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Note from the Crisis Director

Hello delegates! My name is Amelia Benich and I’ll be your CD for FCMUN. I am ecstatic to finally get to run this JCC and I hope you are as excited as I am. This is my final FCMUN as I graduate in May and I am determined to make it the best crisis committee to ever be run...or close. I have done Model UN every year I have been in college and have been in so many crisis committees as a delegate I recently had to be reminded of all of them. With this experience both as a delegate and having run 3 committees before both at FCMUN and abroad at LSE’s conference, I can assure you I’ve seen it all and am preparing to stop the common committee frustrations before they begin. As you prepare for the conference, I want you to be fully aware of the parameters of our note system before you plan out a crisis arc. Electronic notes will speed things up, however for this committee to keep things running smoothly, there will be an approximate word limit for notes. Try to keep all notes around 250 words or less (about two paragraphs/a page double spaced), and expect each committee session to get approximately 3 notes answered, meaning your crisis arc should be accomplished in 12-15 notes, assuming notes get shorter and more direct towards the end. Of course, I will do my best to answer faster and get more notes through, but this is to help you both plan effectively and also stay engaged in-room as well. We have our own committee arc and we’d love to see you have fun with it too! To speak on in-room, this crisis is obviously separated into two separate committees. First, the House Un-American Activities Committee (“HUAC”, pronounced “HOO-ack”), a ​ ​ Senate sub-committee that held hearings, wrote reports, and under the table directed the Truman and Eisenhower administrations and the FBI/CIA. The committee is free to call in members of ​ the Hollywood committee to testify, free to call in unrelated characters to testify, free to direct the ​ notorious J. Edgar Hoover to act on committee suspicions with powers of the FBI, and finally, free to work with the sympathetic press to publicize your findings. The Hollywood Committee ​ is more vaguely defined as an organization of notable screenwriters, directors, and who were put on or protested the existence of The Blacklist. With a more open format, the committee is free to write directives to start their own activist organizations, remake their respective working unions, take direct action in the filmmaking process as protest, and more. They could demand transparency from HUAC, run an electoral campaign, call upon foreign leader, or whatever other reasonable combined power they wish to direct. The chairs of our two committees are Zenia Saqib and Emma Rubin, who I have full faith will direct the flow of debate, voting, and crisis with excellence and grace. We will begin the committee with some ground rules about directive length and number limits, but for now, prepare to have your directives be just that--direct. Concise in language without being vague is exactly what we’re looking for.

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Finally, I wanted to illuminate my interest in this topic. I am an economics major, specializing in Political Economy, which basically means I am interested in power, resources, and philosophical thought on how society is structured and the historical struggle between competing material interests. In short--I’m not here validating neoclassical models and monetary theory, spending all day on STATA. I also study film extensively and hope to one day be a filmmaker. Some of my favorite films from the past two years (and by no means an exhaustive list) include Parasite, Sorry to Bother You, Uncut Gems, Midsommar, The Favourite, and ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. The history of how movies get made, what movies get made, ​ and the censorship and political nature of film is a natural merge of these two interests of mine. I hope if nothing else from this committee, you have a chance to explore the way the era of impacted the film industry in the United States even to this day. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions before the conference. My email is [email protected] and because of the last minute release of this guide, feel free ​ ​ to text me directly through iMessage or WhatsApp at +1 (630) 740-3991.

-Amelia Benich

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Table of Contents

1. History of HUAC ………………………………………………5-7

2. History of the Film Industry …………………………………....7-9

3. The Communist Party of the USA……………………………...9-10

4. The Hollywood 10 …………………………..…………………….11

5. Non-Congressional Blacklists…………………………………...12-14

6. Committee Start/Current Situation……………………………….15

7. Executive Summary and Questions To Consider………………...15-16

8. Character Profiles: HUAC ……………………………………….17-18

9. Character Profiles: Hollywood…………………………………...19-21

10. Further Resources………………………………………………..22-23

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Disclaimer: This portion is adapted from various sources, some listed under “Further Reading”. FCMUN claims no authorship of this italicized text, merely adaptation for the purposes of this committee.

