HUAC
(The House Un-American
Activities Committee)
and the Rise of Anti-Communism
Internet
INTRODUCTION
The following information deals with the hearings performed
by the House Un-American Activities Committee - mostly referred
to as HUAC - and the people whose lives were affected by the hearings.
Both those who testified and those who did not. It is about
anti-Communism and how it culminated in the "Red Scare"
in the early fifties. But mostly it is about conscience. How people
felt about the whole procedure of "naming names" and
how they prioritized morality and conscience vs. their jobs.
Numerous people were affected by the hearings, some of the early
ones were the 19 people who were called to appear before HUAC
in 1947, of which ten of them were to be known as the Hollywood
Ten.
Among people in the 1950s to be questioned by HUAC were the director
Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, and Lillian Hellman. However, it was
not only in real life that the Americans dealt with the hearings.
Many artists also incorporated it into their works, be it in the
movies or in literature. There is also a description of how people
perceived the "Red Menace", and how today's Hollywood
deal with the hearings and the people who did or did not testify
some 45 years ago.
In the 1930s many unions were influenced by the left-wing
- radicals and Communists. This was also true of the labor movements
in Hollywood. The turbulence of the early years of the Screen
Writers Guild is part of the subject treated in Schulberg's novel
What Makes Sammy Run?. The Screen Writers Guild was founded in
1933. John Howard Lawson - later one of the Hollywood Ten - was
the leader of the guild. In 1936 there was a split in the guild
and the highest paid screenwriters formed their own union - the
Screen Playwrights. It was not until 1941 that the Screen Writers
Guild was recognized by the producers. In 1938 the Special Committee
on Un-American Activities, chaired by Martin Dies, was founded.
The committee found that:
"'there are not less than two thousand outright Communists
and Party-liners still holding jobs in the government in Washington.'
- In 1941 he referred to 1,200 subversive officials." (source
29. p 89)
In 1945 the Special Committee on Un-American Activities was
made a permanent investigating committee "enjoying unique
subpoena powers"(p 89, source 29). The name was changed to
the House on Un-American Activities Committee - often referred
to as HUAC, but some places also as HCUA. 1947 was the year when
the House Committee had its first serious go at exposing Communists'
influence in the movie industry. HUAC heard ten writers and directors
who were to be known as the Hollywood Ten. The men refused to
answer the House Committee's questions and they were cited for
contempt and sentenced to between 6-12 months in prison. Where
HUAC before 1945 had not really been a very respected part of
the state apparatus, making several unsubstantiated accusations
on people who had never been members or involved with the Communist
party, it had changed and now only went after people which it
could prove had been in contact with Communists and their party.
This of course meant that it was taken much more seriously. One
thing which was always more or less evident was that the hearings
were not so much about establishing criminal guilt but rather
a way in which to get people to renounce their past - and in some
cases their friends. For the most part the Committee already knew
the names that it demanded that the testifies should name. Ellen
Schrecker calls the hearings "a symbolic ritual", Victor
Navasky "degradation ceremonies" and Arthur Miller and
Lillian Hellman referred to it as "an inquisition."
Before World War II there was a strong anti-Communism in the
USA, but during the war when the United States and the USSR became
allied, the American government attempted to give a more positive
picture of Russia. The Roosevelt administration even asked Hollywood
to make at least one "pro-Soviet" movie, it was named
Mission to Moscow. However, no sooner was World War II over when
the Cold War began, and the USA went back to its old anti-Communism
stand, only with much more vigor than ever before. It was under
President Truman - a Democrat - that the "Red Scare"
was truly instigated: "Truman and the liberals in Congress....
[tried] to create a new national unity for the postwar years -
with the executive order on loyalty oaths, Justice Department
prosecutions, and anti-Communist legislation." (source 4.)
To get the "Red Scare" in perspective it would be worth
mentioning two cases which helped keep the public aware of the
"Communist threat". The first case involved Alger Hiss
who testified before HUAC in 1948 accused of being a Communist
which he claimed he was not - which was true. However, in 1950
he was convicted to 5 years of prison for perjury, but he could
have been indicted for espionage as well if it had not been because
"the statue of limitations shielded Hiss from a substantive
espionage charge." (source 29. p 60). The second trial took
place in 1950 when the married couple Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
were accused and convicted of espionage. They were executed in
1953 as Soviet spies. Still, it seems that even Truman discovered
that he had pushed things too hard. I found this tragic-comic
quotation by President Truman, it is from The New York Times,
July 29, 1951:
"This malicious propaganda has gone so far that on the
Fourth of July, over in Madison, Wisconsin, People were afraid
to say they believed in the Declaration of Independence. A hundred
and twelve people were asked to sign a petition that contained
nothing except quotations from the Declaration of Independence
and the Bill of Rights. One hundred and eleven of these people
refused to sign that paper -many of them because they were afraid
that it was some kind of subversive document and that they would
lose their jobs or be called Communists."(source 14)
The 1950s is the decade which has come to be paired with McCarthyism.
Joe McCarthy's hearings and the man himself got much more press
coverage than HUAC ever did. His committee was much less thorough
in its investigations of the people it called to appear before
it. Quite a lot of those who were called had never had any associations
with the left-wing. The time from 1947 - while the appeal cases
for the Hollywood Ten - to 1951 was a relative quiet period in
Hollywood. But in 1951 HUAC began its second round of hearings,
and this time it really hurt a great number of people in Hollywood.
Making people choose between their jobs and their personal convictions
those who testified before the Committee and named names had a
chance to get back to work in Hollywood, while those who did not
were blacklisted and found it impossible to get work (officially)
in the movie business - for most blacklisted this was true all
through the 1950s. About eighty percent of those who did not cooperate
lost their jobs.
