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Today is Tuesday, February 15th, and I'm meeting with John Simon, S I M O N, right? Um, would you start by telling me who your parents, uh, your, your parents' names, who they were, and a little bit about their history. Well, let, let me start with

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my mother because the question of my Fatherhood is um. Complex, uh. My mother was born. In San Francisco. April 15th, 1908. Her name was Frances Caroline. Can you point the mic. She was a child of an old California family. I don't know if most of the

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um Uh, red diaper babies you're interviewing are Jewish, um, yeah, uh, and most of the kids I grew up with in that in that circle were Jewish. I'm half Jewish. Uh Francis, Francis's family was um Republican and uh Catholic. And um. Semi-respectable, uh, well, her. Maternal

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great-grandfather was mayor of San Francisco in the 1860s. He's he was a reform mayor as far as I know. I haven't really studied the period. His name was um. Henry S. Coon. Um, Her paternal grandfather. Owned the largest whorehouse on the Barbary Coast at the turn

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of the century. Um, That's why only semi. His son, my mother's father, was the first student at Stanford to own a car. Um And was a lifelong Republican and director of the Sierra Club. Um, Francis grew up in, she was the oldest of 6 children. She

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grew up in big houses with uh Irish nannies, um. She was always a rebel, uh, which Mostly consisted of um. Flouting the discipline of the nuns in the convent schools she went to. Um. And I think the the first time that she had any contact with

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anybody who uh Said anything that was critical of the. The American dream was Uh, when she met the man she was to marry, uh. Who whose name was Bernard Simon, who was a Jewish. Uh Kid from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, no Little Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock Pine

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Buff Pine Buff, who uh had gone away to school to Columbia and was in the theater in New York and he was out here in the Bay Area um doing advance uh publicity for uh Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill. And uh. I don't know. He, he

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knew somebody who knew somebody who uh said let's go up to Piedmont and there's this. Uh, There's a girl or something and uh the uh young men were invited to dinner and um. This was like 19. 28. Maybe and uh. The talk at the dinner table

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was kind of exuberantly. Uh, happy about the stock market and, uh, Bunny Simon said no, the stock market's going to fall, um, because that's the nature of the capitalist system. And um My grandfather was shocked because this was not something when said at the dinner table,

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but uh my mother's friend Reggie, an old friend who, uh, I don't know if he was a flame or. Or what, uh, said, now you watch this young man, he has ideas, and anyway, they, they got married. She, she married Bernard Simon on the rebound from

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uh. Uh Boyfriend, the parents disapproved of, she didn't know him very well, she went away to live in New York and this was 1930 and the stock market had fallen and all the bright young people in New York were on the left and uh. Did she

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go to college? No, well, she went for a couple, she I guess she went. She went for a couple of years, she went to the convent of the Sacred Heart. In Manhattan. I guess I'm not, this is her autobiography and I'll give you a copy um

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so you can familiarize yourself with some of that story, but, uh, and it might be more clear there, but um she didn't graduate from college. Was she part of the art and theater and literary, yeah. She was, she was a very bright young woman, but undisciplined,

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and she. Of She says that she had the highest score in the state of California in the first Stanford-Binet test. In 1920 or so. So, um So anyway, here she is, uh, rebelling against the church, uh, marrying a a Jewish, uh, theatrical press agent with, with

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radical ideas and going to live in New York City and um. They were, uh, suddenly very poor. Uh, But it was kind of a lark. No, they, they, they sort of lost all their money in, in the crash, uh, it, um. In fact, Bunny Simon, who

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I am careful not to refer to as my father, although I thought he was for most of my life, um. Thought he was marrying into a wealthy family. And it was kind of ships crossing in the night because she thought she was marrying a free spirited

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creative artist and in fact married a a workaholic and he thought he was marrying a uh uh. Respectability and security and in in fact was, you know, didn't get that. And uh I think that my grandfather was overextended and um so. I I don't think my

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grandparents were actually ever. Uh, desperate, but, but my grandmother went back to work and she was became for many years a librarian at Lone Mountain College, which is now part of USF. And uh So, um They didn't really have a lot of money to help them

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with. I don't think they were, no, it it. They didn't disapprove of the marriage. They had promised to raise whatever children they had in the church, which in my case consisted of. Following through consisted of sprinkling some holy water on me, uh, and Bunny said, he

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said to me when I was being. Uh, a few days old, get a good look at this church kid because it's the last time you're gonna see it. Um, But uh. Francis's radicalism was. It it was something it wasn't completely automatic, there were a number of

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uh. People she was talking to, uh, some of whom were within the party and others who were just, um. Kind of free spirits on the left, she mentions a white Russian named Samson who seems to have been some sort of a uh Oh somewhere between an

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anarchist and a Trotskyite of some kind, uh, who was kind of her mentor for a while there, but she did end up joining the party and, um, yeah. And do you know about when that would have been about 1935. Was she working? Uh, yeah, she was

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working, she worked a bunch of jobs and there's a rundown of them in there. She was a stock girl and she um was a girl Friday and she tried working for her husband for a while, which was really hell and um. She also she also eventually