History of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the U.S. Government’s Anti-Communist Efforts Targeting Hollywood On May 26, 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established as a special investigating committee to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist or fascist ties; however, it concentrated its efforts on communists. It was chaired by Martin Dies Jr. (D-Tex.), and therefore known as the Dies Committee. The was rooted in events of the 1930s and the early 1940s, encompassing the height of the Great Depression and World War II. Two major film industry strikes during the 1930s increased tensions between the Hollywood producers and the unions, particularly the Screen Writers Guild. The U.S. government began turning its attention to the possible links between Hollywood and the party during this period. Under then-chairman Martin Dies, Jr., HUAC released a report in 1938 claiming that was pervasive in Hollywood. Two years later, Dies privately took testimony from a former Communist Party member, John L. Leech, who named forty-two movie industry professionals as Communists. After Leech repeated his charges in supposed confidence to a grand jury, many of the names were reported in the press, including those of stars , , , and , among other Hollywood figures. Dies said he would "clear" all those who co-operated by meeting with him in what he called "executive session". Within two weeks of the grand jury leak, all those on the list except for actress Jean Muir had met with the HUAC chairman. Dies "cleared" everyone except , who was fired by the movie studio, , where he was under contract. In 1941, producer took out an ad in Variety, the industry trade magazine, declaring his conviction that "Communist agitation" was behind a cartoonists and animators' strike. According to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, "In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disney's overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity." Inspired by Disney, State Senator , chairman of the state legislature's Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, launched an investigation of "Reds in movies". The probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines. The subsequent wartime alliance between the United States and the brought the CPUSA newfound credibility. During the war, membership in the party reached a peak of 50,000. As World War II drew to a close, the neutral to favorable view of the CPUSA held by a significant number of citizens was of grave concern to the ruling elite. In 1945, Gerald L. K. Smith, founder of the neofascist America First Party, began giving speeches in Los Angeles

5 assailing the "alien minded Russian Jews in Hollywood ''. Mississippi congressman John E. Rankin, a member of HUAC, held a press conference to declare that "one of the most dangerous plots ever instigated for the overthrow of this Government has its headquarters in Hollywood ... the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States.” The growth of conservative political influence and the Republican triumph in the 1946 Congressional elections, which saw the party take control of both the House and Senate, led to a major revival of institutional anticommunist activity, publicly spearheaded by HUAC. The following year, the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), a political action group cofounded by Walt Disney, issued a pamphlet advising producers on the avoidance of "subtle communistic touches" in their films. Its counsel revolved around a list of ideological prohibitions, such as "Don't smear the free-enterprise system ... Don't smear industrialists ... Don't smear wealth ... Don't smear the profit motive ... Don't deify the 'common man' ... Don't glorify the collective". On July 29, 1946, William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder of , published a "TradeView" column entitled "A Vote For Joe Stalin". It is named as Communist sympathizers , Maurice Rapf, , Howard Koch, Harold Buchman, , Jr., Harold Salemson, Henry Meyers, Theodore Strauss, and . In August and September 1946, Wilkerson published other columns containing names of numerous purported Communists and sympathizers. They became known as "Billy's List" and "Billy's Blacklist". (In a 65th-anniversary article in 2012, Wilkerson's son apologized for the paper's role in the blacklist, stating that his father was motivated by revenge for his own thwarted ambition to own a studio.) In October 1947, drawing upon the list named in The Hollywood Reporter, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed a number of persons working in the Hollywood film industry to testify at hearings. The committee had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents and sympathizers had been planting propaganda in U.S. films. The hearings opened with appearances by Walt Disney and , then president of the . Disney testified that the threat of Communists in the film industry was a serious one, and named specific people who had worked for him as probable Communists. Reagan testified that a small clique within his union was using "communist-like tactics" in attempting to steer union policy, but that he did not know if those (unnamed) members were communists or not, and that in any case he thought the union had them under control. Reagan would continue to assist and inform the committee throughout HUAC’s peak. In contrast, leading Hollywood figures, including director and actors Humphrey Bogart, , and , organized the Committee for the First Amendment to protest the government's targeting of the film industry. Members of the committee, such as , assured Bogart that they were not Communists, and to be clear, almost certainly no members were. However, during the hearings, a local Washington paper reported that Hayden was a Communist. After returning to Hollywood, Bogart shouted at

