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Brassbound G-Men and Celluloid Reds: the FBI’S Search for Communist Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood

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Brassbound G-Men and Celluloid Reds: the FBI’S Search for Communist Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood Brassbound G-Men and celluloid reds: The FBI’s search for communist propaganda in wartime Hollywood John Sbardellati Film History: An International Journal, Volume 20, Number 4, 2008, pp. 412-436 (Article) Published by Indiana University Press For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/fih/summary/v020/20.4.sbardellati.html Access Provided by Michigan State University at 11/13/11 12:39AM GMT Film History, Volume 20, pp. 412–436, 2008. Copyright © John Libbey Publishing ISSN: 0892-2160. Printed in United States of America Brassbound G-Men and celluloid reds: the FBI’s search for communist propaganda in wartime Hollywood Brassbou nd G-Men and celluloid reds John Sbardellati istorian Eric Hobsbawm envisions the Grand ning to be recognized as one of the greatest, if not Alliance of the Second World War as ‘a mo- the very greatest, influence upon the minds and ment of historical paradox in the relations of culture, not only of the people of the United States, H 3 capitalism and communism, placed, for most but of the entire world’. From the Bureau’s point of of the century – except for the brief period of antifas- view, the American way of life was at stake. Even as cism – in a posture of irreconcilable antagonism’.1 It the Grand Alliance cooperated to defeat fascism, the is no surprise, therefore, that despite a dramatic G-Men secretly began waging a cold war. increase in American goodwill toward the Soviets, The secondary literature on the ‘red scare’ in largely a product of the valiant efforts of the Russians Hollywood has devoted too little attention to the role against the Nazi foe, roughly a third of all Americans of the FBI and has too readily dismissed concerns continued to distrust the Soviet ally.2 The Roosevelt about Communist propaganda. The two most influ- Administration sought to promote goodwill, but even ential works on this subject, Naming Names by Victor within it fears and doubts persisted. The Federal Navasky and The Inquisition in Hollywood by Larry Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its director, J. Edgar Ceplair and Steven Englund, give passing recogni- Hoover, theoretically under the control of the Justice tion to the role of the FBI in assisting the House Department, secretly harbored deep concerns over Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in its the president’s policy. They feared that American postwar hearings on the entertainment industry, yet Communists would use their newfound standing to neither of these books discuss the FBI in any detail. infiltrate important national institutions. Furthermore (and as a result), both share a some- To a significant degree these fears were di- what flawed assumption. rected at Hollywood. FBI concerns regarding the Navasky portrays the HUAC trials as ‘degrada- entertainment industry dated back to the years fol- tion ceremonies’ designed to foster a ritualized con- lowing the first Red Scare, but during World War II the version to an anti-Communist consensus. Despite Bureau began a systematic investigation of the mo- tion picture industry. Just as the FBI feared Commu- nist ‘infiltration’ of various labor and government John Sbardellati is Assistant Professor of History at posts, so too did the agency worry that Hollywood the University of Waterloo in Ontario. He completed his Ph.D. at UC Santa Barbara in 2006. His current Reds were securing new positions of power within book project is a study of the FBI’s investigation of the film industry. Bureau policy operated on the as- Hollywood. sumption that ‘the motion picture industry is begin- Correspondence to [email protected] FILM HISTORY: Volume 20, Number 4, 2008 – p. 412 Brassbound G-Men and celluloid reds FILM HISTORY Vol. 20 Issue 4 (2008) 413 ‘much hoopla about Communist propaganda in the man’s burden’, ‘containment’) while revealing a fun- movies’, Navasky suggests that such fears did not damental insecurity. motivate the hearings, and that in any case the This ideological tradition was greatly intensi- Committee soon learned that no such threat existed. fied in ‘Hooverism’.9 J. Edgar Hoover, after all, sub- Likewise, Ceplair and Englund argue that Hollywood scribed to what some historians term a was investigated for its publicity value. They point out ‘countersubversive’ tradition, an ideology marked by that screenwriters (those in Hollywood most often intense anxieties regarding the danger of foreign and charged with subversion) were simply not in a posi- radical subversion, which for Hoover and others were tion to take over the screen with Communist propa- often one and the same.10 In Hollywood he and his ganda since the studio system maintained tight agents perceived a dire threat from an ideology control over film content, and since ‘the rigidity of the deemed alien and extreme. In the