WEBVTT - The Bohemians 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:11.000 Why media productions. It's October. Louise Bryant stands at the 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:13.640 head of a solemn procession that winds through the streets 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:18.000 of Moscow to Red Square. She's racked with fatigue and grief. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.840 Her husband, her partner, and art, journalism and revolution is gone. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.040 Bryant spent the past three weeks nursing Jack Read day 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.680 and night in an overcrowded Soviet hospital until he died 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:35.160 from typhus at thirty two. The Russian leaders revered Read, 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.400 and now they give him a hero's funeral in Moscow 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.120 with all the pomp and circumstance the young socialist nation 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.120 can muster. So it was there was a big funeral, Cortes, 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.680 I mean it was. It was a big deal. Jack Read. 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.680 Biographer Robert Rosenstone would have seen, you know, all the 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.680 leaders there, with Lennon and Trotsky and the other members 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:59.280 of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and um 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:03.280 lots of Red Guard. They take Read's casket to the 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.080 Kremlin Wall to bury him next to other Soviet revolutionary heroes. 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.720 It's perhaps the most honored spot in Russia. Only a 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.720 handful of Americans are buried there, and Jack Reid is 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.800 the first. Louise Brian is too grief stricken to process 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.080 any of this at the funeral, says her biographer Mary Dearborn. 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.039 That was a terrible moment for her because there she 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:31.800 is alone in Moscow and he's dead. Louise basically collapsed 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.880 while she was standing there. It was a terrible shock 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.520 and it took her a while to recover. It's more 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.679 than Bryant and her weary heart can take. She recounts 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.360 the traumatic events surrounding Reid's death, and I let her 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.040 home a few weeks later. All that I write now 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.520 seems part of a dream. Jack's death and my strenuous 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:54.720 underground trip to Russia and the weeks of terror and 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.880 the Typhus hospital have quite broken me. At the funeral, 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.480 I suffered a very of your heart attack. Specialists have 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:04.640 agreed that I have strained my heart because of the 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:08.320 long days and nights I watched besides Jack's bed, and 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.760 that is enlarged and may not get ever well again. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.880 I'm Sean Braswell and This is the Threat a podcast 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.840 from Ozzie Media where we examine the interlocking lives and 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.360 events of history. We turned back the clock one story 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.080 at a time to reveal how various strands get woven 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.320 together to create a historic figure, big idea, or an 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.640 unthinkable tragedy. Our season started with the murder of John 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.200 Lennon and how his killer, Mark David Chapman, was obsessed 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.359 with a novel, The Catcher and the RYE. J. D. 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:54.880 Salinger might not have written that novel if he had 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.680 never met the dazzling Una O'Neill, and Una might not 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.680 have existed if her father, their Eugene O'Neil, hadn't lost 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:08.440 the love of his life. If you take away one connection, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.880 history changes. John Lennon might be celebrating his seventy seventh 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.560 birthday this month if just one of these links had 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:20.440 been different, we'll never really know. This episode, we continue 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.840 our thread with Louise Bryant, the woman who captured the 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.760 heart of Eugene O'Neill and could have changed it all. 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.240 If you're joining us for the first time, please go 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.280 back to episode one and start our interconnected story from 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.080 the beginning. It's very hard to tell it in linear fashion. 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:42.440 Her life wasn't very linear. Mary dearborn again, We'll take 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.920 her queue and start at the end of Bryant's life. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:53.560 Imagine the streets of Paris three. It's thirteen years after 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.840 the death of her husband, journalist Jack Read. Bryant is 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.720 forty seven, so she says she's thirty nine. In some ways, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.640 she's still living in the past. But I've been looking 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:06.520 at this photo of her on the back of my 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:10.160 book jacket while we're talking. She's wearing these clothes that 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:15.480 she brought back from Russia that are just amazing. These boots, 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.800 she has a Russian fur cap, and she's wearing this 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.640 sort of tunic. Bryant married again in Paris. This husband 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.280 was a controlling diplomat named William Bullet. He convinced her 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.400 to stop writing and give up her career to become 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:40.479 a mother. Things started to spiral from there. Bryant was 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.200 overcome by a rare and excruciatingly painful illness that caused 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.600 tumors to grow all over her body. Her only relief 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:52.200 was alcohol. She drank more and more, and before long 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:57.839 her alcoholism is battling with this terrible disease, and she 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:04.280 went into the tailspin. Meanwhile, Bullet started gathering his forces. 