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Danny Kaye, "You fuckers sold me out." The group came under attack as being naive or foolish. Under pressure from his studio, Warner Brothers, to distance himself from , Bogart negotiated a statement that did not denounce the committee, but said that his trip was "ill-advised, even foolish". Many of the film industry professionals in whom HUAC had expressed interest were alleged to have been members of the Communist Party USA. Of the 43 people put on the witness list, 19 declared that they would not give evidence. Eleven of these 19 were called before the committee. Members of the Committee for the First Amendment flew to Washington ahead of this climactic phase of the hearing, which commenced on Monday, October 27, 1946. Of the eleven "unfriendly witnesses", one, émigré playwright , ultimately chose to answer the committee's questions (following which he left the country). The other ten refused, citing their First Amendment rights to and assembly. Included among the questions they refused to answer was one now generally rendered as "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?". In addition to refusing to testify, many had tried to read statements decrying the committee's investigation as unconstitutional. The Committee formally accused these ten of contempt of Congress, and began criminal proceedings against them in the full House of Representatives. This established The Hollywood Ten. ​ In light of the "Hollywood Ten"'s defiance of HUAC political pressure mounted on the film industry to demonstrate its "anti-subversive" bona fides. Late in the hearings, , president of the Association of Motion Picture Producers (AMPP) (and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)), declared to the committee that he would never "employ any proven or admitted Communist because they are just a disruptive force, and I don't want them around". On November 17, the Screen Actors Guild, led by Reagan, voted to make its officers swear a pledge asserting each was not a Communist. The following week, on November 24, the House of Representatives voted 346 to 17 to approve citations against the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress. The next day, following a meeting of film industry executives at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, AMPP President Johnston issued a press release that is today referred to as the . Their statement said that the ten would be fired or suspended without pay and not re-employed until they were cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists. This was the first clear incident of unreasonable demands for allegiance at the cost of human lives, the first HUAC “witch-hunt” to reach its apotheosis.

Formation of the Film Industry Scientific innovation created the motion picture film and added synchronized audio recording soon after. What began as a niche roadshow attraction became a craft with devoted artists shaping the medium and its conventions as they played with cinematography, mise-en-scene, and editing in both experimental and narrative form.

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Early filmmaking was surprisingly equitable, with women and minorities being key contributors to the emerging medium. The Columbia Women Film Pioneers Project even states, “more women worked at all levels inside and outside the Hollywood film industry in the first two decades than at any time since. The high incidence of women workers, however, was not limited to the U.S. It was a global phenomenon”1. (The often-international nature of film production is key to understanding the network of filmmaking from the Silent Era to today.) However, as uniquely and admirably equitable as the industry began, the profit motive of capitalism would inevitably take precedence, as with all forms of entertainment. Much like Ford’s Model-T, film production began to resemble an assembly line. Screenwriters held the most artistic freedom, with scripts not only detailing a story and dialogue, but the technical direction and camera blocking, something that often evolves and changes when on set at the director, producer, and other technical lead’s discretion. The director under the was disposable, easily replaceable, there to bring the direction of the script to fruition and to coach the actors to their best performance. Those actors were cast according to their predetermined stock character in their contracts. For the leads, this would also include the star system through which ​ ​ many household names made their fame, though it has an equal reputation in its ruthlessness and cruelty inflicted upon the stars, particularly women. The most relevant aspect of the studio system to the Blacklist was the contracts signed by all workers, from the set designers to the actors to the musicians to the screenwriters to the cinematographers. Imagining this system like a national baseball team, there are star players, coaches, playmakers, physical therapists, all under contract for one specific team, or in this case, studio, and though the roles may shuffle around, they are contractually tied to the studio they sign with, similar As the studio structure began to dominate, women, people of ​ ​ color, LGBT+ individuals, and other marginalized people were either swiftly pushed out or forced to conform with producer demands. This did not eliminate their presence entirely but did prevent the kind of imaginative, curious stories from those diverse filmmakers from being produced. By extension, this also blocked certain ideological themes, as was intentional. Drusilla Dunjee Houston, a black journalist and civil rights activist in the early decades of the 1900s, wrote a

1 https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/about/

8 screenplay directly refuting point-by-point the wildly racist film Birth of a Nation and yet could not get it produced. She wrote ​ decades later of her frustration in getting it developed, “The photoplay lay for long years, pushed aside by executive duties and also because the author knew that American literature was only catering to Topsy, Uncle Tom, and slap-stick minstrel Negro types”2. Many film concepts from the more revolutionary period of film history that had been in development before the assembly line of the studio took over were dropped or left in development hell, untouched for ​ ​ decades. If one measures success by executive profits, the studio system transition of the 1920s was a smash hit. Genre conventions formed and audiences became accustomed to them as a part of cinematic language. Going to the cinema was no longer a venture of art curation or a festival event, but a regularly-attainable pleasure. When the 1929 crash and resulting Great Depression hit, the film industry did not actually see a significant contraction in revenue, rather a drop in profits. In true capitalist form, the executives of these pillar studios used the Depression as an excuse to cut wages despite giving themselves increasing bonuses year by year. Locked into contracts and suffering from cuts to salary, the Screenwriter’s Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild of America, Director’s Guild of America, numerous unions were strengthened with the societal revitalization of labor activism. This radicalized many of the creative workers, such as writers, actors, and editors.3

