20 : Getting Settled in America: 1939-1941When Reich arrived in the United States in late August 1939, Theodore Wolfe was
at the dock to meet him. Wolfe’s arduous efforts had prevailed—for Reich had just made it
out of Norway.
Along with Wolfe on the dockside stood Walter Briehl, the American psychiatrist.
Briehl had studied with Reich in Vienna in the 1920s and in the early 1930s in Berlin. During
the intervening years, he had established his American practice and had enrolled for further
training at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Although greatly influenced by Reich,
Briehl had not followed the later Norwegian developments. When Wolfe got in touch with
him about the visa problem, Briehl had lent part of the money needed to guarantee Reich’s
salary at the New School for Social Research in New York.
Watching Reich as he descended the gangplank, Briehl felt immediately that his
teacher had aged considerably. He also thought Reich looked depressed. Briehl made some
effort to entertain Reich during his first days in America, taking him to a Harlem nightclub
to show him something of the city, and inviting him to a relative’s farm in New Jersey for a
weekend^1.
It was undoubtedly not easy for Reich, a proud man, to accept the hospitality of
Briehl during this lonely and difficult period. Reich found it hard to spend time with people
with whom he could not share his deepest concerns, and with Briehl he did not have this
kind of intimate relationship.
With Lillian Bye,he did.An attractive, very intelligent Norwegian, Bye later became
an outstanding social worker in this country and in Norway. She had met Reich in Norway
and moved to the United States about the same time Reich did. They had a brief sexual rela-
tionship.During the fall of1939, he told Bye not only of his intense longing for Elsa and
the unresolved problems between them, but also of his first impressions of America^2 .He
told her how very beautiful it was to see Broadway, the huge neon signs that almost turned
night into day, the many cinemas and theaters. Most of his contrasts with European cities
favored New York, with its mix of ethnic groups and races. The supple Negroes (as they
were called in those days) appealed to him, but not the many white males who impressed
him as rather rough. American women were pretty—and not his type. He liked the fact that
so many Americans were childlike and not disillusioned. On the other hand, he noted that
strikers picketed but their protest was not linked to larger social-political concerns.
Reich recognized that it would not be easy to establish himself in America; one
could get lost in the millions of people. It would be years before he could achieve the same
246 Myron SharafFury On Earth