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.600 He divorced Bryant and took her only child, Anne. There 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.440 was an ugly custody battle. Bullet took their six year 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.880 old and swept her away on his diplomatic missions. Bryant 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:19.520 was left behind in Paris, desperate and miserable. Louise was 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.839 really living a chaotic life in Paris, drinking too much, 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:27.200 and her daughter Anne was sort of the the last 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.720 dream she had left to hold onto. One day, Bryant 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.000 read in the newspaper that Bullet would be passing through 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.920 Paris by train. She suspected that he would have their 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.200 daughter with him. She went to the train station. She 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.760 had a bottle of red wine with her and was 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.400 reviewing her life as she's waiting for the train and 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.360 just hoping that she can get a glimpse of Anne. 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.880 It's the only thing that makes sense to her anymore. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:06:01.719 And the train thundered by without even slowing. Bryant died 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.760 penniless on the stairs of a seed Paris hotel three 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.880 years later. No fancy funeral, no processions, no marching bands. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.279 Louise Bryant may have died without fanfare, but her life 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:21.640 was a series of remarkable adventures. She was really amazingly beautiful. 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:28.200 She was incredibly bold and ready to take risks again. Bryant. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.560 Biographer Mary Dearborn, she really came from nowhere, and she 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.480 wanted to be kind of an actor on a world stage, 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.800 and so Bryant struck out for Oregon, where she graduated 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.960 from college. She had a penchant for reinventing herself and 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.920 had total confidence she could attract any man she wanted 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.000 an acquaintance. Once lamented she had no right to have 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:56.320 brains and be so pretty, so she pushed, you know, 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:01.080 and um, she was so beautiful and slipped me that 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:08.599 whatever she wanted she tended to get. And what she 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.560 wanted first was a comfortable middle class life in Portland, 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.280 married to a handsome dentist. But soon that wasn't enough. 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.240 She felt like she was living in a provincial backwater. 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.080 She wanted someone to open the door to the bustling 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.840 cities of the world, a true adventurer, and that someone 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:29.840 soon arrived at her doorstep. Jack Read was a six foot, 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:34.640 curly haired, green eyed giant of American journalism. In nineteen fourteen, 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.320 at the age of twenty six, he made a name 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.360 for himself as a brave and fearless reporter. It was 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.520 his revolution brewing in Mexico and all the American reporters 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.240 were gathered in El Paso when nobody was going over. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.920 They were kind of reporting the stories from the tales 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:57.640 of people who were fleeing Mexico. Read biographer Robert Rosenstone. Again. 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.520 He advised actor and director Warren Beatty on the film 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.360 Reads about reading Bryant, and read was the only American 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.440 who got himself on a donkey and rode off into 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.320 Mexico and found Pancho Villa, who was one of the 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.960 great revolutionary leaders, and rode with his troops for six 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.400 or eight weeks. Reid's reporting from Mexico made him a 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.720 rock star, so he became at that point the highest 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:28.120 paid journalist in America. Portland, Oregon, was Jack Reid's hometown, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.920 and in December nineteen fifteen, the acclaimed reporter returned to 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.920 Portland to give a series of lectures railing against the 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:41.320 American class system. Bryant attended one of those speeches, she 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.160 was entranced. The two met on the street a few 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.760 days later, and Bryant invited him up to her loft 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:52.079 to read poetry. She kept a studio in downtown Portland, 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.960 and she asked him back to her studio. You know 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.600 and and she wrote about how they just sat there 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.440 in the glow of the stove, and you know, the 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:12.720 rest is left here imagination. Read returned to New York 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.160 and made arrangements for Bryant to follow, and so on 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.920 New Year's Eve nineteen fifteen, Bryant said goodbye to her husband, 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.080 got on a train, and went to New York to 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.040 join Read in Greenwich Village to start a new adventure. 