Poems You & I [Association Copy with Inscription and Laid-in Letter to Karl Hess]

Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 1978. First edition. Octavo. Publisher's brown cloth in original dust jacket (not price-clipped). Sunning to spine and front panel; edgewear and rubbing. Boldly inscribed by Toledano to Karl and Therese Hess on front flyleaf: "For Karl & Therese / As always / In Friendship / Ralph de Toledano." Fine in very good dust jacket. Single-page letter addressed to Karl Hess dated "11 February 1978," signed by Toledano, with mild toning and spotting and neat fold creases, else fine.. Signed first edition of the only book of poems published by influential conservative journalist, poet, critic, commentator, and jazz enthusiast Ralph de Toledano (1916-2007). Toledano was born in Tangier, Morocco but moved to New York with his family as a child. He later attended Columbia University to study literature and philosophy, graduating in 1938. In 1940 he became editor of the Socialist Party of America's magazine, The New Leader, and was later drafted into military service during World War II, serving as an anti-aircraft gunner before training with the Office of Strategic Services for covert work in Italy. He was not ultimately deployed to Italy, however, as the OSS believed he was too "anti-Communist" to work effectively with the Italian Leftists. After the war he pursued several journalism assignments, ultimately landing at Newsweek in 1948 where he covered the perjury trial of accused Soviet spy, Alger Hiss. Toledano would soon side with Hiss's accuser, Whittaker Chambers, in what became his political turning point. In 1950 he would write an intensely partisan book about the Hiss trial called Seeds of Treason, which led to a friendship with Richard Nixon and, thereafter, to close personal ties with the future Nixon administration. In 1955 he would help to found National Review with William F. Buckley Jr., but he often disagreed with his colleagues on various policy positions throughout his career at the magazine. In addition to political journalism and commentary, Toledano was a prolific writer, authoring twenty-six books, including two novels and a book of poetry. This is a first edition of his only book of poetry, Poems You & I, and this copy was inscribed to friend and fellow freethinker, Karl Hess (1923-1994), and his second wife, Therese. Hess was an American speechwriter and political philosopher, editor, tax resister, and libertarian activist who, at various points in his life, identified with Republican conservatism, libertarianism, and the New Left before later embracing anarcho-capitalism. The book contains an accompanying letter from Toledano on National Press Building letterhead to Hess in which Toledano refers to his estrangement from the various political factions ("having become a non-person of the left, right, and center-mostly the right...") as well as his work on a "dull ghosting job," which appears to be a reference to Mark "Deep Throat" Felt's 1979 book The FBI Pyramid, which Toledano ghostwrote. A unique association copy from two important (if not controversial) conservative commentators.