Posted on 06/30/2003 1:43:31 PM PDT by 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:
Sgt. RHODEN . . .After questioning me he gave me a little piece of paper about so long and so wide which was mimeographed. It had Korean writing on it and also English. The statement was, '' You are about to die the most horrible kind of death. ''Senator POTTER. That was the statement that was given to you?
Sgt. RHODEN. Yes, sir. He gave me the statement and told me to read it to the fellows.
Senator POTTER. What did it say, again?
Sgt. RHODEN. '' You are about to die the most horrible kind of death. '' That was all there was to it, sir. I guess they wanted to maybe make us run, sir, or something, and have a sport with it. When I read this statement, the other fellows— we had been ex-pecting it. We had read of what had happened to some of the prisoners. After I read the statement I crumpled it up in my hand. I wanted it there when they found us. They took the statement away from me; they would not let me keep it. I do remember some of the fellows saying, '' Well, they are finally going to shoot us, '' or something like that, sir. So he motioned me to go where the other fellows were standing.
They were just about the length away from us as we are here, sir, and as I turned around to go— I did almost an about face. He had the burp gun over his shoulder— they carried it with a strap— and as I turned around, sir, I was shot in the back with the burp gun. The bullet knocked me down, sir. As the lieutenant said, I did a good job of playing dead, sir. It did not knock me out. I lay there. The way I fell, I could see the fellows out in front of me being shot.
Senator POTTER. He shot you in the back and then he shot the others?
Sgt. RHODEN. They shot me in the back, sir, and I laid there praying and pretending I was dead, sir. They shot the other fellows and then stopped over me and bayoneted the other fellows a time or two. Then they left. After a while they left.
After they had gone, sir, I began to move around when I thought it was safe. I was paralyzed from my waist down. I pulled myself around, and I noticed the other fellows were still alive, too. They were moving around. I went over and made them as comfortable as I could. There was a little embankment there and I pulled them down over it. A couple of them helped them get down. I stayed there, sir. I do not remember just exactly— I know there were four of us when we were shot. There is one fellow that I am in doubt as to just what happened there. I understood later that he made it back to the States. I do remember two fellows there. I bandaged them up the best I could. I blacked out, sir. When I came back to what I was doing, I was still there and it was dark. I felt the two fellows and they were stiff. I do not know how long I had been out there. The other fellows were definitely dead. I do not remember the third one. I am kind of foggy. I do not know if I could find them, and I do not think that I could find the other fellow.
Senator POTTER. You remember that two of them were dead?
Sgt. RHODEN. Yes. I know I found two. The third one I am in doubt, sir. I do understand this other fellow made it back. I do not know if he is still in the army or out, sir. I crawled off to a little stream and drank some water. When I drank the water, sir, I blacked out. I do not remember anything else until——
Senator POTTER. This was at night?
Sgt. RHODEN. Yes, sir. They captured us in the morning and they shot us that night. I guess it was the same night, sir. When I drank the water I blacked out and I do not remember anything else until I was wandering around calling one of the fellows that had been shot with me. And then a patrol of North Koreans— I saw them just about the same time they saw me— took a shot at me, sir. The bullet missed me. It was at awful close range, though. They came up where I was at and made me get up and walk up the side of the hill. They had me standing there and they were kind of a half circle around me. One put his rifle up and made like he was going to shoot me. Then they would all laugh and he would take his rifle down and the next one would go through the same motion. At the time, sir, I was in such pain that I began to want to get it over with. I felt I would be better off. I sat down, and it made them mad, sir.
I was actually trying to provoke them into getting me out of my misery, sir. They were in a stew. Then I saw this little plane circling around. I do not know if he knew what was going on, but our planes started strafing them. When the planes started strafing them, one of the North Koreans— the one in charge; I guess he was an officer, sir— was hit. I picked up the little pot he had, the one he mixed his rice in, and started off down the hill. At the bottom of the hill there were two of them who came from behind a rock with burp guns on them. They wanted to know in sign language where I was going. I motioned to the ones on the hill and motioned they were sending me to the stream to get water to take up to them. I got that story like I did the pot. When I got to the stream, it had pretty steep banks. I hid in a small pea patch. I pulled the vines over me. I had my little pot full of water.
They came looking for me but they did not find me. The rest of the time, sir, I would hide out during the day and move at night. Sometimes I do not know what I did. Sometimes I would be running around in the day time. Then I would hide out. Later I found out it was the 7th of September. I was just fixing to hide out for the day. I was almost ready to give up when I heard the vehicles, the motors, and I looked. I could see the big white star.
I knew it was our boys, sir, but they got by before I could get there at the time. I would raise up and just stumble until I would fall. I would give myself a pep talk and I would go again. I knew I was so near our lines. I made it out to the road. There was a jeep coming and a tank, and then a truck loaded with GI's. I guess they were replacements, sir. I guess as the lieutenant said, sir, with the wounded they usually had an ambush waiting. So they were kind of leary there. I began to think they were going to shoot me. But they got down and the sergeant got out of the jeep. I was doubled up and I did not have any shoes or any shirt, The sergeant asked me, '' What is the matter? Do you have a cramp? '' I told him, '' Yes, I have got a cramp. '' I asked him if he would take me to the aid station. I do not know what unit it was, sir. I was so glad to get back.
Senator POTTER. How long were you behind the enemy lines?
Sgt. RHODEN. I was taken prisoner and shot on the 31st of August of 1950. Later I found out it was the 7th of September when I made it back to our lines. The affidavit I have there, sir, I believe it says I was captured and shot on the 1st of September. On my medical record they say I made it back to my lines, or I was wounded, on the 7th of September. That is the date I made it back to our lines . . .
