Coulter Explodes Hollywood's Blacklist Myth

NewsMax.com ^ | 6/30/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

It is one of the most enduring lies created by leftists: that all Hollywood trembled in fear over the persecution allegedly launched against Tinseltown by Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Along with the infamous Hollywood 10, actors, actresses, directors, producers and even the guys who swept the studio floors were allegedly writhing in agony, fearing they’d become victims of McCarthyism, and driven into unemployment and poverty.

There are just a few things wrong with this – to begin with it’s not true, Ann Coulter writes in her best-selling new book, "Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism."

Nowadays, nobody bothers to point out that the phrase "McCarthyism" first appeared in the pages of the Communist Party’s organ in the U.S., the Daily Worker, which got it directly from the bowels of the NKVD’s Moscow headquarters at 3 Dzerzinski Square, where it was coined by the Stalinist disinformation experts in the belief that leftist useful idiots in the U.S. would adopt it as their own. Which of course they did, eagerly, and continue to do so even today.

The hysterical cry of the terrible consequences of blacklisting – of McCarthy depriving honest hardworking Hollywood celebrities of an opportunity to ply their trade, was based on a lie. But as Coulter observes, everything we know about Joe McCarthy is a lie.

The fact is that the so-called blacklisting began when the House Committee on Un-American Activities held hearings to determine the extent of communist penetration of the film industry, which was extensive.

Witnesses known as the Hollywood 10, acting under orders from their communist bosses, refused to admit under oath that they were members of the Communist Party. For this contempt of Congress they went to jail for a brief of time.

The Supreme Court refused to hear their appeals. And these so-called victims of the McCarthyite reign of terror, instead of being deprived of their civil liberties, "had the benefit of legal counsel, trial by jury, and proof beyond a reasonable-doubt standard," Coulter writes. "Still the cosseted, overpampered Hollywood elites were shocked to discover they could be held responsible for anything they did, and vowed that the rest of the country would never hear the end of it.

"At about the same time – under the legal system Communists revered, Stalin executed, starved, exiled or imprisoned more than ten million people."

Coulter writes: "Ten Hollywood scribblers who subscribed to an ideology responsible for the murder by the million refused to admit their membership in the Communist party to a House Committee," which McCarthy had absolutely nothing to do with.

As Coulter repeatedly points out, McCarthy was a senator, not a member of the House of Representatives, where the committee did its work. He concentrated on communist infiltration into the U.S. government, which the evidence from the Venona intercepts now clearly shows to have been massive.

Recoiling in fear of being labeled employers of traitors, courageous Hollywood film moguls canned all 10 and refused to use them, at least not under their real names. As a result some of them were simply allowed to work under false names and kept on writing films and getting well paid.

Over and over we are told that the so-called blacklist created a reign of terror in Tinseltown, with everybody in filmdom cringing in fear.

Couler reveals the terrible exile endured by one of the blacklistees: Norma Barzman, who was forced to flee not to Devil’s Island, but instead to gay Paree, where, in her own words, she suffered such grievous punishment as having "dinner with Picasso every Tuesday night when we were at our country house in Provence. Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, Jacques Prevert were our friends. Plus we got to work with all the amazing European directors including Vittorio De Sica and Constantin Costa-Gavras. It was hard, but was also the time of my life."

Oh, the horrors of it all!

"Meanwhile," Coulter notes, "back in the country they preferred [the U.S.S.R.], people were being whisked off to Soviet gulags in the dead of night. They were being sentenced to work in forced labor camps. They were sent to Siberia for five years. They were being shot execution-style after being forced to confess to absurd diabolical conspiracies."

But there was a real Hollywood blacklist you never hear leftists talking about. As NewsMax.com reported in The Left’s Lies That Never Die, conservative anti-communists in Hollywood were denied work because of their beliefs. Men such as Bruce Cabot, Ward Bond, Adolph Menjou and many other members of John Wayne’s anti-communist Motion Picture Alliances were blacklisted and found work only in Wayne’s movies.

In "Treason" Ann Coulter proves her point again and again: Everything you think you know about Joe McCarthy is a lie.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Media Bias

[Your Nightmare]

Congress can subpoena anyone they want to testify under oath, like a court. Unlike a court, you can't plead the fifth because it isn't a criminal trial and incrimination is not an issue. That is why so many witnesses use phrases like, "I don't know" and "I can't remember."

