An Evening at the Bolshoi

Monday, 23 December 2002

Bargarz wonders what I will have to say of this report that Harpo Marx was a communist for the FBI. Well, not quite: in 1933, Harpo was asked by the US Ambassador to Moscow to carry some "diplomatic mail" home in his socks and evidently J Edgar Hoover (well known for his satiric cross-dressing party turns as "Mrs Beatrice Banal", doyen of Washington society) learned of Harpo's service to his country:

One letter from the FBI archives, signed by Hoover in 1949, congratulates Harpo on his "loyal past services" to his country.

Hoover hoped they might meet in the near future, saying: "There may be ways that you can help your country again."

Loyal as Harpo's service may have been in ferrying his country's official correspondence around in his socks, I suspect it pales into insignificance beside that of the unsung hero who had the thankless task of dealing with the correspondence when it arrived at its destination (assuming that the state of Harpo's socks after his travels was anything like the state of the Trotsky socks after a long day in the wheelhouse). I hope that the "diplomatic mail" didn't take the form of one of those "microdot" things that are usually concealed in a book as the fifth full stop on page 135, because the thought of some hapless State Department employee having to subject Harpo's dirty laundry to a thorough microscopic examination before clearing it to go to the laundry is not a pleasant one.

Until we see the actual documents we can only speculate on what future services Hoover thought Harpo could provide for his country: perhaps he was just looking for a few pointers on physical comedy to sharpen up his Beatrice Banal act.

To close this post, thanks to Bargarz for his seasonal gift of the opportunity for a little comic invention. I hope that you consider the gift adequately repaid. And a Merry Christmas to you too mate.

Update: Much as I would like to remove the struck through passage, I'm stuck with it now and it's probably too late for this feeble protestation that no sarcasm was intended. D'Oh!