Reed Was No Playboy, Says Corliss Lamont

John S. Reed '10, the only American buried in the Kremlin, lived a "courageous and imaginative life and ought to be remembered," Corliss Lamont '24 said last night.

A striking painting of Reed, author of Ten Days that Shook the World, caused several controversies during the '20's and 30's. Many people questioned the taste of displaying a Russian revolutionary hero's portrait in a Harvard House.

A large group of students in Adams House, where the painting still hangs, were unwilling to give it up. Finally a Republican Congressman found the painting "completely acceptable" in 1935 and the controversy was over.

The portrait, approximately three feet square, was done by one of Reed's classmates, Robert H. Hallowell. It is now located outiside the library in Adams C-Entry.

Critics have tried to debunk Reed's enthusiasm for Russia, and his book, which Lamont calls "the best in the Revolution," by calling Reed a "playboy" and a "lost revolutionary."

Lamont, radical author, teacher and a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union, described Reed as a "highly serious" thinker and writer but admitted that "during Reed's recreation hours he [pause] played."

"Reed was very busy talking to Trotsky and Lenin, attending meetings, and observing events in the streets of Moscow during the ten days referred to in his book's title," Lamont said.

"He was sent as a delegate to the Third Internationl," Lamont said, because he was "a great favorite of the Russian leaders."

Reed died of typhus in Russia in 1920. He was 33. Top revolutionary leaders praised "Harvard's communist son" at a state funeral