I don't believe this is true. You can plead the Fifth if subpoenaed to testify in front of Congress (unless you have been granted immunity). Ken Lay did it. So did Oliver North.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Socialists seem to have created a world view that peoples across this planet want to join as a gigantic family holding hand and singing in joyous harmony as they redistribute the fruits of a good day's work. To each according to their need, from each producer, under penalty of law.

The thriving world socialist movement, making its leaders at UN and at national levels ashtonishingly wealthy, is making "fee simple" rights to private property nearly impossible through regulation, effectively enforced against enemies of socialism.

The 21st Century war to regain the liberty stated in the American Constitution may destroy the last free peoples on earth. Mortal enemies are Islamists and world socialists, aka fascists, because political leaders like the cash flow back from their cronies running state regulated industries, while the mere people just work, contributing their "fair share" for redistribution, under penalty of law.

Somehow, socialists think that they themselves will be in charge or benefit directly under redistributionists rather than being forced to sacrifice for the "common good" for life, stripped of their rights to private property.

Reality: Opportunists and evil men/women use people, while lusting for the power to control all others. From prehistory tribal fights over who would be chief, during the last 5 generations we have seen the Devine Right of Kings fade into the most brutal peoples' paradises' leaders murder an estimated hundred million as a means of controlling their positions above the laws of man and our "natural" laws under God. Billions have lived and perished under threats to torture from their leaders to sacrifice for the leaders benefits under the slogans 'for the people' or "It's for the children". Trouble makers are often just killed with or without show trials. Even the now very rich Bill & Hillary presided over the orchestated slaughter at a Waco area church home of some 150 very strange Christians including children for failing to submit before the State's pre-budget hearings, masked, full-auto blazing assault. Submit or die, little has changed from leader to leader over time and place.

Socialism, always under penalty of law, is poison to liberty because those people are being coerced by self-promoted "compelling State interests" driving the herd to be sheared or to often to slaughter.

In 1950, many of the 50 to 60 million dead from WWII and its pre-war political purges had not yet rotted from the bone. The industrial scale socialist/communist murders were still being counted under the threat of Soviet invsion of Western Europe. The extent of the successful spying within our Manhatten Project was not yet known. Communist sympathizers and Soviet spies were thriving in and out of Democrat administrations and business. Some management discriminated agaisnt communists to protect our liberties including rights to private properrty and life itself.

[Darnright]

>SOURCES: Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography; Encyclopedia of American Biography.

Whoa, a little slanted, aren't we? You'd think an encyclopedia would be written a bit more objectively.

Guess not.

[PuNcH]

I dont think every member of the communist party had his or her sights set of the overthrow on the US government.

Why in the hell would it matter what every member of the communist party thinks? Do you give a damn what every member of the nazi party thinks? What if the nazi's had won the war in Europe and instead of the soviets, America faced nazi Germany in a cold war with nuclear weapons pointed at us.

Now if we had nazi's in the govt and nazi party members producing propaganda in hollywood would this problem be easier for you to understand?

[VOA]

bump

[Spirited]

"This is gross rationization(sic)."

You are entitled to your opinion. However, since your opinions fly in the face of research on newly released documentation we can assess them with perspective.

I suspect that you do not and did not live in or near Washington. We used to say that there was a "ring" around Washington about 50 miles out and rarely did much of anything true get out beyond that ring. That is very little less true these days.

[Spirited]

"the Republican Senate that censured McCarthy "crippled" in the manner you describe?"

Yes, we believed so. The pols needed the press (in their own sight) and were likely to be marginalized and opposed by the press which had demonized McCarthy. The press had pretty successfully gotten the sheeple to believe, "Aw shucks, we're okay, we don't need to be that tough"...and the compassion factor kicked in. One must recognize that in the view of the Communists, as in that of today's Muslims, compassion is a form of despised weakness but is profoundly usable for exploitation to "kill".

It seemed unaccountable to anyone with eyes to see but the GOP was not willing to oppose the popular opinion which the press had generated just as writers had done in Nazi Germany and in Communist Russia.

The "man with an experience" is never at the mercy of "a man with a theory". You have to understand that the tenor of the times was that many sheeple believed we could go back to isolating ourselves and we would be safe.

In fact, as broadly as we confront the world today (and with the internet it is in our homes) Americans apparently were profoundly stunned by 9/11 and many are still in denial.

