Copyright© 2003 by Carlos Malenkov

Transcript from the hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, December 17, 1952:

SENATOR MCCARTHY:

In the absence of more urgent matters, we resume the testimony of witness Ronald Bookman. Counsel Cohn, will you please continue questioning the witness.

COUNSEL COHN:

Mr. Chairman, the witness has been cooperative in describing the workings of the Communist organization of which he was a member. He has demonstrated irrational stubbornness on only one key point, the naming of the other members of that group. We have been patient and given him time to reconsider his lack of patriotism.

Due to a schedule conflict, I would like to hand over the questioning of the witness to Assistant Counsel Kennedy.

SENATOR MCCARTHY:

Counsel Kennedy --

COUNSEL KENNEDY:

For the record, I am Assistant Counsel Robert F. Kennedy, an attorney on the staff of Chief Counsel Roy M. Cohn.

Mr. Bookman, I remind you that you are still under oath.

Now, let us recapitulate your previous testimony. You stated that you were a member of the Communist front "Workers' Equity" organization during the period February, 1935, to August, 1939. You let your membership lapse because of your disgust with the purges and Bukharin trials and your dismay over the Nazi-Soviet pact. Is that correct?

MR. BOOKMAN:

That is substantially correct, Counsel Kennedy.

COUNSEL KENNEDY:

You have not been a Communist for almost 14 years, and have in fact repudiated all that the Soviet Union and Communism represent. Why then, do you refuse to name names?

MR. BOOKMAN:

I won't have ruining careers and lives on my conscience. These people, the people you wish me to name, out of naive idealism joined a group dedicated to bettering the lot of the unemployed worker. Remember, this country was still mired deep in the worst depression in its history, and millions embraced Marxist doctrine as the only hope of averting a total collapse.

COUNSEL KENNEDY:

While we understand your concerns, Mr. Bookman, nonetheless national security requires that you give us the names. Do this simple small thing, and the subcommittee will release you with your own name cleared of any taint.

MR. BOOKMAN:

Still, I must refuse, even if it means accepting the consequences.

COUNSEL KENNEDY:

Mr. Bookman, please consider carefully the implications of your lack of cooperation. If we cite you for Contempt of Congress, you may face a prison sentence, and your future employment prospects will suffer irrevocable damage. Do you still refuse to name names?

MR. BOOKMAN:

I repeat, I will not purchase my own freedom at the cost of destroying other people's lives.

June 11, 1938

The man in the ill-fitting corduroy suit standing up front was trying to call the meeting to order despite the noise of the crowd milling in the room. Ron Bookman had somehow contrived to find a vacant chair next to a tall, well-groomed brunette in her early 20's. She turned toward him, smiled briefly, and offered a cheek for a perfunctory kiss.

"I didn't expect to see you of all people here, Ronnie. Not after the executive board denounced you for deviationist tendencies, not to mention disloyalty. You're about as non grata here as a persona can be."

"Claudie, you know my feelings for you have nothing to do with whatever I may think of the Party. Damn it all, we've been as close as it's possible for two human beings to be. We've touched, we've joined. I've felt the heat of your passion. I felt your body embrace mine in the most intimate way possible! Doesn't that mean anything now? Damn it, woman, are you made of stone?"

She took both his hands and inclined her head toward his. "Ronnie, Ronnie. Human feelings pale in comparison to the tide of history. At this very moment, unemployed workers are marching in the streets of this country, the bastion of capitalism itself. Fascism is on the rise all over Europe. In the turmoil, the survival of the Workers' State and even Marxism itself is doubt. At a time like this how can you entertain such bourgeois fantasies as romantic love?"

"So, Claud, nothing we did before matters? I wasted my time sneaking in here to see you? I risked being beaten and thrown out for nothing?"

"Oh, Ron. I did and do have strong feelings for you. But don't you understand that my feelings don't matter? Only the Movement does. Only that. We're caught up in something immeasurably greater than sex and lust or even love. Damn, damn, DAMN... Well, the least I can do is give you a grand sendoff. And seeing you, talking to you like this does seem to have aroused certain biological needs in me. What do you say we find a private place for one final little tryst?"

It was cramped in there. A ladies room stall wasn't really designed for two people. With the door latched, there was hardly standing room for the both of them. Ron just did manage to pull down his pants and sit down on the toilet. Claudia turned so she was facing away from him and hiked up her skirt. She had already retrieved a small glass bottle out of her purse and now she dabbed a rather large glob of Vaseline on her anal opening. Laboriously, she maneuvered her way backward onto his lap, gradually impaling herself on his hard penis. This was the way she liked it -- getting sodomized in a public place, with the danger of discovery adding spice to the proceedings.

They had discovered it quite by accident. He'd had trouble bringing her to orgasm with vaginal intercourse, even in conjunction with protracted clitoral stimulation. Then, one night when they were both a little drunk and in the throes of a reckless, sloppy passion, he had accidentally slipped into the wrong hole. She had spontaneously gone into massive convulsions of intense, almost unbearable rapture. Her orgasm was immediate, and it almost exploded the top of her head off. It was the hottest sex she had ever experienced.