*****
THE HOLLYWOOD TEN
The Hollywood Ten and the influence they had on the future
testifies who were to be called before the Un-American Activities
Committee was not an insignificant one. Witnesses who were to
appear before the Committee in the years to come knew that if
they were to take the First Amendment, as the Ten had done, it
would most likely result in contempt of Congress and be followed
by a time in prison. On September 15, 1947 Newsweek ran a short
piece about HUAC:
"Don't look for any so-called corrective legislation
to result from the forthcoming Un-American Activities Committee
investigation of Communism in Hollywood. Primarily the committee
is fishing for headlines. By citing specific examples of Communist
influences in movie scripts, the group hopes to alert the public
to them."(p. 13)
In 1947 19 people were subpoenaed to appear before HUAC.
The Committee wanted to prove that the:
"card-carrying party members dominated the Screen
Writers Guild, that Communists had succeeded in introducing subversive
propaganda into motion pictures, and that President Roosevelt
had brought improper pressure to bear upon the industry to produce
pro-Soviet films during the war."(source 28p. 408) .
Although 19 people had been subpoenaed by the Un-American
Activities Committee only 10 of them appeared before the Committee.
Among them were Dalton Trumbo, Albert Maltz, Edward Dmytryk, John
Howard Lawson and Ring Lardner, Jr. Besides these there were also
9 who did not get to testify - at least not in 1947, some of them
were Larry Parks, Gordon Kahn, Robert Rossen and Richard Collins.
The Hollywood Ten had agreed on taking the first amendment as
a defense and each of them refused to answer the question "Are
you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
All ten had indeed been members of that party, but they would
not answer the question as a matter of principle, claiming (naturally)
that it was their business - especially since the Communist Party,
at that time, was not illegal in the United States. The hearing
itself - held on October 27. - was vividly described by a correspondent
from Newsweek in the edition of November 10, 1947:
"The hearing room by now was in turmoil. Thomas, Stripling
[investigator], and Lawson were all shouting at once. His face
and neck flaming red, Thomas kept banging his gavel, but the screen
writer ignored him. The 400 men and women in the audience...booed
and cheered. The six newsreel cameras hummed. The 30 newspaper
photographers scurried around, exploding flashbulbs." (p.
17)
The Ten were all hold in contempt and in 1948 they were
imposed to serve up to one year prison sentences. But they did
not serve their time until 1950 because of their appeals. On
November 24, 1947, fifty of the most important people in the American
movie industry gathered for a meeting in the Waldorf-Astoria in
New York. They discussed what to do about the Un-American Activities
Committee's preoccupation with Communism in Hollywood. The result
of the meeting was a statement, which was read before the press.
First of all, they would fire the men who had been cited for contempt,
that is the Hollywood Ten. Furthermore the industry would not
hire any Communists and it would discharge people who were known
to be Communists.
"The action was unprecedented. Never before had an
industry combined to bar Communists and other subversive from
employment" - "The Communists were on their way out.
The industry would not stop with the accused ten. It planned to
ask the screen unions to help it eliminate other suspected Communists.(Newsweek,
Dec 8, 1947 p. 24-25)
It has been stated many times that if only Hollywood had
stood together against the Un-American Activities Committee the
blacklist and the later hearings might have been avoided. Ellen
Schrecker says: "The official manifestations of McCarthyism
- the public hearings, FBI investigations, and criminal prosecutions
- would not have been as effective had they not been reinforced
by the private sector."(source 2.) In Newsweek, December
8, 1947, there is likewise an indication that had the meeting
in New York turned out differently, the blacklist would not have
been implemented. It said that the Committee's "victory was
especially surprising" because it had not been obvious that
it would win the case, and that "representatives of the [movie]
industry, who appeared before the committee, had stubbornly refused
to fire the suspected Communists on their payrolls," (p.
25) and the well-known producer Samuel Goldwyn had denounced the
Committee. The movie-magnates probably changed their minds because
of poor economy and public relations. The industry was going through
a tough time and it did not need any bad publicity, thus the outcome.
Towards the end of the article in Newsweek the journalist writes
"The industry feared what the House committee might do next.
So it decided to clean house, and thereby make itself less susceptible
to attack." Of course, that was not what happened at all.
Yes, there was a more or less tranquil period between 1948 and
1951, but then the House on Un-American Activities Committee was
back. The blacklist thus came into action in 1947. "The
Motion Picture Association of America denied that the industry
kept a blacklist, but said that no Fifth [or First] Amendment
takers...who hadn't purged themselves before a...congressional
committee could...work in Hollywood"(source 33. p 86). Despite
this claim of not having any blacklist the Hollywood Ten are referred
to as "black-listed by Hollywood for their defiance of [HUAC]"
in Newsweek as early as December 8, 1947 (p 12).
*****
DALTON TRUMBO AND EDWARD DMYTRYK OF THE HOLLYWOOD TEN Dalton
Trumbo was fired from MGM almost immediately after the hearing.
In 1948 he was found guilty of contempt of Congress and in 1950
- after a negative outcome of the appeals case - he was sent to
prison. While in jail Trumbo wrote some poems for his family,
this is one of them:
"Say then but this of me: Preferring not to crawl on
his knees In freedom to a bowl of buttered slops Set out for
him by some contemptuous clown, He walked to jail on his feet."
(source 29., p. 498)
The contempt Trumbo felt for the House Committee is obvious.
When he got out of prison he was blacklisted. He could not get
work in Hollywood under his own name until 1960. This did not
mean that Trumbo did not write films for an entire decade, it
just meant that he wrote under pseudonyms and fronts - not getting
any credits and for a lot less money than he was used to. Still,
it was writers like Trumbo who helped end the blacklist. One of
the reasons for that was that he repeatedly won Oscars. He got
an Academy Award for his screenplay for The Brave One in 1957.
He had written it under pseudonym, and so naturally no one came
forward to claim the prize. A rather awkward moment for the movie
industry. However, it was not until 1960 that Universal gave Trumbo
credit "as the writer of Spartacus "(source 29. p. 520)
another film that earned him an Oscar. Dalton Trumbo never gave
any names to the House Committee, he remained an unfriendly witness.
So did eight of the other men in the Hollywood Ten group. The
only one to reappear before the Un-American Activities Committee
as a friendly witness was Edward Dmytryk. An action never forgotten
by the other Ten. Dmytryk had found it intolerable not being able
to work, and as he came to the conclusion that he no longer believed
in the ideas of the Communist Party, he decided that he would
testify before the Committee, and give them what they wanted.
