Leonard Bernstein understood that art was political. As long as he wielded the baton, the maestro dared not shy away from at least being involved with the most pressing social issues of his day; as a gay Jewish man whose celebrity took off in the middle of the 20th century, Bernstein knew what it meant to be a part of a marginalized community. He may not be as remembered for his political action as he is for being a leading conductor, composer and educator, but he was certainly of enough interest that the Federal Bureau of Investigation amassed an 800-page file on his activities. In 2009, The New Yorker’s Alex Ross took a deep dive into these records, and emerged with a portrait of an all-American artist perceived by his government as anything but.
J. Edgar Hoover was monitoring Bernstein since at least 1949 — an internal FBI memo which made its way to Hoover’s desk cited the conductor’s involvement with several groups as prime areas of concern. Among them: the American Committee for Yugoslav Relief, the Civil Rights Congress, the Southern Negro Youth Congress and the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. These groups were considered especially notable with respect to the reach of Executive order 9835 (the “Loyalty Order”) signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1947. The order was meant to eliminate Soviet and Communist influences throughout the United States Government. This happened just before Bernstein was scheduled to conduct a concert for President Truman and Israeli President Chaim Weizmann, and his affiliation or direct involvement with these apparently insidious groups was enough to ring some alarms.
Nothing came of that first FBI memo, but in time, Bernstein’s leftist stances became the target of another powerful political figure: Joseph McCarthy. The Wisconsin Senator had a maniacal obsession with finding as many communists and Soviet sympathizers as he could, even if it meant trumping up ludicrous charges. Being on his radar didn’t just subject you to senseless braying in the upper chamber of the U.S. Legislature; it was a professional death knell to workers in the arts and entertainment industry. In 1950, Bernstein's music was banned at overseas State Department functions, and 1951 Bernstein found himself — alongside other creatives, including fellow composer Aaron Copland — in the FBI Security Index, unambiguously marked “Communist.” He had his passport revoked in 1953, and even after he got it back, he was subject to intense FBI investigation.
Though Bernstein made it out of McCarthy's private hell he was still under the watchful eye of the government, in no small part because of his involvement with the Black Panther Party. In 1970, Bernstein and his wife Felicia hosted a party (which Bernstein would insist was a “meeting”) to raise funds for the Panthers and their legal fees. Writer Tom Wolfe detailed the encounter in an article for New York magazine. Despite the evening's rather innocuous beginnings, it erupted into a passionate discourse around identity politics — blackness, Jewishness, richness and poorness. Whether or not the Bernstein's intentions were misguided, when news of the gathering at their apartment leaked, reactions were far from positive. Similar gatherings were abruptly canceled. Some in the black community saw it as exploitative; some in the Jewish community labeled Bernstein's Panther association anti-Semitic. And the government was just as angry. Despite the Black Panther's social welfare initiatives for the poor, Hoover’s disdain for the Party was no secret. And this wasn’t good news either for the exceptionally paranoid Richard Nixon, who received a personal memo informing him of the Bernsteins socialite-Panther soirée. Nixon would harbor serious distrust toward the conductor, and at the behest of an FBI warning declined to attend the inaugural concert of D.C.’s Kennedy Center. Bernstein would be conducting the premiere his Jackie Kennedy Onassis-commissioned Mass — a work that the FBI considered dangerous. The President seemed to take some joy in the piece’s negative review in The New York Times, and called Bernstein a “son of a bitch.”
Bernstein’s political activity and the governmental scrutiny it engendered shouldn’t be reason enough to elevate his life’s story to hagiography — he was human, after all. But these incidents are a good reminder that the creation of great art, and the efforts that go into it, can be a courageous act in itself.
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