Upon arriving in Paris, Miłosz went into hiding, aided by the staff of the Polish émigré magazine "Kultura." With his wife and son still in the United States, he applied to enter the U.S. and was denied. At the time, the U.S. was in the grip of McCarthyism, and influential Polish émigrés had convinced American officials that Miłosz was a communist. Unable to leave France, Miłosz was not present for the birth of his second son, John Peter, in Washington, D.C., in 1951.