Ezra Pound and the Bollinger Prize

Ezra Pound was convicted of treason in 1943 for radio broadcasts, but never jailed or executed. Instead, a panel of psychiatrists ruled that he was legally insane and of unsound mind so that he could not stand trial. He was sent to the St. Elizabeth mental institution in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where he would remain there for 13 years. While Pound is in St. Elizabeth, he wins this prestigious poetry award known as the Bollinger Prize from the Library of Congress. And it was when memories of the war were still very fresh, a young congressman named Jacob Javits launched an investigation into how a traitor could win such a prize while he was