The Communist Party and Political Conditions Guiding Radicalization

To understand the members of Hollywood Blacklist, contextualizing the 1930s and 40s and the role the Communist Party of America (henceforth referred to as “CPUSA”) held in American politics is essential. Much of this history has been ignored or glossed over in traditional American History courses and this overview is notably brief. Delegates are encouraged to consult the “Further Reading”/Resources section at the end of this guide for more detailed analysis, however the following will be all that is expected for ​ adequate participation. ​

2 https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/drusilla-dunjee-houston-2/ 3 CD Note: Most compelling of the anecdotes I considered inserting here is the story of the Motion Picture Editors’ Guild, the union fo​r editors. Editors under the studio system would earn $100 a week for their work (~$1800 adjusted for 1937 inflation), considered unreasonably low for the amount of labor they worked. Initial membership was 571 and a year later, they had successfully negotiated a 10% wage increase. They eventually allied/became incorporated under the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and has since grown to be some 7000 workers strong.

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The Great Depression was a radicalizing force for American politics. Though largely demonized through the exact type of paranoid anti-communism that caused the Blacklist, marxism and socialism were widely discussed and were positive identifiers for a significant portion of the population. The Communist Party gained membership particularly as the direct opposition to rising fascism. Many prominent intellectuals and artists personally involved themselves in fighting the . Quite bizarrely, those opposed to the prominence of socialist thought would often call out anti-fascism as being anti-capitalist, as if that argument did not further embolden those on the side of socialism. As an analogy, to join the communist party or self-identify as a communist was not unlike (though not exactly the same) as current celebrities endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders or identifying as a socialist/”leftist”. Further, just as some joined the CPUSAA to support civil rights, modern celebrities reference call attention to police brutality or the war on drugs and prison-industrial complex, whether or not they fully understand the necessary ideology to combat those issues or have personally involved themselves in activism on the ground. Just as you can compare ’s explicit and detailed commitment to socialist thought and active anti-imperialism to Nat King Cole’s contradictory decisions with regard to civil rights activism, one might compare Colin Kaepernick’s principled activism explicitly calling out systemic racism in America with a celebrity who occasionally posts support on social media for Black Lives Matter or #TimesUp. Many joined CPUSA as a means of social justice or signalling an opposition to the white, capitalist hegemony of American politics at the time. However, there were active communists within Hollywood, opposed to American imperialism and global capitalism and empire. The implication from HUAC and red scare hysteria that they imbued studio films with explicit socialist propaganda is absurd on the face of it. There of course may be films where one can take a socialist interpretation, but only if one actively seeks that interpretation. In fact, much of modern film studies analyzing the Golden Age of Hollywood focuses around its idealization of a utopian American ideal, one that is often tone-deaf to race and sex and fully ignoring any discussions of class beyond the bourgeois ideal. It didn’t matter if the films were or were not socialist--the Blacklist was about bourgeois intimidation of the worker, not the content of popular culture. Even with 15 years of Blacklisting in production that theoretically were producing nothing but anti-communist, pro-American

10 popular culture and media, the and Anti-War protests against Vietnam still rose up in the 60s.

The Hollywood 10 The HUAC hearings had failed to turn up any evidence that Hollywood was secretly disseminating Communist propaganda, but the industry was nonetheless transformed. The fallout from the inquiry was a factor in by Floyd Odlum, the primary owner of RKO Pictures, to get out of the business. As a result, the studio passed into the hands of . Within weeks of taking over in May 1948, Hughes fired most of RKO's employees and virtually shut the studio down for six months as he had the political sympathies of the rest investigated. Then, just as RKO swung back into production, Hughes made the decision to settle a long-standing federal antitrust suit against the industry's Big Five studios. This was one of the crucial steps in the collapse of the studio system that had governed Hollywood for a quarter-century--please refer to the Hollywood Side Background Guide for elaboration on this system and its history. In the briefest of terms, Hollywood studio bosses were willing to set fire to their wildly successful, “factory-line” efficient system for film production just to gut worker protections and deny the unions and leftist organizing that had made great gains in the 1930s and 40s, whether they had any affiliation with the CPUSA or not. To be clear--anticommunism, as an appeal to the American patriotic ideal and the then-Soviet-induced terror of communism, was the excuse used to universally worsen the pay, benefits, and job security standards of the entire American film industry. In early 1948, all of the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt. Following a series of unsuccessful appeals, the cases arrived before the Supreme Court; among the submissions filed in defense of the ten was an amicus curiae brief signed by 204 Hollywood professionals. After the court denied review, the Hollywood Ten began serving one-year prison sentences in 1950. One of the Ten, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, stated in the documentary film (1976):