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.640 Greenwich Village was paradise for Louise. Like minded artists and 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.800 writers talked about social change all the time. It was 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.360 a period of experimentation, indulgence, and cheap food and drink. 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.200 Bryant told a friend that her relationship with Read was 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.520 so beautiful and so free. We don't interfere with each 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.120 other at all. We feel like children who will never 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.280 grow up. They carried that spirit to Provincetown on Cape 0:09:55.320 --> 0:10:00.280 Cod in the summer of nineteen six. Louise was there 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.960 with John Reid. They shared a house with Reed's friends 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.040 from Harvard and a lot of local sort of artists. 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.520 Of course, Louise was living with him, but they were 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.760 committed to the idea of free love, so nothing was 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.800 holding them back. The same romantic impulse that had led 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.200 Bryant to Read also drew her to other men, including 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:27.160 Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill was a genius, a playwright, was striking 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.800 good looks in a brooding disposition. Bryan and O'Neill had 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.360 a passionate affair that would impact O'Neill for the rest 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:38.680 of his life. The magical summer on the beaches of 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.160 Cape Cod came to an end. Louise Bryant and Jack 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.200 Read got married in New York that fall, but Bryant's 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:49.439 romance with O'Neill continued to smolder. She felt that she 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:54.640 had carte blanche to sleep with whoever she wanted, and 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:59.480 of course, to be consistent, she said Jack Reid did too, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.839 but in fact he had all kinds of affairs, and 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.880 that really heard her. So whenever Jack we went out 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:11.920 of almost out of her sight, she'd take up with 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.960 somebody who is nearby. As soon as Red left town, 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:20.640 Bryant reignited her affair with O'Neil, But Bryant felt stifled 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.280 in New York. She wanted to travel the world and 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.120 report on the biggest stories of their generation. Up next, 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.959 Bryant takes on a new challenge, one that will lead 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.599 her to ground zero of one of the greatest revolutions 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:41.480 in history. Louise Bryant had lived in the shadow of 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.000 Jack Read ever since she arrived in Greenwich Village. She 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.640 was determined to forge her own career to make her 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.960 own name as a journalist. World War One was raging 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.640 across Europe, so Bryant left behind her new husband and 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.600 her playwright lover to cover the war. Bryant was the 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.920 only reporter on the front line. American soldiers greeted her 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.800 with delight, but she had trouble getting published back home. 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.400 Bryant returned from France by ship to New York, and 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.280 Jack Reid was waiting for her on the docks. He 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.120 had a very exciting proposal for her. Four days later, 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.360 they returned aboard another ship, and Louise was headed back 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.160 across the Atlantic with her husband, headed toward another brewing war. 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.520 These four days are essential to our thread. If the 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.040 timing had been different, if Bryant had stayed in New 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.160 York for weeks instead of days after returning from France, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.760 then everything would have been different. But more on this later. 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:45.520 Just keep these four days in mind. Read and Bryant 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.600 sailed for Russia because Russia was falling apart. The czar 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.640 had abdicated his throne, ending the nation's monarchy. Those in 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.760 power vowed to hold elections once World War One had finished, 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.440 but one radical political faction, known as the bulsh Shoviks, 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.840 did not want to wait for elections. The Bolsheviks had 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:08.800 a secret weapon, a stocky bald man with a powerful promise, peace, 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:14.400 land and bread. His name was Vladimir Ilyich Ullanov, but 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:18.880 everyone knew him as Lenin. Read and Bryant followed the 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.880 events in Russia very closely. They knew that revolution was coming, 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.520 and they made sure that they were there when it happened. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:30.240 They arrived in Petrograd modern day St. Petersburg after a 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:34.480 long journey. John Reid had a real capacity for kind 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:40.720 of ecstasy, and he was just a real fountain of energy. