Editing Ezra Pound (section)

===Release===
[[File:Ezra Pound 1963b.jpg|thumb|left|220px|Pound photographed on a walk in Venice, 1963]]

Pound's friends continued to try to get him out of St. Elizabeths. In 1948, in an effort to present his radio broadcasts as harmless, Olga Rudge self-published six of them (on cultural topics only) as ''[[If This Be Treason]]''.<ref>Carpenter (1988), 786; Gill (2005), 155</ref> She visited him twice, in 1952 and 1955, but could not convince him to be more assertive about his release.<ref name=Tytell1987p305>Tytell (1987), 305</ref> In 1950 she had written to Hemingway to complain that Pound's friends had not done enough. Hemingway and Rudge did not like each other.<ref name=Cohassey2014p147>Cohassey (2014), 147</ref> He told Dorothy in 1951 that "the person who makes least sense&nbsp;...in all this is Olga Rudge".<ref>Baker (2003), 742</ref> In what John Cohassey called a "controlled, teeth-gritting response", Hemingway replied to Rudge that he would pardon Pound if he could, but that Pound had "made the rather serious mistake of being a traitor to his country, and temporarily he must lie in the bed he made". He ended by saying "To be even more blunt, I have always loved Dorothy, and still do."<ref name=Cohassey2014p147/>

Four years later, shortly after he won the [[List of Nobel laureates in Literature|Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1954, Hemingway told [[Time magazine|''Time'' magazine]] "I believe this would be a good year to release poets."<ref>"Books: An American Storyteller". ''Time'' magazine, 13 December 1954, [https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,935439-6,00.html 6/11]</ref> The poet [[Archibald MacLeish]] asked him in June 1957 to write a letter on Pound's behalf. Hemingway believed Pound would not stop making inappropriate statements and friendships, but he signed MacLeish's letter anyway and pledged $1,500 to be handed to Pound upon his release.<ref>Reynolds (2000), 305</ref> In an interview for the ''Paris Review'' in early 1958, Hemingway said that Pound should be released and Kasper jailed.<ref>Plimpton (1958)</ref>

Several publications began campaigning in 1957. ''[[Le Figaro]]'' published an appeal titled "The Lunatic at St Elizabeths". ''The New Republic'', ''Esquire'', and ''The Nation'' followed suit. ''The Nation'' argued that Pound was a "sick and vicious old man", but that he had rights.<ref>Tytell (1987), 322</ref> In 1958 MacLeish hired [[Thurman Arnold]], a prestigious lawyer who ended up charging no fee, to file a motion to dismiss the 1945 indictment. Overholser, the hospital's superintendent, supported the application with an affidavit stating Pound was permanently and incurably insane, and that confinement served no therapeutic purpose.<ref>Tytell (1987), 325; Lewis (1958)</ref> The motion was heard on 18 April 1958 by Chief Judge [[Bolitha Laws]], who had committed Pound to St. Elizabeths in 1945. The Justice Department did not oppose the motion,<ref>Tytell (1987), 325–326</ref> and Pound was discharged on 7 May.<ref name=Swift2017p27>Swift (2017), 27</ref>