peak 3390.p.0 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

At the peak of the arrests in the mid-thirties, paranoia reigned in the cities. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire slept with suitcases of warm clothes and supplies ready under their beds. Arrests usually came at night, when there would be few witnesses. People lived in terror of the sound of a knock on the door or an elevator that opened at their floor. Private conversations were scrutinized as much as published work for any possible incriminating comment. In the later years jokes that satirized the Soviet state were rated according to how many years one could get for repeating them. Opportunists took advantage of this frenzy to rid themselves of opponents or of those standing in their way. One might be promoted by denouncing one’s boss anonymously. One might get a better apartment by denouncing a neighbor. Of course a denouncer knew too much and often disappeared himself shortly after his victim.