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:46.000 Mary dearborn again, and he was so overcome with joy 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.600 when they got into Petrograd and found that it was 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.760 all happening. Bryant and Reid met with workers unions, They 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:57.080 attended political gatherings, they heard speeches by revolutionary leaders. They 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.120 were in the middle of it, and they were writing 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.160 about it. And you have it at the time that 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:05.040 it seemed like this was going to trigger a world revolution. 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:11.680 They were devoted socialists, and the noble experiment in Russia 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.520 really drew them in. They thought this was wonderful. Everywhere 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:18.960 they went. There was a question crackling in the air 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.360 who would lead the new Russia. The tension grew and 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.320 the system burst in late October. The Bolsheviks quickly swept 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.280 into power. In the end, there was very little violence. 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.840 Most people didn't know what had happened until they read 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:38.120 leaflets announcing the news From a platform in Petrograd. Lenin proclaimed, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.960 now begins a new era in the history of Russia, 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.680 and Briant and Reid were on the ground to record 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.840 the whole thing. So Jack was writing away and Louise 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.400 was writing away, and they each wrote a book about 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.200 their time in Russia. Bryant's book Six Red Months in 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:02.080 Russia paints a vibrant picture of daily life during the revolution. 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.800 And went along always looking for the happy youngsters to 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.240 whom the bright toys and the shop windows now dust covered, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.400 should belong. I came to realize with horror that everybody 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.160 in Russia has grown up those young in years whom 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.440 we still called children, had old and sad faces, large 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:26.440 hungry eyes burned forth from pale countenances, wretched, worn out shoes, 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.320 sagging a raggy little garments accentuated they're so apparent misery. 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.520 But Russia was changing rapidly. The new government nationalized the 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.880 banks and declared men and women equal. To Bryant, it 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.640 felt more free than the United States, where women didn't 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.920 yet have the right to vote. Everyone began addressing each 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.640 other as comrade. In the streets. Brant and Red met 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.080 and befriended Vladimir Lenin himself. In the weeks and months 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.800 after the revolution. The two Americans were spell bound by Linen. 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:05.320 Reid described Lenin as a strange, popular leader, a leader 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:11.000 purely by virtue of intellect, colorless, humorless, uncompromising and detached, 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.560 but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.880 Bryant and Reid were convinced that Lenin was going to 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.400 change the world. The Soviet experiment felt like the next 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:27.320 chapter in human civilization. In Russia, the socialist state is 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:31.120 an accomplished fact, Louise wrote in her book, we can 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.920 never again call it an idle dream of long haired 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:42.560 philosophers Louise Bryant and Jack Reid returned home from Russia 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:46.080 in the spring of nineteen eighteen. Bryant was high on 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.000 revolution and filled with a new sense of possibility. She 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.000 was determined to rekindle her affair with Eugene O'Neill. Louise 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.440 got in touch with the O'Neill, who was in Province 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.600 Town bryant biographer Mary dear worn. And he said, look, 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.439 I'm married now, I've married this woman, Agnes Bolton. And 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.800 she said, oh, please meet me in Fall River, which 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.600 was midway between Provincen and New York. And he was 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.520 very tempted too. For months, the love sick playwright had 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.600 drunk himself silly while Bryant was overseas, turning back clocks 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:25.600 and proclaiming his despair across Greenwich Village. This is where 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.320 those four days come, in the four days between Bryant's 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.040 journey home from France and her departure for Russia. If 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.280 Louise Bryant had stayed in New York just a little 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.840 longer before leaving to report on the revolution, she would 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.119 have almost certainly resumed her romance with O'Neill, and he 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.680 would have never met Agnes Bolton at the hell whole bar. 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:53.960 No Bolton, no Una, no threat. But by the time 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.200 Louise returned from Russia the following year, it was too late. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.240 He was fully involved with Bolton. Bryant demanded to know 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.920 if he still loved her. O'Neil was torn, but ultimately 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:13.600 stayed with Bolton. His wife, Agnes Bolt laid down the law. Meanwhile, 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.440 Jack Reid moved from intrepid reporter to full fledged communist. 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.320 He traveled the country to foster the growing American communist movement. 