He did not do it, however, until after he had served his 6-month
term in prison. Actually, he started the procedure of appearing
before the Committee while still in prison. He did not tell Albert
Maltz, who were to become extremely angry with Dmytryk and never
forgave him for his decision. Edward Dmytryk said about his choice:
"I had long been convinced that the fight of the Ten
was political...I believed that I was being forced to sacrifice
my family and my career in defense of the Communist Party, from
which I had long been separated and which I had grown to dislike
and distrust." (source 33. p 236) - "I would have to
name names, and I knew the problems this would cause...my decision
was made easier by the fact that....I couldn't name anybody who
hadn't already been identified as a Party member. Weighing everything-
pro and con, I knew I had to testify." (p. 236) - "I
did not want to remain a martyr to something that I absolutely
believed was immoral and wrong."(source 33. p. 238)
There are two important things which Dmytryk says in these
two paragraphs. One is that he testified because he now was opposed
to the Communist Party and the other that he only named names
that had already been mentioned. They are important because they
are so typical of what the friendly witnesses would use as justification
for their testimonies. On the day Dmytryk testified the hearing
was described in an article in Newsweek under the title Hollywood
Serial Story. It began: "Hollywood's show before [HUAC] was
almost good enough to bring back vaudeville" (Newsweek, may
7, 1951 p. 26) It is difficult to find the anguish that these
people had gone through - and would go through - to do what they
did! During his testimony Edward Dmytryk gave the committee 26
names. Shortly thereafter he was off the blacklist and back in
business in Hollywood, directing movies. In 1973 Dmytryk told
- on TV - how he had felt about collaborating with the committee.
He said what he had said before, that he had not named names that
had not been named before and that he would not defend the Communist
Party. (source 33. p. 238) The question of guilt seems to be
a never ending discussion. Some say forgive others say revenge.
Dalton Trumbo believed in the former. About Lillian Hellman Trumbo
said: "Lillian Hellman once said 'Forgiveness is God's job,
not mine.' Well, so is vengeance, you know." (source 33.
p. 392) In 1970 Dalton Trumbo gave a speech before the Screen
Writers Guild, in which he said that everybody involved with the
hearings, both the friendly and the unfriendly witnesses had been
victims:
"....the blacklist was a time of evil, and...no one
on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil"
- "it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or
saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims...because
almost without exception each of us felt compelled to say things
he did not want to say, to do thing he did not want to do, to
deliver and receive wounds he truly did not want to exchange."(source
33. p . 387-388)
This ecchoes what Eli Kazan said, (a director who named names):
"I did what I did because it was the more tolerable of two
alternatives that were, either way, painful, even disastrous,
and either way wrong for me. That's what a difficult decision
means: Either way you go, you lose. " (source 31. p. 462)
Trumbo's speech really set Albert Maltz off. He was of the opposite
opinion. He felt that the friendly witnesses had not paid enough
for their deeds, and that being ostracized from the society forever
was a mild punishment. Maltz wrote in The New York Times:
"There is currently in vogue a thesis pronounced first
by Dalton Trumbo which declares that everyone during the years
of blacklist was equally a "victim." This is factual
nonsense and represents a bewildering moral position."(source
33. p. 389)
Maltz and Trumbo spent the next months discussing this subject
- they never came to agree on the matter. Trumbo thought that
one should forgive - Maltz thought one should never forgive them.
Still, to his death Trumbo said that he felt uncomfortable around
people he knew testified as friendly witnesses before HUAC and
that he would rather not associate with them.
OTHER WITNESSES AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR TESTIMONIES
When the House on Un-American Activities Committee began its
second round of hearings in Hollywood on March 21, 1951 the first
witnesses to appear before the House Committee was the actor Larry
Parks and director Edward Dmytryk. Larry Parks had been a member
of the Communist Party in the 1940s. His testimony is said to
be one of the most excruciating ever given before the Committee.
Dmytryk said that "[Parks'] tortured testimony was so copiously
reported that it haunted him throughout his life."(source
33. p 236) Before the House Committee Parks at first did not want
to name names, he said "[it would be contrary to] American
justice to confront me with the choice of going to jail [for contempt]
or crawling through the mud to be an informer..."(Newsweek,
April 2, 1951 p. 21) and "I don't think this is American
justice...So I beg of you not to force me to do this."(source
28 p. 493) Parks also referred to his two small children: "Is
this the kind of heritage that I must hand down to them? Is this
the kind of heritage that you would like to hand down to your
children?"(source 33. p. 360) The Committee insisted that
Parks should name names and he finally agreed to do it in executive
session. But Larry Parks' career was destroyed. After the hearing
Parks contract with Columbia Pictures was canceled, he worked
on only three more films until his death in 1976 (source 33.p.
373). It is difficult not to feel sorry for Larry Parks. There
was a picture taken of Parks during the hearing, which followed
the article in Newsweek, it showed a man truly tormented. The
last words of Larry Parks in the magazine were these: "Parks
was 'sick at heart and sick in bed,' wondering what would now
become of himself and his family." (Newsweek, April 2, 1951
p. 21) Arthur Miller said about the people who named names that
he "felt distaste for those who groveled before this tawdry
tribune of moralistic vote-snatchers, but I had as much pity as
anger toward them." (source 32, p. 329) There were also
people who, when subpoenaed, left the country. One of those was
the screenwriter (The African Queen) Gordon Kahn who was one of
the original 19 who had been subpoenaed by the House Committee
in 1947. Like many others - including Albert Maltz and Dalton
Trumbo (source 34. p. 176) - he fled to Mexico, where he lived
with his family for five years. Kahn was identified by witnesses
in 1951-53, and in the years 1937-1949, he had 28 credits, after
that he never got another credit. (source 29. p. 559) Before Kahn
fled to Mexico he wrote a letter to his wife explaining how he
felt about the committee's demand that he name names:
"If now, in full flight from any principle I possess,
I went and recanted everything and every decent thing I believe
in, it wouldn't be enough. They'd want to know 'Who else? Now
that you are purged who else? Give us names, dates and places!'
