Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

215 A Piece of Ginger
Public opinion was beginning to turn around. An editorial in Henry
Luce’s Life stated that whatever Pound had done in wartime Italy he had
su√ered enough, and that his case should be reconsidered. The publisher’s
wife, Clare Boothe Luce, former ambassador to Italy, was said to have
been moved by the respect and esteem in which Pound was held by the
Italian people. T. S. Eliot was responsible for keeping the cause alive in
England. Ernest Hemingway joined the chorus: ‘‘Ezra Pound is a great
poet, and whatever he did, he has been greatly punished. I believe he
should be freed to go and write poems in Italy, where he is loved and
understood.’’
In the spring of 1958, Frost paid a third call on Rogers, and this time the
Attorney General listened patiently, and assured the poet that the U.S.
government would no longer oppose Pound’s release. But first, an attorney
would have to prepare the necessary paperwork. Thurman Arnold of
the Washington law firm of Arnold, Fortas & Porter was engaged. Dorothy
Pound, her son Omar (now a teacher in Boston), and a miscellaneous
group of Ezra’s disciples were on the benches at the hearing before Judge
Bolitha J. Laws on April 18. Sworn statements were read from many
celebrated writers: Marianne Moore, Carl Sandburg, W. H. Auden, Robert
Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and MacLeish. Dr. Winifred Overholser testified
that Pound’s ‘‘further confinement can serve no therapeutic purpose. Ezra
Pound is not a dangerous person, and his release would not endanger the
safety of other persons . . . or interests of the United States.’’
Mary, at Brunnenburg, listening to Italian radio, heard the good news
and relayed it to her mother. Olga was disappointed that Ezra would leave
the hospital, not as a free man, but in the custody of his wife acting as
‘‘Committee for Ezra Pound,’’ released to her ‘‘with bond, under such
terms and conditions as will be appropriate to the public good.’’ He chose
to remain in Chestnut Ward for three weeks after his release to sort books
and papers until the ‘‘Committee’’ could make arrangements for their
return to Italy. When Dorothy booked passage on the S.S. Cristoforo
Colombo sailing July 1, Marcella Spann went with them as secretary.
Before returning to Italy, Pound visited his childhood home in Wyncote,
Pennsylvania, then owned by Mrs. Herman L. Gatter and her son
Carl, and visited his former teachers, Priscilla and Esther Heacock. From