Editing Ezra Pound (section)

===Arrest for treason===
{{further|Death of Benito Mussolini}}

In May 1944 the German military, trying to secure the coast against the Allies, forced the Pounds to evacuate their seafront apartment in Rapallo. From then until the end of the war, the couple lived with Rudge in her home above Rapallo at Sant' Ambrogio.<ref>Moody (2015), 85</ref> There were food shortages, no coffee, and no newspapers, telephones, or letters.<ref name=Tytell1987p272>Tytell (1987), 272</ref> According to Rudge, Ezra and Dorothy would spend their nights listening to the [[BBC World Service|BBC]].<ref>Conover (2001), 154; Moody (2015), 86</ref> In addition to the radio scripts, Pound was writing for the newspaper ''Il Popolo di Alessandria''. He wanted to write for the more reputable ''[[Corriere della Sera]]'' in Milan, but the editor regarded his Italian as "incomprehensible".<ref>Moody (2015), 88</ref>

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 | image1    = Ezra Pound 1945 May 26 mug shot.jpg
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 | caption2  = Pound spent three weeks in the reinforced cage on the far left.<ref>Pound and Spoo (1999), between pages 16 and 17</ref>
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Mussolini and his mistress, [[Clara Petacci]], were shot by Italian [[Italian resistance movement|partisans]] on 28 April 1945. Their bodies were displayed in the [[Piazzale Loreto]] in Milan, abused by the crowd, then left hanging upside down.<ref>Sieburth (2003), referenced in Canto LXXIV as ix</ref> "Thus Ben and la Clara ''a Milano'' / by the heels at Milano".<ref>"Canto LXXIV", Pound (2003b), 3, lines 4–5</ref> On 3 May armed partisans arrived at Rudge's home to find Pound alone. He picked up the Confucian text ''[[Four Books and Five Classics|Four Books]]'' and a Chinese–English dictionary and was taken to their headquarters in [[Zoagli]],<ref>Sieburth (2003), ix; Moody (2015), 100</ref> then at his request to the U.S. [[Counterintelligence Corps (United States Army)|Counter Intelligence Corps]] headquarters in [[Genoa]], where he was interrogated by FBI agent Frank L. Amprin.<ref>Tytell (1987), 276; Sieburth (2003), x</ref>

Pound asked to send a cable to [[Harry S. Truman]] to help negotiate a "just peace" with Japan. He wanted to make a final broadcast called "Ashes of Europe Calling", in which he would recommend not only peace with Japan, but American management of Italy, the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, and leniency toward Germany. His requests were denied and the script was forwarded to [[J. Edgar Hoover]].<ref>Sieburth (2003), x</ref> A few days later Amprin removed over 7,000 letters, articles and other documents from Rudge's home as evidence.<ref>Tytell (1987), 276; Sieburth (2003), xii</ref> On 8 May, the day [[German Instrument of Surrender|Germany surrendered]], Pound gave the Americans a further statement:

[[File:Toilet paper, Pisan Cantos.JPG|upright|thumb|left|alt=photograph|Toilet paper showing start of Canto LXXIV<ref>Sieburth (2003), [https://books.google.com/books?id=TubCKx3F6UQC&pg=PR36 xxxvi]</ref>]]

{{blockquote|I am not anti-Semitic, and I distinguish between the Jewish usurer and the Jew who does an honest day's work for a living.{{pb}} Hitler and Mussolini were simple men from the country. I think that Hitler was a Saint, and wanted nothing for himself. I think that he was fooled into anti-Semitism and it ruined him. That was his mistake. When you see the "mess" that Italy gets into by bumping off Mussolini, you will see why someone could believe in some of his efforts.<ref>Feldman (2013), 5</ref>}}

Later that day he told an American reporter, Edd Johnson, that Hitler was "a Jeanne d'Arc&nbsp;... Like many martyrs, he held extreme views". Mussolini was "a very human, imperfect character who lost his head".<ref>Johnson (1945); Sieburth (2003), xi; Moody (2007), 113–114</ref> On 24 May he was transferred to the United States Army Disciplinary Training Center north of Pisa, where he was placed in one of the camp's {{convert|6|by|6|ft|m|adj=on}} outdoor steel cages, with tar paper covers, lit up at night by floodlights. Engineers reinforced his cage the night before he arrived in fear that fascist sympathizers might try to break him out.<ref name=Tytell1987p277>Tytell (1987), 277</ref>

Pound lived in isolation in the heat, sleeping on the concrete, denied exercise and communication, apart from daily access to the chaplain.<ref>Sieburth (2003), xiii</ref> After three weeks, he stopped eating.<ref name=Tytell1987p277/> He recorded what seemed to be a breakdown in "Canto LXXX", where [[Odysseus]] is saved from drowning by [[Leucothea]]: "hast'ou swum in a sea of air strip / through an aeon of nothingness, / when the raft broke and the waters went over me".<ref>Pound (1996), 533; Sieburth (2003), xiii</ref> Medical staff moved him out of the cage the following week. On 14 and 15 June he was examined by psychiatrists, after which he was transferred to his own tent.<ref>Sieburth (2003), xiv</ref> He began to write, drafting what became known as ''[[The Pisan Cantos]]''.<ref>Sieburth (2003), xv</ref> The existence of two sheets of toilet paper showing the first ten lines of "Canto LXXIV" in pencil suggests he started it while in the cage.<ref>Kimpel and Eaves (1981), 474; Sieburth (2003), frontispiece; Moody (2015), 117–118</ref>