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settled into a kind of publicity stuff uh in this in this picture on the cover of the autobiography, she's 32 years old, this is 1940 and she's um. The New York I don't know, fan editor or something of Pick magazine, which was kind of the Hollywood

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oriented People magazine of its time, um, and, uh. What kind of political activity were they involved in during that period. They were kind of in. The artists and intellectuals kind of section. Yeah, it was, it was not exactly like um rank and file. No, it was

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not. It was not going out and selling daily workers on the corner. I mean, I knew kids whose parents had done that. Um, My mother said that for some time, she was actually underground, that she was um Like That no one was supposed to know what

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she was doing and she would be given assignments to uh Go to a drugstore counter and meet someone and say a password, and it was all very mysterious. Uh, and pick up some materials or or something, it seemed like it sounded like it was all sort

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of dry runs. It was all sort of, you know, practicing being clandestine in preparation for something or other. For really going underground. We either of your parents or your your mother or bunny in the leadership of um. Uh, I wouldn't say that they were. Um, Francis

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eventually was, this is skipping ahead, but she was, um, secretary of her union local at Paramount Pictures where she was working in publicity in the late 40s and um. Would have had to. Register or face registering. Under the Smith Act. As a communist If She had

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stayed where she was, um. And didn't stay there. I think she. Kind of left the job and drifted out of the. Um, the union and the party about that same time. And when were you born? I was born April 21, 1942 and in New York City.

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Are you an only child? Depends how you think about it, um, yes, I'm, I'm the only child of. I grew up as an only child, yeah. I later acquired stepchildren, steps step siblings, and in the last year I've uh Made contact with uh half siblings that

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I have from my actual biological father who was someone else but during your childhood, your early years at home at that time I was an only child and you lived in New York for your growing up, we lived in New York um 1953, Bunny and Francis

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had uh. A really difficult marriage and they Separated finally in 1951. And um. When Francis remarried uh John Adler in March 1953, we went to live with him in Westport, Connecticut. So that, that really was kind of, um, but in, in, in New York, OK, starting

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with at the age of 3, I went to first preschool and then school at Downtown Community School, which was um It was run by Norman and Hannah Studer, who also directed Camp Woodland. And they were Quakers. I have no idea if they were communists or not,

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but certainly it was a um. Uh Both school and camp were. I, I would say that most of the, the kids that went there were were certainly from communist families, um, yeah, as I remember, um, I think that when I was an infant she probably had

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taken some Years off, but when I remember she was working full time, yeah. Yeah, Bunny Bunny was an absolute workaholic and was working almost around the clock. Um, where, what kind of circumstances did you grow up? Would you describe your, your family as middle class, middle

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class, they were. They were sort of it. The thing about, you know, artist intellectual types is you, you kind of aren't exactly. Um, class is not exactly defined by your economic situation. I mean, we were. Um, We, we lived on 24th Street in Lexington Avenue in

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a basement apartment in a brow in a brownstone, um. Which Was I think rent controlled. Um, We Generally had a an African American woman who was uh sort of uh nanny and cook. Um, They didn't live there, of course, they lived in Harlem. Uh, And It

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seems to me that we were always kind of cash poor. Uh, We, we had. Oh, a 1937 Ford until about 1950. Uh, there was a country place. They had bought 13 acres of land in. Uh, Bantam, Connecticut for $400 in 1935 and uh built a little

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uh house there, so we'd go up there on the weekend, um. So I don't know we were. Middle, lower, middle, lower middle or right, exactly. Um, do you recall how and when you became aware of your parents' political activities and hers? Well, the The incident I

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remember which I told you on the phone, uh. They came into my bedroom. This must have been Before they split up in 51, so it was before that, perhaps 49 or 50. And I think that they were. Uh, aware of the increasing tide of anti-communism, so

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they came in to talk to me about, uh, that they were Marxists and that life was going to be difficult for people who believed as they did in this country, but they. We're going to stand up for their beliefs and um no, I didn't. I did

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not know in fact what a Marxist was. Um, You were then what 7. Yeah. We were the subject of dinner conversation in your house? I mean was that part of the Well, my parents didn't really talk to each other that much. They really hated each other

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and um my father didn't have much uh bunny didn't have much. In his mind except work, uh. So not really. I, I, and I was an intensely intellectual child uh pre withdrawn, um, preferred to uh sit at the table with a book if possible. Um, I

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I I often had the feeling that the kids around me were more politically sophisticated than I was. I remember for instance. This must have been after Russia exploded. The first Hydrogen bomb perhaps maybe 49 or 50 anyway. Um We were playing on the roof of Downtown

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Community School and um One of the kids in my class was Gene Dennis, whose father was Eugene Dennis, the chairman of the CP. USA and I expressed some Fear of being bombed and Jean said, don't worry. The Russians wouldn't bomb us. But if they did, my

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daddy would know about it. So it's not going to happen or we'd be safe or something like that. Um, um, were Jean and the other kids that you knew, were their parents also friends of your parents were, were, was that your parents' social circle? I don't

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think that their social circle was like leadership people. Um, but many of the social circle were were. Um, party members, um. And The ones that I, I recall clearly a couple named the Bermans, Harry and Lily and Berman and and. Um, I think my impression of

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them is more from my mother's. Memory later uh when she'd talk about them when we when I was an adult and uh. Kind of a, a sense of that they were very doctrinaire, but that they were nice. I don't think my mother was ever exactly doctrinaire.