“As far as I was concerned, it was a completely just verdict. I had contempt for that Congress and have had contempt for several since. And on the basis of guilt or innocence, I could never really complain very much. That this was a crime or misdemeanor was the complaint, my complaint.”

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In September 1950, one of the Ten, director , publicly announced that he had once been a Communist and was prepared to give evidence against others who had been as well. He was released early from jail; following his 1951 HUAC appearance, in which he described his brief membership in the party and named names, his career recovered. The truth? Edward had joined in 1944 with the ideal of “ending global poverty” and he pioneered the genre, in which he made films condemning fascism and anti-semitism. Though by modern sensibilities it sounds absurd, having been vocally anti-fascism during the 1930s and 40s was considered cause for suspicion, as during those decades anti-fascist organizing against obviously arising international fascism in the US was strongly linked if not outright pioneered by the CPUSA and many affiliated did not hold a deep commitment to Marxist or Bolshevik ideology but rather an opposition to fascism, bigotry, and genocide. The others remained silent and most were unable to obtain work in the American film and television industry for many years. , who had produced four of Dmytryk's films was one of those named by his former friend. Scott's next screen credit did not come until 1972 and he never produced another feature film. Some of those blacklisted continued to write for Hollywood or the broadcasting industry surreptitiously, using or the names of friends who posed as the actual writers (those who allowed their names to be used in this fashion were called "fronts"). Of the 204 who signed the amicus brief, 84 were themselves blacklisted. There was a more general chilling effect: Humphrey Bogart, who had been one of the most prominent members of the Committee for the First Amendment, felt compelled to write an article for Photoplay magazine denying he was a Communist sympathizer. State level investigations increased scrutiny further and poured gasoline on to the wildfire of paranoia raging through the film industry, a fire started and encouraged by HUAC.

Non-Congressional Contributions to The Blacklist A number of non-governmental organizations participated in enforcing and expanding the blacklist; in particular, the American Legion, the conservative war veterans' group, was instrumental in pressuring the entertainment industry to exclude communists and their sympathizers. In 1949, the Americanism Division of the Legion issued its own blacklist – a roster of 128 people whom it claimed were participants in the "Communist Conspiracy". Among the names on the Legion's list, many were exaggerated or outright false, with the list more so representing what the American Legion considered subversive

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(read: leftist) media. The American Legion demanded boycotts of specific films, not simply a blacklisting of those creators. Another influential group was American Business Consultants Inc., founded in 1947. In the subscription information for its weekly publication Counterattack, "The Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism", it declared that it was run by "a group of former FBI men. It has no affiliation whatsoever with any government agency." It seems not only did the editors of Counterattack have direct access to the files of both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and HUAC; the results of that access became widely apparent with the June 1950 publication of , exploding out of nowhere. The FBI and CIA’s fanatic obsession with rooting out communist thought has, in recent years, more fully come to light and been discussed, particularly in the context of the leader of the United States intelligence agencies at the time, J Edgar Hoover, as well as the various atrocities and fascist coups across the global south to destroy rising international movements for socialism. This Counterattack spinoff listed 151 people in entertainment and broadcast journalism, along with records of their involvement in what the pamphlet meant to be taken as Communist or pro-Communist activities. A few of those named were already being denied employment in the motion picture, TV, and radio fields; the publication of Red Channels meant that scores more were placed on the blacklist, with zero evidence and zero responsibility for sourcing. That year, CBS instituted a loyalty oath which it required of all its employees. For one example of how this hysteria would manifest as the list of those accused grew longer and longer and thinner in evidence, Jean Muir serves as a case example as the first performer to lose employment because of a listing in Red Channels. In 1950, Muir was named as a Communist sympathizer in the pamphlet, and was immediately removed from the cast of the television sitcom , in which she had been cast as Mrs. Aldrich. NBC claims to have received between 20 and 30 phone calls protesting her being in the show. General Foods, the sponsor, said that it would not sponsor programs in which "controversial persons" were featured. Though the company later admits to receiving thousands of calls protesting the decision, it was not reversed. In 1947, studio executives told the committee that wartime films – such as Mission to Moscow, The North Star, and Song of Russia – could be considered pro-Soviet propaganda, but claimed that the films were valuable in the context of the Allied war effort, and that they were made (in the case of Mission to Moscow) at the request of White House officials. In response to the House investigations, most

13 studios produced a number of anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda films such as The Red Menace (August 1949), Guilty of Treason (May 1950, about the ordeal and trial of Cardinal József Mindszenty), I Was a Communist for the FBI (May 1951, Academy Award nominated for best documentary 1951, also serialized for radio), and 's Big Jim McLain (August 1952).