Do you think I could live with myself for a minute after I did
a thing like that? Or with you? Or could face my children? If
this is a decent world when they grow up, they'd spit on me and
be perfectly justified in doing so... No. I've got to hang on
to something and if I can't be the most prosperous writer, I want
to be able to hold my head up among the people of America and
the world." (source 9.)
When holding Larry Parks' and Gordon Kahn's "testimonies"
up against each other, they in many ways seem very alike. They
both do not want to give names, they both mention being able to
look their children in the eye, and they both have major problems
with their conscience and they also take their jobs under consideration.
And still, they come to completely different conclusions. One
testifies and one does not. Naturally, it is necessary to take
into consideration that Gordan Kahn never actually testified before
the Un-American Activities Committee, but fled the country. It
seems that in some cases it came down to how strong a psyche they
had, in others how badly they wanted to keep their job, and in
some cases it even seemed that the friendly witnesses really believed
that they were doing a good thing, when they named names. One
of those who seemed to be a keen anti-Communist was the actor
Adolphe Menjou who testified before the Un-American Activities
Committee on November 3, 1947 - 7 days before the Hollywood Ten
went before the committee. Menjou was certainly very enthusiastic
when it came to getting rid of Communists. A magazine report from
the hearing - which also included such people as Ronald Reagan,
Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper, Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer and the
writer Ayn Rand who - by the way - were all friendly witnesses
- quoted Menjou: "I'm a Red-baiter; I'm a witch-hunter if
the witches are Communists" when asked:
"...why so many highly paid writers were opposed to
capitalism and democracy [Menjou explained] ' We find crackpots
everywhere. We have them in California - political idiots, political
morons, dangerous Communists....I don't think 'Mission to Moscow'
should have been made. It's a thoroughly dishonest picture."(Newsweek
November 3, 1947 p. 25)
On the same day, incidentally, producer Jack Warner defended
Mission to Moscow as being a product made during a war when Russia
had been an allied. He further said that: "...he always made
it a policy 'to turn my back whenever I see one of those Reds
coming."(source 32, , p. 301) And then Warner named a lot
of people most of them writers; among them: Alvah Bessie, Gordon
Kahn, Ring Lardner, Jr. , Albert Maltz, and Howard Koch. (Newsweek,
November 3, 1947, p. 24)
*****
OTHER WITNESSES AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR TESTIMONIES
When the House on Un-American Activities Committee began its
second round of hearings in Hollywood on March 21, 1951 the first
witnesses to appear before the House Committee was the actor Larry
Parks and director Edward Dmytryk. Larry Parks had been a member
of the Communist Party in the 1940s. His testimony is said to
be one of the most excruciating ever given before the Committee.
Dmytryk said that "[Parks'] tortured testimony was so copiously
reported that it haunted him throughout his life."(source
33. p 236) Before the House Committee Parks at first did not want
to name names, he said "[it would be contrary to] American
justice to confront me with the choice of going to jail [for contempt]
or crawling through the mud to be an informer..."(Newsweek,
April 2, 1951 p. 21) and "I don't think this is American
justice...So I beg of you not to force me to do this."(source
28 p. 493) Parks also referred to his two small children: "Is
this the kind of heritage that I must hand down to them? Is this
the kind of heritage that you would like to hand down to your
children?"(source 33. p. 360) The Committee insisted that
Parks should name names and he finally agreed to do it in executive
session. But Larry Parks' career was destroyed. After the hearing
Parks contract with Columbia Pictures was canceled, he worked
on only three more films until his death in 1976 (source 33.p.
373). It is difficult not to feel sorry for Larry Parks. There
was a picture taken of Parks during the hearing, which followed
the article in Newsweek, it showed a man truly tormented. The
last words of Larry Parks in the magazine were these: "Parks
was 'sick at heart and sick in bed,' wondering what would now
become of himself and his family." (Newsweek, April 2, 1951
p. 21) Arthur Miller said about the people who named names that
he "felt distaste for those who groveled before this tawdry
tribune of moralistic vote-snatchers, but I had as much pity as
anger toward them." (source 32, p. 329) There were also
people who, when subpoenaed, left the country. One of those was
the screenwriter (The African Queen) Gordon Kahn who was one of
the original 19 who had been subpoenaed by the House Committee
in 1947. Like many others - including Albert Maltz and Dalton
Trumbo (source 34. p. 176) - he fled to Mexico, where he lived
with his family for five years. Kahn was identified by witnesses
in 1951-53, and in the years 1937-1949, he had 28 credits, after
that he never got another credit. (source 29. p. 559) Before Kahn
fled to Mexico he wrote a letter to his wife explaining how he
felt about the committee's demand that he name names:
"If now, in full flight from any principle I possess,
I went and recanted everything and every decent thing I believe
in, it wouldn't be enough. They'd want to know 'Who else? Now
that you are purged who else? Give us names, dates and places!'
Do you think I could live with myself for a minute after I did
a thing like that? Or with you? Or could face my children? If
this is a decent world when they grow up, they'd spit on me and
be perfectly justified in doing so... No. I've got to hang on
to something and if I can't be the most prosperous writer, I want
to be able to hold my head up among the people of America and
the world." (source 9.)
When holding Larry Parks' and Gordon Kahn's "testimonies"
up against each other, they in many ways seem very alike. They
both do not want to give names, they both mention being able to
look their children in the eye, and they both have major problems
with their conscience and they also take their jobs under consideration.