[myself6]

Spirited made a true observation on the media and politicians during that time frame ( even holds true today ) and you respond with "this is a gross rationalization"

Hmmm...

That’s it?

Don’t delude yourself, the Marxist "McCarthyism" tactic doesn’t work here. You know just as well as I that the communist party was very much at work trying to make their dreams of world revolution come true. Especially the true believers and useful idiots here in the US.


Argue why McCarthy was wrong in fighting them, not that they didn’t exist, that doesn’t work any more. I love the fact that the socialists in the country still believe they are "covert", "subtly manipulating opinions", "unseen". he he.. Its much easier to take out the enemy if they sit out in the open, cover their eyes and yell "you cant see me now". You guy's remind me of Baghdad Bob.

Speaking of idiot leftists, I had a great time this last school year ripping apart a leftist school teacher who tried to pull the old "equate the Salem witch trials with McCarthy" trick. They never learn... you let them make their tangled tortured point then make a simple statement. "Witches don’t exist communist do." follow it up by "If witches actually existed in the form the salemites believed, I would have no problem with the witch trials. In fact I would develop new improved methods to hunt them down and end their miserable existence" I mean, REALLY, the whole argument falls apart when the existence of communists is established.

"Your nightmare" ( you give yourself a little to much credit) Most of us, at the very minimum, have read the Communist Manifesto. Some of us have gone on to Das Kapital and other assorted documents written not only by Marx and Engles but the Bolsheviks of the Russian revolution. A few do nothing but study the entire religion and all of its denominations. Marxists, while ignorant on just about everything else , did have one brilliant spark "Propaganda and revolutionary tactics". These tactics are "non denominational" and are easily used by us. Another perk of knowing your religion inside and out is knowing what your going to do and say even before your high templar elites pass it down to you. Hell, we know what your elites are going to think of any given situation before they do.

Our Movement continues to gain momentum, we continue to sharpen our political and propoganda weapons. We pull the blindfold from the eyes of more and more people every day.
If I didnt despise the leftist religion so much, I would feel sorry them.

[jpl]

Every communist does in fact does in fact have his sights set on the overthrow of the government, or at the very least the weakening of the country to the point of effectively overthrowing it. Needless to say, they would all deny it of course. You can't be a communist and be a loyal American, the two are mutually exclusive.

[Your Nightmare]

McCarthy accused a lot of people of being communists or, at least, being communist sympathizers. Have all McCarthy's accusation been proven true? Have even a majority?

Specific numbers would be appreciated.

It seems people are saying McCarthy is totally vidicated because a few of the people he claimed were communist actually were. What about the rest? What about their rights?

[FreedomPoster]

It's not just that they were communists; it's that they were active agents of the Soviets. And the recently declassified Verona Cables verify that many (most?) of the 57 named by McCarthy were indeed active agents for the Soviets.

[FreedomPoster]

And which "rights" of any that weren't active agents were violated? Any specifics there, or just more cries of "Ev-eeel McCarthyism!"?

[DPB101]

From the executive testimony which had been sealed for 50 years:

The Chairman. Mr. Kohler, we are checking on the shipment of material from ECA into Austria, into the America Occupied Zones, and the shipment from Austria into Russia. I understand that you were controller at the time of much of the activity that concerns us now, and I think counsel have questions to ask you along that line. I may say, incidentally, that we are interested in the shipment of a sizable amount of material into Austria, and at that time Russia's taking out from Austria a like amount of material. Mr. Kohler, while I understand the staff has material reflecting on your morals, I am not interested in your morals at all, except in so far as it might result in a security risk. I want you to know that regardless of whether you cooperate or fail to cooperate, as far as I am concerned, there is to be no publicity here in anything having to do with your morals or anybody else's.

Mr. Kohler. Thank you.

The Chairman. We are, of course, interested in that phase of morals that enters into the question of security, the question of being able to blackmail a man because of something he has done in the past. We know that is a definite threat. With that, we will proceed . . .

The Chairman. You will be excused subject to call. If you care to, you may see your testimony and go over it and we cannot send it to you because it is an executive session, and you would not want it kicking around anyway. If you do want to see the testimony, you can contact Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Surine, or Mr. Cohn and you can come into the office downstairs and read it over. Otherwise, it will be put under lock and key. We have no intention of informing the press that you testified about anything at all today, and so unless you tell the newspapers you are here they will not know it.

Mr. Kohler. I certainly won't tell them.