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CURRENT SITUATION COMMITTEE START DATE: JANUARY 1952 This is the second round/re-opening of the Hollywood Investigation by the now-Democrat controlled congress. With the 1947 iteration of the Hollywood Investigation being chaotic and at times, counterproductive to their cause, this is the beginning of the height of the Blacklist. Ruthless and actually deadly, delegates interested in the true history of this frenzy are encouraged to search out resources on , J. Edgar Hoover, CIA coups and interventions in the 1950s, Dalton Trumbo breaking the blacklist, and more (see “Further Reading”), however exact historical accuracy is by absolutely no means required in ​ ​ committee, and events will obviously change as delegates in directives and crisis arcs shape this new timeline.

Modern Analogy and Questions to Consider: HUAC and its inseparable outside witch hunt has been largely forgotten, an anecdote of hysteria. It is easy to read and glaze over the consequences of these Blacklists, to see names like Judy Garland or Humphrey Bogart and feel there were any real damages given the glitz and fortune of Golden Age Hollywood. Imagine if you will, however, if in the next 10 years if a committee on Un-American Activities was established tomorrow, focusing on the professional sports industry in response to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem and musical artists refusing to play the Superbowl Halftime Show. With players being akin to actors and coaching staff, physical therapists, and technical support being akin to the screenwriters, directors, and technical staff, surely big names like Colin Kaepernick or Lebron James have the fame and wealth earned to be relatively untouched from consequences for their public protests against systemic racism, beyond a period of negative press. However, it is the lower level, behind the scenes staff and experts with stable jobs and reasonable salaries for whom complete blacklisting from the professional sports industry would mean the end of their career and the impossibility of ever working again, or even their spouse holding work. Bankruptcy, suicide, fleeing the United States (despite being a natural born citizen), divorce, all of these were common responses to blacklistings from the average member of blacklist, names few would recognize today. Looping back to the sports analogy, if Justin Jackson of the Los Angeles Chargers was listed among many as an “anti-American, black nationalist socialist incendiary” on a list created by Senators Rob Portman and Dick Durbin, both who receive sizable contributions and relationships with the management of national sports leagues and team owners, would you know who Jackson was? Would you care? Jackson, a

15 player whose entire life has been dedicated to the sport, with no real training in other fields besides his political activism, would immediately lose his salary, any health coverage he had despite the known damage professional sports does to the body and mind, and hold no prospects of a career and political pressure from multiple United States Senators for him to be completely ostracized from society. Would you find that to be a fair price to pay for protest and outspoken leftism? What about others for whom these alleged political ties were based entirely on hearsay? If players effectively unionized demanding lifetime health insurance, what would stop the management of the NFL (whose interests these Senators represent due to their vital campaign contributions, the revolving door of employment between the US government and corporate management, etc.) from providing the Senators in charge of this Blacklist a list of the union organizers to be added, conveniently solving the union problem and ensuring future players stay in line? Finally, let’s say the accused were actually, literally communists. They read Das Kapital ​ before going to bed, they work to organize their peers into a union, they advocate for the building of a vanguard party, etcetera: committed, ideological socialist. Do they deserve to be punished? For what crime? And if you believe that political activity is a crime deserving of punishment, do you agree with the imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten? With the deportation of immigrant actors and screenwriters? With censorship and permanent end of careers?

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Character Profiles for HUAC As described earlier, the two parties were identical in anti-communist sentiments, so the relevant politics of the senators would be repetitive. If there is a differentiation, it will be noted. To save you research and preparation time, they will focus on brief biographical information that can be extrapolated for portfolio powers, however given that some of these figures hold more historical documentation than others, you are welcome to reasonably invent some degree of backstory through personalized crisis notes.

