Philip Johnson’s fascist past was mentioned only in passing in most of his obituaries last week. But “Philip Johnson did not just flirt with fascism. He spent several years in his late 20’s and early 30’s – years when an artist’s imagination usually begins to jell – consumed by fascist ideology. He tried to start a fascist party in the United States. He worked for Huey Long and Father Coughlin, writing essays on their behalf. He tried to buy the magazine American Mercury, then complained in a letter, ‘The Jews bought the magazine and are ruining it, naturally.’ He traveled several times to Germany. He thrilled to the Nuremberg rally of 1938 and, after the invasion of Poland, he visited the front at the invitation of the Nazis. He approved of what he saw.”