My Father the Communist

By WALTER ISAACSON

LOYALTIES by Carl Bernstein; Simon & Schuster; 262 pages; $18.95

In the 15 years since he helped topple a President, Carl Bernstein has become famous more as a celebrity than as a journalist. He has been pictured on the gossip pages with a procession of notable women. He was portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men, based on the Watergate book he co- authored with Bob Woodward, and, as a fictional character, by Jack Nicholson in Heartburn, based on a cleverly barbed novel by his former wife, Nora Ephron. All the while, he was waging an off-and-on struggle with a project that he described to friends as "an account of the witch-hunts leading up to the McCarthy era."

Now the book is finally out, and it turns out to be far more personal than that. It is a candid and powerful inquiry into his parents, their union activities during the 1940s and their secret membership in the Communist Party. As Bernstein explains to his father, "It's a very personal book. It's not a history book at all." In fact, it is a book about writing a book, a book about Bernstein writing the book that his parents did not want him to write.

A good memoir should produce shocks of recognition that are both intimate and historical, revealing truths about a person and about his times. Bernstein provides both, in abundance. Juxtaposing excerpts from declassified FBI files with tales of a childhood thrown into turmoil by the early postwar Red scares, he has created a new genre -- what might be called the investigative memoir. It combines the journalistic thrill of Watergate with the emotional punch of that most basic of literary themes, a boy's search to understand his father.

Bernstein, who was born in 1944, recounts his Washington childhood in a family of politically progressive Jews. Upon returning from the Army at the end of World War II, his father Alfred became active as an organizer for the United Public Workers of America, a left-wing union representing federal employees. After President Truman, in an effort to satisfy political pressures, issued the loyalty order of 1947, the elder Bernstein's life was dominated by defending public workers summoned before the loyalty boards and accused of being Communists.

Soon his parents' loyalty was questioned. In 1951, in front of a Senate committee, Alfred invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked if he was a member of the Communist Party. His wife Sylvia, also active in progressive causes, did the same three years later in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The family found itself shunned by many of its neighbors, friends and even relatives. The FBI kept the Bernsteins under surveillance for years (Bernstein's bar mitzvah is duly described), accumulating 2,500 pages of files that pop up in the book.

Young Bernstein's reaction was to become a patriotic rebel -- class air-raid warden, supersalesman of Defense Bond stamps, proud wearer of an I LIKE IKE button -- and a marginal student who eventually skipped college to become a newspaper copy clerk. He also, quite understandably, became interested in whether his parents had actually been Communists. When he was eight, he first blurted out the question to his father. "I remember the silence that followed and my not daring to look at him," Bernstein writes. "My question offered no escape; there is no Fifth Amendment for eight-year-olds." His father tried to skirt the question, speaking instead about the irrelevance of party membership and the persecution of progressives. "I didn't ask any questions when he finished explaining, and I'm sure he guessed that my silence meant that I knew. It took twenty-five years before I asked him that question again."

The answer, deftly treated, is that both his parents had been, for a short period, party members. Therein lies the main source of tension throughout the book: grappling with his father's wish that he not reveal their secret. "You're going to prove McCarthy right, because all he was saying was that the system was loaded with Communists," says his father. "And he was right."

The "loyalties" of the title thus refer to more than just the allegiance Bernstein's parents had to the Communist Party and to their Government. The real struggle in the book is between Carl's loyalty to (and love for) his parents and his search for the truth about their lives. At times his quest becomes traumatic. Bob Woodward makes cameo appearances, comforting his former partner when he breaks into tears at the memory of a childhood schoolmate calling his mother a Communist.

For all his honesty, Bernstein upholds the honor of his parents. They were never subversives, never disloyal to their country, he says. His sensitivity to Alfred and Sylvia (both still living) means that he never quite penetrates the deepest questions: Exactly why did people like them join the Communist Party? Just what did they do at their cell meetings? Was there in fact some danger in having people working for the Government whose loyalty was also to the Communist Party? And, on a more personal level, does he feel he has betrayed the father he clearly loves very deeply?

By not probing such sensitive spots too deeply, Bernstein may be doing the reader a favor. As it is, the book fairly crackles with emotional intensity and unsettling historical questions. With his rich depiction of his parents and pungent evocation of the period, Bernstein has been able to explore his controversial issues with the finesse of a jazz musician bouncing around themes that might otherwise be too hot to handle.