context of the basic film genres – comedies, musicals, melodra- Grand Alliance, and especially after the premiere of mas, cops-and-robbers, Westerns, etc. – simply did Mission to Moscow – a film that seemed an ominous not lend itself to radical propaganda’.4 Recently, indicator of the Communist grip on movie-land – however, historians have paid more attention to film Hoover feared the production of more ‘films having content, finding these old assumptions flawed.5 De- a propaganda effect favorable to the Communist spite this newfound appreciation for (or disdain of) ideology’. In order to combat this dire cultural and the Left’s ability to influence and shape film content, political threat, Hoover sent his men on a mission of little work has been done in terms of reinterpreting messianic proportions.11 anti-Communist motivations vis-à-vis the motion pic- Though the Bureau’s activities may be justly ture industry. FBI records offer a fruitful resource for criticized, it was by no means mistaken in recogniz- such work. ing the vital role that film plays in shaping and reflect- These FBI files reveal that fears of propaganda ing national identity. Indeed, modern historians and motivated its massive investigation of the film indus- film theorists alike have utilized Benedict Anderson’s try during World War II. In this period, the FBI began concept of the nation as an ‘imagined community’ to an intense formulation of a body of ‘knowledge’ that argue that cinema plays a vital role in constructing demands critical attention if one is to understand the and dispersing images of the nation.12 We may say origins of the postwar hearings.6 Insecurity lay at the that the FBI grasped this concept years before most heart of Bureau policy. As it surveyed the domestic scholars, but in doing so the Bureau was by no scene, and particularly Hollywood, the agency fret- means unique, for this historical moment witnessed ted over the peril of ‘a gigantic world-wide conspiracy a plethora of actors – including filmmakers, film com- of control which has its origin and direction in the mentators, and other agencies of the federal govern- Communist Party of the Soviet Union’. After the 1943 ment, most notably the Office of War Information – release of Warner Bros.’ Mission to Moscow, J. Edgar who recognized the power of film in modern society. Hoover exclaimed that ‘recent events in the motion This pronounced acclaim for cinema’s social impor- picture industry have caused me much concern re- tance was acute during the war years, but the FBI garding the spread of Communism’.7 departed from its contemporaries in labeling the In many ways, the G-Men’s fears were pecu- motion picture as a possible national security threat. liarly American. As historian Anders Stephanson ar- Even if the G-Men correctly identified Commu- gues, America’s Cold War ideology evolved from a nist propaganda in Hollywood’s World War II output deeply rooted tradition ‘more intricate than any sim- (a debatable point), they failed to develop a method- ple Manichaeanism. [which] fuses (in the main) ology that would support the assumption underlying radical Protestantism with classical republicanism their investigation: i.e., that such activity imperiled the and liberal thought, generating a specifically “Ameri- nation. Doing so would have required them to inves- can” language of politics, unthinkable anywhere tigate audience reception. However, according to else’. As Stephanson puts it, this ideology’s ‘first film theorist Janet Staiger, audiences have the ability principle … is the dynamic notion that freedom is to accept, mediate, or resist what they see on the always already under threat, internally as well as screen. They do not check their class, ethnic and externally, and that it must be defended by those so gender identities at the door as they would a winter called upon’.8 This American world-view proclaims a overcoat. Nevertheless, the FBI tended to operate by messianic national mission (‘city on a hill’, ‘white what Staiger calls ‘a ‘hypodermic needle’ theory of FILM HISTORY: Volume 20, Number 4, 2008 – p. 413 414 FILM HISTORY Vol. 20 Issue 4 (2008) John Sbardellati twentieth century. Ultimately, Moynihan portrayed secrecy as a threat to security itself, for when ‘secrets become organizational assets’, critical information is withheld and therefore policy is based upon poor and uninformed assumptions, democratic debate be- comes increasingly rare, and ‘secrecy and bureauc- racy became enmeshed’. Accurate assessments were often thwarted, miscalculations abounded.14 In order to better understand the conse- quences of FBI secrecy in its investigation of Holly- wood, let us return once again to the concept of the ‘national cinema’. Film theorist Susan Hayward ar- gues that the discourses surrounding films constitute one of the modes by which ‘the national’ is enunci- ated. She moves beyond the simplified notion that film and its surrounding discourse serves either to shape or reflect national identity, and toward a more complex understanding of filmic discourse as part of a negotiated national identity.
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