John Stephens Wood (D-GA) ❏ A licenced attorney in Georgia ❏ Judge of superior courts of the Blue Ridge judicial circuit ❏ Criticized for not investigating the KKK

Clyde Doyle (D-CA) ❏ Graduated from the College of Law of the University of Southern California in 1917 ❏ Former member of the California State Board of Education ❏ Chairman of the HUAC

James B. Frazier, Jr. (D-TN) ❏ Son of James B. Frazier, who was a former U.S. Senator and the Governor of ​ Tennessee ❏ Graduated from law school in 1914 and practiced law in Tennessee ❏ Appointed as the United States attorney for the eastern district of Tennessee in 1933

Morgan M. Moulder (D-MO) ❏ The prosecuting attorney for Camden County, Mo from 1928-1938 ❏ Served as the special assistant to United States attorney for the western district of ❏ Missouri from 1943-1946 ❏ Appointed by the Governor to serve as a judge in 1947

Francis E. Walter (D-PA) ❏ Actively fought for the minimization of immigration ❏ Served in WWI and WWII in the air service ❏ Worked with the Pioneer Fund

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Donald L. Jackson (R-CA) ❏ Served as a private in the US Marine Corps ❏ Previous Director of Publicity for the city of Santa Monica

Bernard W. "Pat" Kearney (R-NY) ❏ Actively advocated for veterans in Congress ❏ Co-authored and helped pass the GI Bill ❏ Very active in local New York politics

Charles E. Potter (R-MI) ❏ Worked as a administrator of Bureau of Social Aid in the early 1940s ❏ Purple heart recipient ❏ Worked with the US Department of Labor rehabilitation until 1947

Harold H. Velde (R-IL) ❏ FBI special agent in sabotage and counter-espionage division during WWII ❏ Served in the US Army ❏ He was elected county judge of Tazewell County in 1946

Gordon H. Scherer (R-OH)* ❏ Worked as a prosecutor in Ohio ❏ Served as Cincinnati's safety director ❏ Served on Cincinnati’s city council

Richard M. Nixon (R-CA)* ❏ Known anti-communist during his time in the House of Representatives ❏ Supported legislation in Congress that monitored the activities of labor unions ❏ Elected to Senate in 1950

Edwin E. Willis (D-LA)* ❏ Supported anti-communist legislation in Congress ❏ Former member of Louisiana State Senate ❏ Was not a proponent of civil rights movements

Eric Allen Johnson MPAA president ❏ President of Motion Pictures Association of America ❏ Issued the Waldorf Statement after meeting with Hollywood executives ❏ Recipient of the Medal for Merit

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Character Bios for Hollywood To save you research and preparation time, they will focus on brief biographical information that can be extrapolated for portfolio powers, however given that some of these figures hold more historical documentation than others, you are welcome to reasonably invent some degree of backstory through personalized crisis notes. It is ​ recommended you determine what union they would have been a part of and their membership/relationship to that union.

Dalton Trumbo (screenwriter) ● Wrote movies like , Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. ● Refused to give the names of colleagues who sympathized with communism and was jailed for 11 months. ● Known for supporting left-wing politics ● Could not work under his own name after his imprisonment, eventually “broke” the blacklist thanks to support from and .

Orson Welles (filmmaker) ● Started his career as a Broadway actor ● Ran "The Mercury Theatre on the Air” which had programming on the radio ● Had a 10-year self imposed hiatus from Hollywood after his divorce from Rita Hayworth in 1948

Paul Robeson (actor) ● Third African American to attend Rutgers University ● Briefly had a law career but left his firm because of racism ● Starred in films and relocated to Europe for his career ● One of the few fully humanized black actors in Hollywood at this time. ● https://twitter.com/ClaudiaJonesSPE/status/1207833016543956992? s=20 (Link to a thread of his testimony in front of HUAC) ​

John Henry Faulk (writer, radio host)

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● Preformed on a daily radio program ● Worked as a TV host and panelist ● Was against entertainers being blacklisted because of Communist affiliations and he was blacklisted for his stance

Arthur Miller (playwright) ● At one point married to Marilyn Monroe ● Won Tonys and wrote critically acclaimed plays like Death of a ​ Salesman ● Refused to cooperate with the HUAC ● Would later write The Crucible specifically about his experience ​ ​ with HUAC, aimed at Elia Kazan’s public naming of suspected communists, centered around the Salem Witch Trials

Judy Garland (actress) ● Famous for appearing in films like the Wizard of OZ ● MGM dropped her from her contract in 1950 because of her emotional distress ● Was in a relationship with Sid Luft who helped her build her career in 1951 ● Classic case of abuse by the star system, struggling with drug addiction until her tragic death of an overdose at 47