---

Mr. Cohn. Have you ever been a Communist?
Mr. Levinson. Yes, I was a Communist.
Mr. Cohn. When did you join the Communist party?
Mr. Levinson. I joined the Communist party in the fall of 1931.
Mr. Cohn. Where did you join?
Mr. Levinson. Boston, Massachusetts.
Mr. Cohn. What were you doing at the time you joined? Mr. Levinson. I was an instructor in mathematics at MIT.
Mr. Cohn. For how long a period of time did you remain in the party?
Mr. Levinson. About eight years, a little less. 1937 to 1945. I think I was all out by the spring of 1945.
The Chairman. Who recruited you into the Communist party?
Mr. Levinson. Well, I sort of went over this a little bit with the FBI. It is pretty complicated and it will sound a little weird. Nobody recruited me. I actually walked into the headquarters of the Communist party of Boston and met Mr. Phil Frankfeld and signed up.
The Chairman. Was there anybody you knew while in the Communist party who is today working for the United States government?
Mr. Levinson. No.
The Chairman. Is there anybody whom you knew in the Communist party who has worked for the Army Signal Corps or any related organization?
Mr. Levinson. No.
The Chairman. Or any laboratory where they might have been doing work on radar or for the Signal Corps?
Mr. Levinson. Let's see. This goes back to the war period. Let's see. Wendell Furry.
The Chairman. Did he have anything to do with radar?
Mr. Levinson. He was in the radiation lab. He was a theoretical physicist.
The Chairman. What is Mr. Furry doing now?
Mr. Levinson. He is a professor of physics at Harvard. He was also before the Velde committee.
The Chairman. Did he testify?
Mr. Levinson. He gave fairly long testimony except on certain questions he invoked the Fifth Amendment.
The Chairman. He is teaching at Harvard now?
Mr. Levinson. That is right.
The Chairman. What did he do in connection with radar?
Mr. Levinson. Well, all the work of the radiation laboratory has been published. He wrote part of the volume of theories of antennas. . . .
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Your name will not be given to the press or anyone else unless you give it to them.
Mr. Levinson. I think that will not only help me but MIT.

[Stultis]

Good set of links on McCarthy here:

Tailgunner Joe--Where Have You Gone, Joe McCarthy? ^
			Posted by backhoe On 06/26/2003 4:47 AM CDT with 24 comments various FR links | 06-26--03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy Senator Joseph McCarthy rose from obsurity, flared briefly as a crusader against Communist infiltrators, and died young, villified and rebuked. For years his name has been the ultimate "nuke" from the Left: "MaCarthyism..." And yet... recent revelations seem to show that if anything old "tailgunner Joe" underestimated the numbers infiltrators in the government... what's the truth?     http://www.freerepublic.com Joe McCarthy Was RightNewsMax (via email) | June 23, 2003 | NewsMax     http://www.freerepublic.com Joe McCarthy Vindicated, Againwww.chuckmorse.com ^ | June 20, 2003, | Chuck Morse     http://www.freerepublic.com The Origins of McCarthyismThe Weekly Standard ^ | 06/30/03 | Robert...

[cincinnati65]

"We did, but we had already been crippled by the fact that the "liberals" who, like you, couldn't believe that they were in danger (or who were perhaps influenced by Commie interests)would print nothing that was entirely truthful."

"Huh? Was the Republican Senate that censured McCarthy "crippled" in the manner you describe?"

We all saw this happen with Newt. By the time the liberals were through carving him up in the press, nearly no one could support him.

[Stultis]

From the executive testimony which had been sealed for 50 years:

For an excellent article on this, by M. Stanton Evans, see message number 11 in the McCarthy thread I linked above.

[Stultis]

Whatever his intent, his methods were unacceptable in a freedom loving society.

What did he do? Be specific. Name names. Tell us what was "unacceptable." We've heard this vague statements for decades from the left. Explain exactly what the McCarthy Committee did which was wrong.

I'd like to second DPB101's request, YN.

[randog]

I stand corrected and shall make adjustments to future huevos references. :^)

[FreedomPoster]

Oh, and by the way, from the NSA's Venona page, we have:

The American Communist Party in VENONA

Information derived from the VENONA translations shows the KGB's extensive contacts with the American Communist Party. Many of the espionage activities by members of the American Communist Party are reflected in the VENONA translations.

Feel free to go spelunking for specific names; they're in there.

[myheroesareDeadandRegistered]

Another AC pic bump