There was a very serious communist strain among American intellectuals before the war. America was a more tolerant place in those days, and Communists were not treated as pariahs. That ended with the McCarthy era.
“I have a tendency to go through my life at full speed and as a one-man band, and so I don't generally stop and take in other people enough to develop many relationships. I'm starting to regret that a bit. I want to change it.”