As a dedicated Marxist, I was especially tickled by the agents' misspelling of his first name as "Graucho" in the documents. It tells me G-men didn't get out much, and if they did, they shunned comedy. Of course by the beginning of the McCarthy era, the brothers' career was pretty much over except for Groucho's. It had to be the subversiveness of his humor, because Harpo made two trips to the Soviet Union in the 1930s and the FBI never bothered him. Then again, the clueless agents probably believed Harpo really couldn't speak. (He could, and well enough to hold his own with members of the Algonquin Round Table.) I suspect our Sam would have reacted to such pryings into his private life with the appropriate, and appropriately corrosive, wit. If you know anything about Groucho at all (and I know more than most people do, or probably should), one thing is that he revered Twain as much as any intelligent and gifted dispenser of wit has in the last century or so. His books—notably MEMOIRS OF A MANGY LOVER—and particularly his letters are brilliantly funny and worth checking out if you haven't yet. Most of his stuff is still in print. Hooray for Captain Spaulding, the African explorer! (Did someone call me schnorrer?) Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Kathy O'Connell Hartford Advocate