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She was um. Passionate and the ideas made sense to her. And um she could be dogmatic and opinionated and she would disagree with fiercely with people who um. Uh, she, you know, who, who weren't in accord with her, but. Ah, It She was an idealist and.

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She had a vision and it wasn't necessarily just because the party said so. Or because she studied um Marxism. Right, I mean, she tried to, I mean, but it. Uh, It never the the the theoretics of actually you know reading Marx's texts did not make a

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whole lot of sense to her, I don't think. Um, Bunny, um. Doesn't sound like he had time really. Well, he probably didn't. He had, he had read some of it and he, he was. He was still trying to lecture to me about surplus value on his

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deathbed, but he, he, uh. He actually became a very, very, a kind of a conservative Democrat. Uh, still with a theoretical Marxist underpinning, he was sort of like um. Until the revolution comes, we've got to kick these chisels off the welfare rolls. Whereas my mother actually

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was always um. Pretty uh progressive. When that incident when they came into your room, what do you remember your reaction being and uh was this did they do this up to talk to you or was it? No, they didn't. It was I I had the feeling

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that it was something that they planned that they felt they ought to do and um. That Uh, I felt that that that I ought to know what a Marxist was and so I didn't ask. Um, I just sort of nodded sagely or something and, and they

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decided that they had done their duty and then subject was closed. Had you, um, had you had any reason to be fearful up to that point, or do you remember being I don't remember. Um, I think I was pretty sheltered from uh the anti-communist uh. Rage

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uh around that time, um. Yeah, yeah, I mean it was a very, uh, we were basically around people who agreed with us. How do you know how parents chose you as opposed to? Uh, that, that happened when I was 3 years old, so no, I don't

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know, um. But it also seems to me, looking back on, on those schools that they That what they really were was um. They were experiments in progressive education in the broader sense, more than in the narrower sense. I mean, as kids. I went to downtown up

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through 5th grade and we were. I, I found my 5th grade notebook this year and. We went to uh. We were very much There there were ideals of of racial justice which weren't happening in the public schools, um, but the last thing we would learn was

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Marxism. Um, we were. It was very really very all-American and sort of popular front more than anything um long after the days. Um, Then after they came into your room and and told you this, did you, do you recall paying attention in different ways or sort

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of trying to ferret things out or I don't think I don't think I really did. I remember um. The probably the. The the thing that really hit me most was the Rosenbergs. Um, And uh what really hit me the most about them was the kids. And

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uh I actually became. Very good friends with Michael Meropol at Swarthmore, uh. And uh I'm still in touch with my kind of on the same terms as I am with Eddie and uh. When um around the, the Rosenberg case, did your parents, did you learn of

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that just from your own from reading the newspapers were there conversations and discussions? Did your parents talk directly to you about what was happening? No, I learned that I, I got that on my own and I think that Francis was upset about it. Bunny much later.

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took the trouble to deny that he'd ever been bothered by it. Um, which seemed a little strange. Um, I still have no idea whether uh Julius and Ethel. Actually sat at any lunch counters like Francis Haddon and passed anything to anybody which not that the Russians

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would have needed that to build an atomic bomb because basically advanced physicists had common knowledge um. And Even if they did, they were treated in such a barbarous fashion, you know. It was a real witch hunt. But what really struck me was the um You know,

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that they had these two kids that were being left orphans. Did you think that meant that your parents might be in danger? I think I might have made that connection by then and this is. By then I'm 10 or 11. Did your parents ever instruct you

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that there were people that you shouldn't speak to or things you shouldn't tell unknown people? Uh, not at that point, it. The only time that Francis ever said, uh, be careful was Quite a bit later. In Westport, um. Which was a. At that time, a fairly

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conservative suburb, um, yeah, OK. What was, what do you feel the tenor, the tone inside your home was you described Bunny and Francis is not having a happy marriage. Were they intellectually compatible? Um, was, um, was it tense, stimulating? It was tense. It was tense. It

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wasn't stimulating. It wasn't lively. The, the. The trouble in their marriage really overtook uh. You know, a possibility of um. A lively instructive, uh. You know, informative. Discussion, um. Did you feel that either of them um suffered in any way economically or emotionally as a result

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of their political work during that period, or their, their activities or their connections? Bunny Might have lost some work. It's hard to say because he. He was in a business as a as a press agent, he had to get hired by producers and um job by

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job and uh He was kind of um. Paranoid Anyway, uh. I mean, he, I remember him. Telling me that he would have been a much better success, bigger success if it wasn't for a conspiracy of homosexuals that kept him from some good jobs. Uh And um

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Who knows, but what, you know, he might have lost some job because some gay gave it to another gay and that, you know, he could be perceived to pattern, um. He wanted to join the army after Pearl Harbor and thought that his producer had pulled strings

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to keep him out of the army. He was always uh Uh