And still, they come to completely different conclusions. One
testifies and one does not. Naturally, it is necessary to take
into consideration that Gordan Kahn never actually testified before
the Un-American Activities Committee, but fled the country. It
seems that in some cases it came down to how strong a psyche they
had, in others how badly they wanted to keep their job, and in
some cases it even seemed that the friendly witnesses really believed
that they were doing a good thing, when they named names. One
of those who seemed to be a keen anti-Communist was the actor
Adolphe Menjou who testified before the Un-American Activities
Committee on November 3, 1947 - 7 days before the Hollywood Ten
went before the committee. Menjou was certainly very enthusiastic
when it came to getting rid of Communists. A magazine report from
the hearing - which also included such people as Ronald Reagan,
Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper, Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer and the
writer Ayn Rand who - by the way - were all friendly witnesses
- quoted Menjou: "I'm a Red-baiter; I'm a witch-hunter if
the witches are Communists" when asked:
"...why so many highly paid writers were opposed to
capitalism and democracy [Menjou explained] ' We find crackpots
everywhere. We have them in California - political idiots, political
morons, dangerous Communists....I don't think 'Mission to Moscow'
should have been made. It's a thoroughly dishonest picture."(Newsweek
November 3, 1947 p. 25)
On the same day, incidentally, producer Jack Warner defended
Mission to Moscow as being a product made during a war when Russia
had been an allied. He further said that: "...he always made
it a policy 'to turn my back whenever I see one of those Reds
coming."(source 32, , p. 301) And then Warner named a lot
of people most of them writers; among them: Alvah Bessie, Gordon
Kahn, Ring Lardner, Jr. , Albert Maltz, and Howard Koch. (Newsweek,
November 3, 1947, p. 24)
*****
ELIA KAZAN, HIS CONSCIENCE, AND FRIENDS
"In their guts, however, they remained newcomers to
America, with all the uncertainties immigrants have. Anxious to
be everyone's friend, they would head up charities, dish out favors,
seek the company of men who had larger influence, make frequent
optimistic statements to certify their good hearts, and take popular
positions as often and as publicly as possible to reaffirm their
civic and national loyalty - which no one had questioned. A crisis
revealed their insecurity. Like most immigrants then, they would
defend themselves by flaunting their patriotism. I do not altogether
exclude myself from this characterization." Elia Kazan A
Life p. 451.
Elia Kazan is one of the most well-known friendly witnesses.
Not only because he named names - many before and after him had
done that as well, but because he was so "open" about
it. He took out an advertisement after the hearings, telling what
he had done and why, and encouraging others to do the same, he
made movies that favored the characters that "squealed"
and he never changed his mind about having testified. He did not
enjoy doing it, and he did have serious problems with his conscience
years after his appearance before the House on Un-American Activities
Committee. But he never excused. He believed he had done what
he had to do under the given circumstances. For many he became
the "ultimate betrayer." (source 33. p. 206) In his
biography, Kazan deals at great length with his appearance before
the Committee and the consequences it had for him and his friends.
When rereading Odet's play Waiting for Lefty fifty years after
he had performed it with the Group Theater, Kazan says:
"I'd turned violently anti-Communist. But the yearning
for meaning, for dignity, for security in life, stirred me now
as it had then. The Communists got their influence and their power
by speaking up for these universal human desires. It seemed that
I hadn't changed; they had."(source 31.p. 115)
It was not until Nazi-Germany invaded Poland and Russia, during
the Second World War, that Kazan was really turned off by the
Communists who, until then, had believed that the war was an imperialistic
one and then said it was "a war to save civilization."
(source 31.p. 231).BR Thirteen years later (1952) Kazan was subpoenaed
by the House on Un-American Activities Committee. Kazan had decided
even before he was called, that he would not name names: "while
I would tell the whole truth about myself, I would refuse to name
any of my old friends." (source 31.p. 432) And so, when he
appeared before the House committee on January 14, 1952, he knew
what he would do. Before the hearing - which would be held in
executive session - Kazan told the committee investigator Raphael
Nixon about the Group Theater and stated that his "disgust"
with the Party had made him leave it. When asked about Clifford
Odets Kazan replied that he would "cooperate in every way
about myself but would not discuss others."(source 31.p.
445) Nixon did not pressure Kazan to name names merely advised
him "to reconsider whether I wanted to withhold names from
the committee." During the hearing itself Kazan still refused
to name names. This meant that he would be called back - and next
time it would be a public session. The next months Kazan went
through a lot. First of all he felt sick, he could not sleep and
he felt up-tight. At this time Elia Kazan still believed that
he would not be a cooperative witness. He told his analyst that
he was willing to give up film making, and go back to working
at the theater, since he would undoubtedly loose his job if he
did not name names: "I can take the loss,'...'I'm wondering...if
your fellow members would do the same for you if they were called
upon to protect you by endangering their careers.' [his analyst
said]" (source 31.p. 448) But Kazan was not at all as sure
of himself as this might imply. At the same time he had become
a fervent anti-Communist and believed that the Communist Party
was "a thoroughly organized, worldwide conspiracy."(p.
449) Kazan says:
"So I was in the clutch of a dilemma, between two emotions
swaying one way, then the other, and the squeeze was just beginning.
I didn't want to cooperate with this committee. On the other hand,
I didn't want to defend the Party by a silence on critical point
of their inquiry."(source 31.p. 449)
Arthur Miller explains in his biography - Timebends - why
many informers, like Kazan, explained their cooperation with the
committee as a "moral" obligation:
"...it came down to a governmental decree of moral guilt
that could easily be made to disappear by ritual speech: intoning
names of fellow sinners and recanting former beliefs. This last
was probably the saddest and truest part of the charade, for by
the early 1950s there were few, and even fewer in the arts, who
had not left behind their illusions about the Soviets." (source
32, , p. 331)
After much thought Kazan began to sway towards the decision
to cooperate:
"You can't give that committee names!' I said to myself.
