictness. An
emotional rather than an intel
lectual Communist, she never read
Marx. And she never carried a
party card.
Now in her sos and a house
wife on a Bucks County (Pa)
farm, Mrs. Massing. a one-time
actress, is still chic and sprightly.
"An I ever wanted was the
simple life," she says ruefully. II
would have liked six children. /"
Despite this, she admits she took
a certain. pleasure in her life as
an apparatchik Underground
operative). She received 5000 a
month from the Soviets, plus ex-
penses. They were, she says,
counter to current opinion, very
generous and she lived very well.
AS a recruiting agent, she drew
Noel Field into the party. Through
him, IN Washington, she met Alger
Hiss.
An American citizen since 1927
Mrs. Massing, did not begin to give
her allegiance to her adopted
country until 1888. after she had
been summoned to Moscow with
her present husband, Paul Mass
ing, a Rutgers University profess
sor. who is disillusioned fellow
traveler) and been subjected to
what she calls "the purge de luxe. n
They barely escaped from Moscow
then only because of American
citizenship and passports.
After the break, the Massings
settled on their farm and Mrs,
Massing took in paying guests
After her appearance at the Hiss
trial she decided she might as well
tell her own story. "It is not with
glee that I write of these people, u
she says. II do not hate them
I am not a good hater."
After completing a lecture tour
Mrs. Massing will settle down to
work on her second book, a novel
about everyday life In Soviet Rus
sia. Il will be a love story.
y X y II
Senator Kefauver is making
good time on the manuscript of
his forthcoming book, Crime in
America" and as of now there is
not the slightest doubt that he
will make the July IL publication
date. The Senator took a week
off after the windup of the New
York hearings and went down to
Hot Springs, where he dictated
steadily to two secretaries. He is
half through with his work.
with an editing assist from Sidney
Shalett.
Lucy Kennedy, author of "The
Sunlit Field" that much-praised
first novel about baseball and
Brooklyn in the last Gentry, will
give a seven-week course in novel
writing at the Y. w. C. A. Adult
Education Center beginning We'd
neSday, June s. Miss Kennedy
won a playwright's award from
ANITA. and for a long time wrote
scripts for the Calvacade of Amer
lea. "The Sunlit Field" was a
Fiction Book Club choice.
X X X X
John X. Hutchens of the New
York Herald Tribune Book Re-
view-and one of the best critics
in the busineSs-will take time out
from scrutinizing other peoples
books to edit one of his own. "The
American Twenties," literary
panorama.