to face their enemies and answer tontheir charges. (TF)nGunnai Myrdal came as the featurednspeaker at the annual meeting of thenLutheran Council in the USA—yetnanother public atheist called to givenmoral guidance to yet another demoralizednband of American religiousnleaders. I saw his presence as a godsend.nIn a sense, he was to be myndissertation project. The chance tonserve as his aide-de-camp and gofer fornthe whole two days opened glitteringnresearch opportunities to a youngnchurch bureaucrat and would-benscholar.nHis speech to the church leadersnwas long and occasionally splendid. Andiscourse on what it meant to be an”cultural Lutheran” and, more broadly,non the American challenge, it wasnfull of historical allusions and philosophicalnmeanderings seldom encounterednin religious after-dinner talks.nThe Philadelphia ballroom was hot,nthe churchmen and their ladies full ofnwine and intolerant of ideas beyondnthe expected social-justice pieties.nAfter the first hour had passed, thenmutters and shuffling grew quite audible.nYet Gunnar Myrdal, slightly deaf,nputtered on to his conclusion, in thensingsong English of an old, pleasantlynsenile Swede.nMy timing proved to be perfect. Anfeminist scholar in Sweden had justnpublished a book claiming that Alvanand Gunnar Myrdal’s work on shapingnSwedish family and population policiesnin the 1930’s had been a betrayalnof true socialism. Their open pronatalism,nshe hinted, smelled of nationalismnand racism. Their advocacynof minor changes in Sweden’s antiabortionnlaw, instead of its completenscuttling, showed a lingering attachmentnto patriarchy. I indicated to himnmy intention of demonstrating hownthoroughly socialist, modernist, andnfeminist their work actually was, andnhow it had radically altered the modernnsocial-democratic consciousness.nHe was pleased with the project andngranted me full access to his familynpapers in the Labor Movement Archivesnin Stockholm, along with lettersnof reference to the restricted archivesnof the Swedish Social DemocraticnLabor Party, and a promise of interviews.nI spent the summers of 1976 andn1977 in Stockholm, either immersednin the Myrdals’ letters and enormousnnewspaper collection (starting in 1934,nthe young couple sensed they werenmaking history and subscribed to anclippings service) or in extended conversationnwith one or both of them.nIt soon became clear that Gunnar,nthe master social engineer of Sweden,nNorth America, and South Asia, hadnnow given himself over to the normalnpursuits of old men everywhere: tinkeringndaily with a project he wouldnnever complete (a new version of AnnAmerican Dilemma), telling the samenstories to young listeners, nodding oflFnin the midst of talk, and letting go ofnhis inhibitions. Alva, the first womannwho truly had it all (devoted husband,nchildren, and her own Nobel Prize),nserved coffee and cakes with the graciousnhospitality that marks the vanishingnSwedish husfru.nGunnar explained that his chosenncareer was to have been a countrynlawyer, in the picture-book village ofnMariefred—a practice dominated bynboundary disputes, real estate transactions,nand small deals in grain andnlivestock. His vague political allegiancesnthen lay with bondeforbundet,nThe Farmer’s Party, which promotednthe interests of the Swedish peasantrynand small towns against both thenurban proletariat and the great capitalists.nIndeed, Farmer’s Party leaders hadnseen the budding law student as anrising prospect and had approachednhim to run for the Swedish Senate as anrepresentative of the free peasantry. (Inna curious way, this ruralism wouldnpass from father to estranged son. JannMyrdal, the great celebrator of MaonTse-tung’s Cultural Revolution, wasnless an orthodox Marxist than a radicalnruralist, a proto-Green, opposed tonmodernity and bourgeois progress,nwhatever their form. In recent years,nhe has turned his wrath against thenWestern welfare state, lamenting itsnrole in promoting the destruction ofnvillage life and the corrosion of Christianncommunitarian values.)nThen Gunnar met Alva Reimer.nThe embodiment of Nordic beauty,nshe was a slender Sonja Henne,ngolden-haired, blue-eyed, red-lipped,nwith a pert nose and a shy, invitingnsmile. She was also a committed socialist,ntrained in ideology by her doc­nnntrinaire father, as well as a buddingnfeminist, educated in a women’s collectivenbuilt as an alternative to thenlocal gymnasium which refused tonadmit girls.nGunnar fell deeply and irrevocablynin love. Thereafter he lived for Alva.nHis subsequent correspondence withnhis often-absent wife fills many restrictednboxes in the Myrdal Archivenand is marked — I was told — withnmoving professions of love and pain atntheir separation.nShe helped guide the young lawyerninto his new profession—economicsn—and his new political allegiance—nSocial Democracy. Their marriage becamenthe modern prototype, first fornSweden, then for the Western world.nEarly on, there were already photos ofnthe young scholar-lovers at their desks,nface to face, pausing in their writing tongaze upon each other. In 1929, whennGunnar was offered a Rockefeller Fellowshipnto spend a year studying in thenUnited States, he negotiated another,nequal grant for his wife. “His and her”nNobels were the natural cap to thisnrigorously egalitarian bond.nYet even in this unity there remainedndiflFcrences. Gunnar nevernwholly shook off his rustic attachmentnto the Swedish soil and to Swedishntribalism. When the couple turnedntheir energies to crafting a socialistnresponse to Sweden’s sharply decliningnbirthrate, Gunnar’s advocacy of pronatalistnpolicies was sincere. Whennpressed by critics to his left, he confessednto a “mild form” of Swedishnnationalism. His hundreds of speechesnand articles from the period sparklenwith real affection for “Sweden’s children”nand a stirring promotion of largernfamilies (five children per couplenwas the target he finally settled on).nFor Alva, the family issue and pronatalismnwere important political opportunities.nBy invoking motherhood,nbabies, and the vanishing nation, shenhoped that socialists could lure then”bourgeois parties” to support policiesnthey had heretofore opposed: nationalizednhealth care focused (at first) onnmaternity and infants; “family services”nsuch as state day care and summerncamps; state allowances for children’snclothing; school meals; and sonon. Feminist goals could also benwoven into the program, using thenargument that married-women-at-nAUGUST1987/7n