The Bethune Murals

The novel begins with the director of the Saranac research laboratory telling the FBI that Communists at Trudeau are demanding that he publish the papers as part of a plot to bankrupt American asbestos manufacturers. While searching for the Communists, the FBI learns that Dr. Norman Bethune declared himself a Communist ten years after he drew the murals. The murals are subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for its hearing on subversion at Trudeau in 1953. Its major witness, an art historian, insists that the murals prove Bethune was a Communist. This charge is flatly denied by those who knew Bethune when he drew them. In an obscure old paper, Bethune wrote that the murals were about his struggle against tuberculosis; they had nothing to do with communism.  The Committee harasses a scientist at Trudeau, trying to get him to admit that the woman who became his wife  was a Communist when she modeled for the murals .  As a result of the FBI investigation and the subsequent hearings, two people die tragically, others lose their jobs, and the Trudeau facilities are threatened with closure.