mere silence. He kept typewritersnaround the place just to remind himselfnthat he had been a writer. Except fornthe handmaiden work he did on Hell;nman’s plays and the occasional coursenon fiction writing at the Marxist JeffersonnSchool of Social Science, DashiellnHammett was a classic burnout. But henwas still a Marxist. Hammett never effusednthe sort of Soviet communism hisnmistress Lillian Hellman had, but thatndoes not mean he did not have that pridenof ideology which makes a man sign allnsorts of foolish Soviet-inspired petitionsnwhen they are thrust under hisnnose. After his having raved for thenRight Way of Life through most of thatntime when he was throwing $1000-anightnflings, his bill caine due. The Mc­nCarthy Committee subpoenaed Hammettnto testify about his connection withnthe bail-bond fund for the Civil RightsnCongress (which had lobbied to put thenCommunist Party on the New York ballotnin 1946). Dashiell Hammett was onnthe map again.nIt will never be known whether D. H.nwas really a card-carrying communist.nI tend to think not, trusting that he wasnhonest in telling his brother that he wasnmerely a Marxist. He was idiosyncraticallynattached to the spirit of individualismnand could hardly have cared less forneconomic theory. Any man who couldninvent Samuel Spade, however tired henwas of capitalism, would never leavenjustice up to a Central Committee. Hammettnfavored Marx out of the sentimentnthat such a system accorded with thenmore pleasant, neighborly drives of hisnego. This is as close as Hammett, anlapsed Catholic, could have gotten tonreligion. The fact that political systemsnshould take into account more than thenideological content, the obsessional wish,nof the systematizer was of no interestnto him. He was one of those people whonbecome cynical after having their romanticninstincts blunted at an early age.nAn instinct for chivalry and uprightnessnexists substantially in his ContinentalnOp and other “hard-boiled” types.nThey are not womanizers like their pro-nMutualityn In the New York Review of Books,nMs. Frances FitzGerald, the highbredndyspeptic distorter of truths who prevaricatednabout Vietnam with suchnupper-class grace, now elaborates on annall-too-familiar theme under the titlen”The Triumphs of the New Right”:nJust after the 198ffelection the ABCnshow called ‘flightline’ put the satellitentechnology of television to worknto create an extraordinary electronicnencounter between Senator GeorgenMcGovern, Senator Frank Church,nSenator Birch Bayh, Jerry Falwell,nand Paul Weyrich. The three justdefeateansenators had never metntheir opponents before, and the twonsides knew so little about each otbernthat both were disarmed.nCorrection please: the three defeatedngenitor. They remain aloof and still managento help their fellow man more thannthe intellectuals, institutions and incorporationsnaround them. They arfenmen of action.njfxs Hammett’s typewriters collectedndust, his dream came true. He got anchance to be one of his heroes. WhethernHammett, as a Pinkerton agent, evernreally did anything more significant thannpad after suspected embezzlers isndubious, but in the Case of the SlimynSenator, Hammett found his glory, hisnway to martyrdom. It was pathetic thatnHammett should be dragged before thentribunal, a destitute, spent man. He letnhimself be mauled with the same masochisticnzeal Ned Beaumont showed duringnthe torture scene in The Glass Key.nHe took his jail sentence calmly and saidnit was like going home again. Once henhad quipped to Howard Fast, who wasnon his way to the slammer, “It will beneasier for you, Howard, if you first takenoff the crown of thorns.” On the whole,nLIBERAL CULTURE |nnnSenators knew nothing about Falwellnand Weyrich—their liberal ignorancenand arrogance would scarcely allow themnto descend so low as to be interested innany socio-ideological perspectives othernthan their own. That’s why they werendefeated. But Falwell and Weyrich knewneverything about all the McGoverns,nChurches and Bayhs of the country.nThat’s how they were able to defeatnthem. DnHammett was happy to have a chance tonprove himself, to show his colleaguesnthat after all the years he could stillndisplay dignity and guts. Even his jailersncalled him “sir.” He bragged about cleaningnthe toilets at the prison better thannthey had ever been done before. As martyrdomsngo, it was not too bad, but hisnhealth broke toward the end.nOnly at this stage of his biography donI see Dashiell Hammett pellucidly.nCoriolanus once said: “Let them pronouncenthe steep Tarpeian death, vagabondnexile, flaying, pent to linger but withna grain a day, I would not buy their mercynat the price of a word …” And so, beforenthe Committee and by the grace ofnthe Fifth Amendment, Dashiell Hammettnbecame far more significant thannanything he might have written. He wasna romantic after all.nThis much can be said about Hammett:nhe was not the kind of celebritynwho would have consented to appear inn• the pages of People magazine. He hadntoo much class for that. Dni25nJanuary/February 1982n