But why should I be alone out in the cold? I hadn't heard from
any of the others in our cell, although they all knew what had
happened." (source 31.p. 459)
Kazan started asking himself if the "Comrades" would
have done the same for him, if the roles had been reversed. He
began weighing his career against not testifying against something
he no longer believed in: "I would give up my film career
if it was in the interests of defending something I believed in
but not this." (source 31.p. 460) So Kazan says that part
of his decision to be a friendly witness was the factor that he
wanted to keep his job. Arthur Miller thought that Elia Kazan
was:
"a genius of the theater...to be barred from his métier,
kicked into the street, would be for him like a nightmarish overturning
of the earth itself. He had always said he came from survivors
and that the job was to survive." (source 32, 333)
Another writer and director, Abe Polonsky who did not cooperate
with the committee and who was subsequently blacklisted agrees
with Kazan that if he had not named names, he could not have continued
working in Hollywood: "...it was not a moral, ethical, or
political question at all. It was a practical question - but people
don't like to see it that way because it makes their character
less worthy." (source 33. p. 279) Now, there is an interesting
incident which both Miller and Kazan have depicted in their respective
biographies. It is a day in early April, 1952 when the two of
them take a walk in the woods, and Kazan tells Miller about his
decision to name names. Although they describe the exact same
scene, even down to the weather condition, the interpretation
of what took place is somewhat opposite of each other. Kazan says
that he felt that his friend Arthur understood him, and forgave
him for what he would do, and that they parted on "affectionate
terms":
"Walking back to the house...[Miller] put his arm around
me in his awkward way...and said, 'Don't worry about what I'll
think. Whatever you do will be okay with me. Because I know your
heart is in the right place.'...There was no doubt that Art meant
it and that he was anxious to say this to me before we separated."
(source 31., p. 461)
In his biography Arthur Miller describes the drive up to his
friend, and how he has a strong feeling of what Kazan is going
to tell him. Miller says that he felt his "anger rising,
not against [Kazan], whom I loved like a brother, but against
the Committee." (p. 332) When Elia Kazan does tell Miller
about what he is going to do Miller feels both sympathy and fear
towards him:
"Had I been of his generation, he would have had to
sacrifice me as well. And finally that was all I could think of.
I could not get past it...I was growing cooler...I could still
be up for sacrifice if Kazan knew I had attended meetings of Party
writers years ago...I felt a silence rising around me...It was
sadness, purely mournful, deadening..." (source 32, p. 333-334)
As he drove off, Miller says: "We...waved rather grimly
as I pulled away." (source 32, p. 33) I said in the beginning
Kazan has never regretted his decision and does not feel like
apologizing:
"Reader, I don't seek your favor. I've been telling
you only some of the things I was asking myself on the way 'down'.
But if you expect an apology now because I would later name names
to the House Committee, you've misjudged my character. The 'horrible,
immoral thing' I would do, I did out of my true self. Everything
before was seventeen years of posturing." (source 31.p. 460)
Although some might claim, that it was not to keep the Communist
Party out of the spotlight, that they refused to name names, but
that it was to avoid other people getting hurt. Kazan did ask
his friend Clifford Odets if he could name him. Odets said yes,
and they both agreed on going through with naming names before
the committee. Elia Kazan says that he later regretted that he
had influenced Odets to become a friendly witness, because it
broke him psychological. He was never to write another play.
"Out of the Red: Elia Kazan, stage and film director
of 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' admitted that he was a member of
the Communist Party for eighteen months in the mid '30s when there
was 'no clear opposition' between the United States and Russia,
the House Un-American Activities Committee disclosed. Kazan testified
he joined the party in 1934 and quit...later with a 'deep and
abiding hatred' of Red philosophy. On Saturday, Kazan took a two-column
ad in The New York Times to explain his stand." (Newsweek,
April 21, 1952 p. 60)
This ad that is mentioned was an ad that Kazan's wife at the
time, Molly, suggested and wrote. She felt that the ad could help
explain why Kazan had done what he did. The ad, however, did not
have the effected they had hoped for: "it brought me scorn
and hardened the antagonism."(source 31.p. 465) Lillian Hellman
wrote in her biography Scoundrel Time: "Kazan followed [his
testimony] up with an advertisement in The New York Times that
is hard to believe for its pious shit." (source 30. p. 98,)
After the testimony - in which he named eight people, all from
the old Group Theater - Kazan does say that he felt some doubt
as to whether or not he had done the right thing:
"I still believed that what I'd done was correct, but...there
was something indecent...in what I'd done...No one who did what
I did...came out of it undamaged. I did not. Here I am, thirty-five
years later, still worrying over it." (source 31.p. 465)
If Kazan had had problems with his conscience it was nothing
compared to what he would go through the next year, not to mention
the rest of his life. In his biography he has published segments
from his diary. Two days after the hearing Kazan wrote:
"Stayed home all day. Miserably depressed. Can't get
my mind off it. I know I've done something wrong. Still convinced
I would have done something worse if I'd done the opposite. I
spend every minute making rationalizations for my act." (source
31.p. 466)
When he returned to the studio, people ignored him, they crossed
the street to avoid meeting him, he got crank phone calls and
he got hate mail. One blamed him for an actors dismissal, because
Kazan had mentioned his name, another said: "I shall continue
to great you in the course of our associations but only on the
basis of formal courtesy." (source 31.p. 468):
"I really didn't understand the intensity of my guilt
- everything rational told me that I'd done right - but I seemed
to have crossed some fundamental and incontrovertible line of
tolerance for human error and sin." (source 31.p. 468)
A lot of friendships were destroyed by the hearings held by
the Un-American Activities Committee: "the destruction seemed
total when the sundering of friendships was so often with people
whom the witness had not ceased to love."( source 32, p.
339). One of the most famous of such destroyed friendships is
probably the one that existed between Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan.
And so the person who most hurt him by his absence was his close
friend Arthur Miller. Kazan did not hear anything from Miller
after he had testified, until one day Kazan reads in a paper that
Miller disapproved of his action and that he would have nothing
more to do with him:
"It would have been nice if Art, at this moment, while
expressing the strong disapproval he felt, had acknowledged some
past friendship - or even written me a few words, however condemnatory.
But he didn't, not a word...Although many years later I would
enjoy Art's company when we met...and would even direct another
play of his [After the Fall], I would never really feel toward
him quite what a friend should. Nor, I imagine, he toward me."
(source 31., p. 472) - "I've been perplexed and angry at
him, as he, I must believe, has been disgusted and mad at me...But
I like Miller; I wouldn't even mind being cast away on a desert
island with him." (source 31. p. 530)
As already mentioned, Budd Schulberg also appeared before
the House committee as a friendly witness. He believes, like Kazan,
that he did the right thing, and that there was a Communist conspiracy
going on. The two men knew each other before they testified, but
after the hearings they both felt a kind like kindred spirits:
"Budd had testified as I had, been reviled by many of
his old companions as I'd been. His closest friend had stopped
talking to him as Miller had shunned me. Now the 'progressives'
had us both on their shit list. As we talked that first night
in New Hope, there was an immediate warm sympathy between us.