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:24.960 Reid returned to Russia in the fall of nineteen nineteen 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.240 to visit Lenin and other Russian leaders and enlist their help. 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.159 He promised Bryant he would only be gone for a 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.800 few months, but Read's second trip to Russia was not 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.520 as magical as the first, and when he tried to 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.480 return to America, u S authorities blocked him, so he 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.280 sent for Bryant to join him in Russia, and after 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.560 a long and harrowing journey, Bryant finally arrived in Russia 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.160 for a second time, and she and Reid reunited in Moscow. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.080 Jack ran into Louise's hotel room when he heard where 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.320 she was, and they were. It was a very romantic 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:04.199 time for him. But Louise asked Jack about his experiences, 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.159 and she said she found him older and sadder and 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:13.000 grown strangely gentle. Reid told Bryant about the famines, epidemics, 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.720 and chaos that plagued Russia. The glowing socialist dream had 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:21.760 turned into a nightmare. He grew increasingly disillusioned. His health faltered. 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.080 Not long after his reunion with Bryant, he was diagnosed 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.080 with the deadly typhus fever and rushed to the hospital. 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:33.760 Louise nursed him around the clock. People were sick in 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.520 the whole city and there was no room in the hospitals. 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.560 Jack was on a cot in a hallway and Louise 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.000 was nursing him because they were nurses had no time, 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:48.720 or barely any time to even stop, and Louise um 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.879 sort of watched the life drain out of John Reid. 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.520 Reid died one month after their reunion, just five days 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.280 shy of his thirty third birthday. Russian workers carried his 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.879 body on their shoulders from the hospital to the Temple 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.440 of Labor. Lenin and the other Soviet leaders honored their 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.520 friend and comrade, with an elaborate funeral that filled the 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.919 streets of Moscow. Bryant had a heart attack at Read's funeral, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.880 but she recovered. She went on many more reporting adventures 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.240 in Russia and elsewhere. Bryant took up flying near the 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.400 end of her life before she succumbed to illness and despair. 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.880 She liked to wear her flight suit in Parisian cafes, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.120 but her life never again reached the height of those 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:36.439 five extraordinary years with Jack Read. Her heart may have 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.800 recovered after Red Square, but in many ways it remained 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:48.800 in Russia with Read. Now we've reached the end of 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.440 our thread. We're done traveling back in time, so let's 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.720 trace it beat by beat from Lenin to Lenin. Here 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.880 we go. Vladimir Lenin starts a revel Ouian in Russia. 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.320 Louise Bryant will miss the window to rekindle her affair 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.760 with Eugene O'Neill in order to report on that revolution. 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.280 Her absence from O'Neill's life will overshadow his marriage and 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.600 family for years. He will abandon that family and devastate 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.760 his young daughter Una. UNA's marriage to Charlie Chaplin will 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.439 in turn rock JD. Salinger's world before the trauma of 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:29.240 combat destroys it. The fruits of Salinger's suffering, the Catcher 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:34.000 in the Rye will influence millions, including the sociopath Mark 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:39.359 David Chapman, all culminating sixty three years later when Chapman 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:46.719 murders John Lennon at the Gates of the Dakota. This 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.280 episode marks the end of our Thread, but it's not 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.720 the end of our season. Next week, in our final episode, 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.680 we tie together some loose ends and discover a few 0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:07.399 more surprising connections between our characters. The Thread is produced 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.520 by Meredith Hotnut, Libby Coleman, and me Sean braswell. Our 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.480 editors are Carlos Watson and samir Raw. Meredith Hottnot engineered 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.480 our show with mixing and sound design from James Rowland's 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:24.120 special Thanks to Cindy Carpian, David Boyer, Tracy Moran, Sean Colligan, Sun, 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:28.600 Jeeve Tandon, Alexa Bolton, Cameo, George, and k A. L. W. 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.280 Check us out at ausy dot com, that's o z 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.160 y dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. To learn 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.280 more about The Thread, visit ausi dot com Slash the 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.919 thread all one word, and make sure to subscribe to 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:47.240 the thread on Apple podcasts. If you love surprising, engaging 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.879 stories from history like this one, look no further than 0:22:50.920 --> 0:23:00.520 the flashback section of AZZI. Thanks for listening. One