Lena Horne (actress, singer) ● Highest paid black entertainer in the 1940s, a star on the level of Judy/Marilyn/Katharine ● Civil rights activist who worked with groups like the NAACP to make sure that her representation in media was positive for African Americans ● Worked at Cafe Society in NYC in the early 1940s which is a place that attracted black and white intellectuals

Dorothy Parker (writer, screenwriter) ● Member of the NYC literary scene in the 1920s ● Spent time in California in the 30’s and 40’s with husband Alan Campbell and wrote screenplays ● Supported civil rights movements and was associated with the Communist Party in the 1930’s ● FBI kept a surveillance file on her that has recently been declassified. (See Further Reading)

Walter Bernstein (screenwriter) ● Blacklisted in 1950 due to left-wing political affiliations

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● Wrote articles and stories based on his experiences in the Army, including famous support for Palestine. ● Wrote for The New Yorker and for television, and though he was ​ ​ able to rejoin the industry in the 70s after being blacklisted, he would retire in the 80s to be a professor

John Garfield (actor) ● Made his debut on Broadway, often referred to as “Brando before Brando” as the suave leading man ● Active in political and social causes that lead to him being blacklisted ● Testified before Congress that he was never a Communist and died of a heart attack at 39 from the stress of his Blacklisting. ● https://film.avclub.com/john-garfield-was-a-tragic-blacklist-ca sualty-1798243745 (Excellent article) ​

Norma Barzman (screenwriter) ● Wife of screenwriter Ben Barzman ● Active in left-wing politics ● Went to Europe to escape HUAC and the couple’s blacklisting.

Albert Maltz (screenwriter) ● Joined the Communist Party during the Great Depression ● Reputation for creating socially-aware dramas ● Part of the HUAC’s “Hollywood 10”

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Further Resources Here are some favorite, accessible works for you to explore as you wish, however you see fit to help your preparation and/or crisis arc.

For an excellent analysis of the economic gains made by studios and film financiers as a result of the Blacklist, "We Do Not Ask You to Condone This": How the Blacklist Saved Hollywood by Jon Lewis. (28 pages, approximately 20 minutes reading time) https://www.jstor.org/stable/1225550?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Much of the research is based on the diligent research and explanation of the podcast “You Must Remember This” streaming on most podcast services. This is the link to the first episode of the Blacklist season, which in 45 minutes gives an exceptionally concise yet detailed overview of what lead to 1947 and the HUAC “witch-hunts”, as well as insight into what it meant in historical context to join CPUSA as opposed to now. (45min) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/you-must-remember-this/id858124 601?i=1000447017846 The second episode is also recommended for a blanket overview of the Trial of The Hollywood 10 in less than an hour, but of course, detailed understanding of the trial is simply going the extra mile for preparation, not required to understanding what is happening in committee. (55 minutes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/you-must-remember-this/id858124 601?i=1000447017844 Host Karina Longworth on the website for the show has posts for each episode with specific reference and reading lists. Peruse the show descriptions, listen to what interests you, or use the references for other guides. There are episodes specifically on many of the ​ characters in this committee, including , Paul Robeson, Dalton Trumbo, and more. http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/?category=The%20Bl acklist

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This short article elaborates upon the studio structure as well as the major changes to the film industry around the time of the Blacklist. http://www.hollywoodlexicon.com/studiosystem.html ​

This short Hollywood Reporter Article discusses the bosses of Hollywood who worked with HUAC and endorsed the Blacklist. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/blacklist-hollywood-brass-who- endorsed-391979

This discusses Richard Nixon’s demand for more “anti-red” films and Hollywood’s quick response. https://daily.jstor.org/how-hollywood-thrived-through-the-red-scare/

This is New Yorker film critic Richard Brody’s review of Red Hollywood, a documentary showing the vibrancy of film came from the communists who worked within the industry. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/hollywood-lost-commun ists-purged

This is the Waldorf Statement from producers, an important part of history. You will be given a copy for your records on the first day of committee. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/hollywood-lost-commun ists-purged

A Summary of ’s declassified FBI file, to show the extent to which the intelligence agencies harassed Blacklist victims. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dorothy-parkers-fbi-file-av ailable-public-first-time-decade-180969044/

A description of a unique historical anecdote--Nikita Kruschev’s visit to Hollywood during the time fo HUAC and the event’s overwhelming popularity among those in the industry. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nikita-khrushchev-goes-to-holl ywood-30668979/?all&no-ist

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