We became brothers." (source 31.p. 487)
They would make movies together, that all dealt on a larger
or bigger scale with the "stool pigeon", seen in a positive
light. One of those movies was On the Waterfront. Originally Kazan
and Miller had been working on a film project about the waterfront.
But after Kazan's testimony, they went each their way. Kazan and
Schulberg made On the Waterfront about a man who "realizes
his obligation to fink on his fellow hoods."(source 33. p.
199) while Arthur Miller, who in 1956 testified as an unfriendly
witness before HUAC, made his own waterfront picture namely A
View From A Bridge which "tried simultaneously to understand
and condemn the informer."(source 33. p. 199) On the Waterfront
went on to win numerous Oscars, and Kazan remembers that that
night: "I was tasting vengeance...and enjoying it."(source
31.p. 529) Kazan says that he was "comforted by something
Budd Schulberg wrote me: his experience paralleled my own, 'The
person in my difficulty,' he said, 'since he cannot please all
his old friends, must settle for pleasing himself." (source
31.p. 471) Kazan took this to his heart. Like several other witnesses
Kazan worried about how his children would "carry the burden
of my 'informing' and be ashamed. This worry never ceased."(source
31.p. 472) The producer Kermit Bloomgarden, who had worked with
Kazan, said to him before he testified, when asked what Bloomgarden
thought about Kazan's intention to name names:
"Everyone must do what his conscience tells him to do.'
[Kazan] said, 'I've got to think of my kids.' And I said, 'This
too shall pass, and then you'll be an informer in the eyes of
your kids, think of that."(source 33. p. 201-202)
Bad conscience keep haunting Elia Kazan. He says that while
he was writing his biography - which was published in 1988 - he
had a dream about Tony Kraber - a man he named before the committee:
"I thought what a terrible thing I'd done; not the political
aspect of it...but the human side of the thing. I said to myself,
'You hurt another human being, a friend of yours and his family,
and no 'political aspect' matters two shits.'...What good deeds
were stimulated by what I'd done? What villains exposed? How is
the world better for what I did? It had just been a game of power
and influence, and I'd been taken in and twisted from my true
self. I'd fallen for something I shouldn't have, no matter how
hard the pressure and no matter how sound my reasons. Then I woke
all the way and had breakfast. I knew the past was past and there
was nothing to do about it."(source 31.p. 685)
Arthur Miller on the same subject:
"I was experiencing a bitterness with the country that
I had never even imagined before, a hatred of its stupidity and
its throwing away of its freedom. Who or what was now safer because
this man in his human weakness had been forced to humiliate himself?
What truth had been enhanced by all this anguish?" (source
32, p. 334)
Kazan's final words on the matter is about his friend Odets
who was destroyed by the hearing. Kazan again say how sorry he
feels about having "persuading" him to testify: "that
[Odets] needed...to have people respect him as their hero - something
I could, as I finally had to, get along without." (source
31.p. 818)
*****
THE PUBLIC AND THE NEWS MEDIA ON THE "RED MENACE"
... the Truman administration really made the American public
afraid of Communists.
"Perhaps no single weapon in the federal arsenal was
as powerful in the government's construction of anti-Communist
consensus as the criminal justice system. By putting Communists
on trial, the Truman administration shaped the American public's
view of domestic communism. It transformed party members from
political dissidents into criminals - with all the implications
that such associations inspired in a nation of law-abiding citizens."
(source 2.)
Throughout my reading up on this subject, there have been
numerous examples of this "Red Menace" perception that
pervaded the American community in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Letters from people, FBI reports containing people's "testimonies"
about other people's probable political opinions, and in movies.
A Harry W. Weinstein wrote to Newsweek in November, 1947 to inquire:
"...if the man writing articles for Newsweek under
the name of John Lardner is the same Ring Lardner Jr. who was
called before the Congressional Un-American Activities Committee
and who refused to answer the 'yes' or 'no' to the question if
he ever was or is a member of the Communist party. If he is the
same man, don't you think Newsweek should check into his activities
and either give him a clean bill of health or do the next best
thing?"(p 10)
The response was that "Ring Lardner Jr. [had] no connection
with Newsweek," and that this was John Lardner, one of Ring's
brothers. (ibid. p. 10) Some months earlier another man had written
to the same magazine, but with a slightly different message. He
was very upset about the House committee's had subpoenaed the
producers that the producers of the movies Song of Russia, Mission
to Moscow, and The Best Years of Our Lives"for 'Communist'
ideas presented therein". The reader went on to say:
"If the committee is successful in halting production
of such films as this...the action may well lead to unchecked
and arbitrary government censorship of the film industry. Shades
of Gestapo! Indeed, if I receive a subpoena to appear before this
all-powerful committee to account for my own 'un-American' ideas
presented here, I shall not be at all surprised, in view of what
has gone before. Thomas B. Peck, Jr. , Princeton University"(Newsweek,
September 15, 1947 p. 8)
As for the FBI files, here are some extracts from Gordon Kahn's
file. The file contained information from neighbors, coworkers,
social acquaintances and the personnel files of his employers.
Some of the information given by people is mean, some odd and
some just plain stupid.:
"Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Kahn belong to the Russian-American
Club...Kahn personally remarked that he had no objection to living
next door to Negroes, Japanese or any others." - "I
am convinced he is definitely a Communist through I have no proof
of card member-ship."(source 7.)
Some of the information was gathered by special agents, who
went out and talked to people about the Kahns, but some people
also took the time to write to Herbert Hoover himself:
"Dear Mr. Hoover, Kahn is currently applying to bring
three of his relatives to the United States from Europe. I don't
know whether or not they are Communists, but I feel they'd be
of the same type and there is no legitimate reason to allow any
more Communists into this country. I agree with you the 'now is
the time for every American to stand up and be counted...' and
I thought you should know the score.(source 7.)
