Albert E. Kahn - Breaking The Blacklist

Breaking The Blacklist

During the 1950s, Kahn had his passport revoked for refusing to sign the required affidavit stating whether or not he was or had ever been a member of the Communist Party, a requirement ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in a case involving noted painter and Kahn friend, Rockwell Kent.

Kahn broke the blacklist in 1962 with publication by Simon & Schuster of the critically acclaimed Days With Ulanova, an intimate portrait of the fabled Bolshoi ballerina. On another trip to Moscow, Kahn met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the Kremlin and proposed collaboration with him on the Soviet leader's autobiography. Khrushchev agreed, but was forced from office before the project was laucnhed. Other Kahn books included Smetana and the Beetles (Random House, 1967), a satire of the defection of Stalin's daughter; Joys and Sorrows (Simon & Schuster, 1970), Pablo Casals' memoir as told to Kahn; and The Unholy Hymnal (Simon & Schuster, 1971), a satirical expose of the Credibility Gap of the Johnson and Nixon administrations.