ON 31 OCTOBER 1947, WHILE HEIDEGGER was still laboring on his “Abendländisches Gespräch,” Bertolt Brecht boarded a plane from New York bound for Paris, never to set foot on American soil again. He was glad to be leaving. The six years he had spent there had been lean ones, embittered first by the sense of impotence and frustration shared by every exile, then by the wave of anti-Communist hysteria that followed upon the euphoria of Allied victory. On the day before his flight he had been summoned to Washington by the House Committee for Un-American Activities to face questions about his political affiliations and those of his friends. One journalist described his testimony as a “smokescreen,” claiming his thick accent and evasive answers had mystified his interrogators. Brecht cut out the article and pasted it proudly in his work journal. The experience convinced him that he had long outstayed his welcome, and he resolved to leave immediately, despite not yet having been granted authorization to enter occupied Germany.