Finally, it would be proper to mention some of the anti-Communist
films that were made in this period. According to Brian Neve in
Film and Politics in America some 42 anti-Communist films were
made in the years 1951-53(p. 187).
"The equation of domestic communism with gangsterims
is a feature of a number of the films that picture an 'enemy within',
while most of them are explicitly or implicitly anti-intellectual...Related
to this cycle were early 1950s science fiction films which...taught
the viewer 'to be wary of inept scientists and to have faith in
the FBI and the military'."(p. 188)
One of these films was the movie I Was A Communist For The
FBI which was semi-based on a real-life undercover agent for the
FBI. It was produced by Warner Brothers and came out in 1951.
The movie was about a man who "(it is suggested) single-handedly
brought the Communist Party to its knees...[the movie] was nominated
for an Academy Award as the best documentary of the year."
(source 8.) Obviously it was not only the far right-wing people
who participated in the "Red scare." In 1956 the New
York Times ran an editorial:
"We would not knowingly employ a Communist party member
in the news or editorial departments...because we would not trust
his ability to report the news objectively or to comment on it
honestly" (source 4.)
In August, 1947 Newsweek ran a long article on the new hearings
of HUAC and stated that unlike the Dies Committee HUAC would not
be ridiculed because "this time it counted on sympathetic
press and a public wiser in the ways of Kremlin." (Newsweek,
August 25, 1947, p. 22) One must say that the House committee
certainly had it right this time -
*****
HOW THE BLACKLISTING AND THE WITNESSES ARE PERCEIVED TODAY
"Years from now' he said in the voice of a public speaker
'when credit is given the struggle for peace in this country,
they won't forget the courageous stand which individual statements
of principle - no matter how uncoordinated like Charley Eitel's
here - made on the consciousness of the American people, who let
us not forget are under their collective hysteria a deeply peace-loving
and progressive nation."
Charlie Eitel, The Deer Park p. 179
Yes, how does Hollywood treat its friendly and unfriendly
witnesses today, approximately 40 years after the hearings of
the House Committee on Un-American Activities took place? Here
are some clippings and sites that give us some hints, the first
is from the magazine Variety, September 13, 1996:
"Sony finally announced this year that all future prints
of Columbia's Lawrence of Arabia will bear blacklisted screenwriter
Michael Wilson's name as well as Robert Bolt's." (source
10.)
In 1995 no less than three plays about the "Red menace"
were staged in L.A. As for some new material that would mention
Elia Kazan:
"According to one board member, the American Film Institute
continues to deny Elia Kazan a Life Achievement Award because
the Oscar-winning director of On the Waterfront cooperated with
the House Committee on Un-American Activities."(source 10.)
Thus, people have not forgotten what Kazan did in 1952 - some
45 years ago! According to Dan Cox from Variety, Elia Kazan is
still "treated as a pariah by many in Hollywood. The younger
Kazan was reluctant to be interviewed for this article, but admits
that many people in the industry behave strangely to him because
of his father's actions." (source 10.) Another response
to Charlie Eitel's speech about how people will see differently
when the hearings are but history the author of Naming Names writes:
"[The blacklistees] turned the tables. Events conspired
to make having been a blacklistee something of a status symbol.
They shed their stigma, transformed it into a badge of honor...[The
friendly witnesses] named names because they thought nobody would
remember, but it turned out to be the one thing nobody can forget."(source
33., p. 329)
The tables have indeed been turned! In 1989 a MGM building
was given a new name. Its former name had been Robert Taylor "the
highest profile star to name names for the committee's cameras."
(source 10.)
**********
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Internet
1.Buhle, Buhle, and Georgakas, ed., Encyclopedia of the American
Left. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992)
2. Ellen Schrecker. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History
With Documents. Boston: St. Martin's Press, 1994 Web-pages:
(chapter: The State Steps In: Setting the Anti-Communist
Agenda) (chapter: Blacklist and Other Economic Sanctions)
3."Congressional Committees and Unfriendly Witnesses"
by Ellen Schrecker
4.Howard Zinn. A People's History of the United States - covering
the period 1945-1960.New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1980
5. See link 4.
6. Blacklisted
7. Excerpts from Gordon Kahn's FBI files
8. "I Was A Communist For The FBI"
9. Letters To Barbara: Gordon Kahn writes to his wife
10. Movienet - Film Finders Buzz
11. SF Bay Guardian, October 10, 1996
12. Transcript of Walt Disney's testimony, 24 Oct 1947 (Unfortunately
it seems that this site no longer exists, this link is another
site which talks about Walter Disney and his view on Communism/Communists)
13. Variety, September 13, 1996
Articles
14. New York Times, July 29, 1951 (Truman quote)
15. New York Times, November 3, 1996 (Why Lillian Hellman
Remains Fascinating)
16. Newsweek, September 15, 1947
17.Newsweek, November 3, 1947
18.Newsweek, April 2, 1951
19.Newsweek, May 7, 1951
20.Newsweek, April 21, 1952
21.Newsweek, June 4, 1951
22.Newsweek, December 8, 1947
23.Newsweek, November 10, 1947
24.Newsweek, November 24, 1947
Books - Fiction
25. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Last Tycoon. London: Penguin
Books, 1941
26. Mailer, Norman. The Deer Park. London: Flamingo, 1957
27. Schulberg, Budd. What Makes Sammy Run?. New York: Vintage,
1941
Books - Non-Fiction
28. Balio, Tino, ed., The American Film Industry. The University
of Wisconsin Press, 1976, 1985
29. Caute, David. The Great Fear. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1978
30.Hellman, Lillian. Scoundrel Time. Boston: Little, Brown
and Company, 1976
31. Kazan, Elia. A Life. London: Andre Deutsch, 1988
32. Miller, Arthur. Timebends - A Life. London: Methuen, 1987
33. Navasky, Victor S. Naming Names. New York: The Viking
Press, 1980
34. Neve, Brian. Film and Politics in America - A Social Tradition.
London and New York: Routledge, 1992
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