You may take that view if you want--but three of the four psychiatrists found him mentally competent, after all-- And he had survived Pisa, where (as I understand it) many those around him were taken away and summarily executed--after suriving that, I think that he believed that he didn't have much to fear--

In fact, rather than being particularly penitent,Pound seems to have continued to shoot his mouth off in the irascible and offensive way that he always had, even well into the time that he was at St. Elizabeth's--it has been said that he said more damning things there than he had previously--

At any rate, the charges could have been prosecuted as capital crimes--slightly more severe than a few years in prison, and, whatever he might have said, he was widely regarded as one of America's greatest poets--so the Government was undoubtedly interested in finding a way out, as well--

Anyway, he is, or was, not an easy person to like--

I have spent many hours, over many years reading his work--like many others, I have a lot of trouble with some of the things I find in his work, and am fed up periodically, only to return--And for me, at least, his own acknowledgments make it easier to reconcile that stuff--and easier to read him, though not to understand him--