A Nation and a Saint

Chronicles ^ | June 16, 2026 | Lloyd Billingsley

[Pelham]

“Hardly anybody is still alive today who has personal memories of the Hollywood blacklist of the immediate post-World War II period, let alone of the rabid Communist agitation that took place in the film colony before and during the war,” notes Bruce Bawer in his review of my book, Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry, adding “don’t expect this terrific, truth-telling tome to be made into a major-studio movie anytime soon.” Bawer is right, but as they say in Hollywood there’s more to the story.

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TOPICS: Arts/Photography; History; Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: blacklist; communist; hollywood; reagan

[Pelham]

Ronald Reagan battled Stalinists in the talent guilds, where they worked through front groups such as Progressive Citizens of America (PCA) and the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (HICCASP). Reagan’s ally in the back lots was fellow New Deal Democrat Roy Brewer of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, better known as the IA. By the mid-1950s the Reagan-Brewer alliance had crushed the Hollywood Party. Like Terry Malloy, they were glad what they did to the Communists, and they kept on doing it.

[Pelham]

ping

[Keyser Soze 84]

Communists hated communist “ witch hunts” because they were communists and believed in their right to be communists ,protected by law.
I always thought it was strange to compare communists to witches, but that mostly was an anti Christian bias coming from non Christian’s/ anti Christians. Communists believed they were harmless as witches, targeted by hysterical fundamentalist Christians. …but for most people, perhaps magic doesn’t exist, so witches are considered harmless, but nobody can say communists and communist revolutions don’t exist along with espionage and intrigue.

[Nateman]

Walt Disney also fought against the Communists trying to take control of his employees. It should be noted it was Hollywood leaders who asked Congress to weed out the Communists. Hollywood director Elia Kazan turned in his Communist comrades and for that ‘sin’ Hollywood never forgave one of its best directors.