Senator POTTER. Sergeant, do you mind if I ask you the same questions I asked the lieutenant? You have an experience first-hand, and do you have any comments that you would like to make concerning the Communist movement here in our country?
Sgt. RHODEN. Well, sir, I was fighting in Korea, sir, and I hated them, and after I arrived back here, of course, we didn't hear too much about communism. Actually, sir, I didn't actually know what it was until the Korean War started and I began to see what I could find out about it. I finally made Korea and I hated them and after I went into the hospital I was on a public appearance tour, and I received some letters from them, around, and it is all the way I take it, sir, for the same purpose. They are trying to overthrow our government, and it is all for the same purpose. If I hate them in Korea I see no reason why I shouldn't hate them here. You asked me my personal opinion, sir, and that is the way I feel about it.
Senator POTTER. Sergeant, did the political officer, you men-tioned he asked you about the number of planes and the number of tanks and so forth, did he ask you any political questions about your home life or anything of that kind?
Sgt. RHODEN. Yes, he wanted to know where I was from, and the way he would draw a map of Korea and he put Japan and the States, and then he wanted to know where I was from, where I come from, from the States to Korea or from Japan to Korea, or what. I was confused by doing this. I didn't know, and then he would get rough and so I motioned the States and he wanted to know maybe in the States and he wanted to know what point. As for my address, sir, I had a lot of stuff in my wallet and I didn't have time to get rid of anything, and they had all of the stuff I had, as to the information as to the addresses and so forth. They wanted to know where in the States I was from and so forth. Now, I got some pretty nasty letters, from the time I was on the tour, sir, a couple that made some pretty——
Senator POTTER. Do you have those letters with you?
Sgt. RHODEN. No, sir, I don't have them with me, and I turned them over to our intelligence officer, sir, at district headquarters.
Senator POTTER. Could you give us the essence of what they said in the letter?
Sgt. RHODEN. Well, sir, it was along the same line we had over there, maybe it was put together a little better. Actually I didn't read it too thoroughly, or try to memorize any of it. You could tell from where it was from, one point in the state and one from an-other, and none of them were signed. They called President Truman at the time, sir, a puke from Missouri, and about MacArthur, remarks along the same line. I turned the letter over to——
Senator POTTER. The letters were postmarked from the United States?
Sgt. RHODEN. Yes, sir, the one calling Truman a puke from Missouri was from Daytona Beach, I believe. I turned the letter over.
Senator POTTER. Do you know where the other one was post-marked from? Sgt. RHODEN. From St. Petersburg, Florida, and maybe one was Coral Gables .. .
True, but the average intellectual did. Folks who read and kept up with the news had heard the stories, and there were plenty of refugees. those who took sides without checking the facts were responsible for their politics.
True, but the average intellectual did. ....
Exactly. That's why I have no respect for 'those 'worldly' people (Hollywood) who have access to knowledge, who have seen the truth and still chose to advance communism as a just cause.'
There would be, as with Great Britain, a measure of success among elites, but in the pattern now already seen, an ethnic factor would be the most prominent.Hard times does not explain the treason for two reasons: 1. The traitorous activity began before the depression. 2. Those we know who worked for the Soviet Union were not destitute--they usually had an excellent education (City College at least, often from there to Harvard) and above average jobs.In the beginning, most American Communists would be Russians. The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) was organized at Moscow’s behest in 1921, merging Reed’s Communist Labor Party with the Communist Party of America, organized by a former socialist, Midwesterner Charles Emil Ruthenberg. The membership was not large and was overwhelmingly foreign-born.
Theodore Draper, in The Roots of American Communism, estimates that 10 percent spoke English. Harvey Klehr et al., make that 12 percent.
Draper comments: “It is just to say that the American Communist movement started out as a predominantly Slavic movement. . . .” In a familiar pattern, immigrants brought their politics with them, or responded sympathetically to political changes in their homelands. He goes on to state that this situation changed as “Americans” and “other nationalities” joined the movement. But the ethnic dimension of American Communism never ceased, albeit at times it was overshadowed by the likes of John Reed.1
Poverty does not cause crime nor does it cause a degenerate morality which forces people to become Communists.
Hello!!! Uncensored and unedited??? Apparently YOU need to read the hearings. McCarthy in action?! McCarthy was the subject of these hearings, and he was constantly interrupted, browbeaten, smeared and shouted down. "Uncensored and unedited" indeed.
You haven't been able to supply one single specific example of a crime or outrage committed by McCarthy and, as far as is yet discernable from your messages, you have no information beyond the impressionistic, arm-waving, "he was really, really, really bad (but don't ask for details)" gloss of the leftist "McCarthyism" myth.
So try reading something. If you don't like Coulter, there are plenty of other sources available in the thread I linked in message #74.
The answer is because they're dirty liberals. If conservatives had been hauled before a Congressional committee and compelled under penalty of imprisonment to state their affiliations, those who refused would be heroes. But these were dirty liberals, so no abuse of government power is too great to expose their liberlism.
Big ol' bad government is just fine and dandy when it agrees with you.
B.S. As many KKK'rs and domestic fascists were hauled before HUAC as communists. If they became "heroes" as a result, I'm certainly unaware of it. (Although possibly they are to you?)
Next, read this little quote:
"Every true American, and that includes every Klansman, is behind you and your committee in its effort to turn the country back to the honest, freedom-loving, God-fearing American to whom it belongs."
That's from a cable from the Klan to Martin Dies, Chairman of the Committee.
You wanna keep up this charade, or should we keep going with some rather, um, charitable comments on the Klan from members of the Committee.
HUAC was formed to investigate a crime thought to have Klan ties. The focus on the Klan disappeared when favorable persons were appointed to the Committee. Oh, and they were never hauling Klansmen up there to try to get them to state their membership.
If you want to come in here calling B.S., you need to get your facts straight.
You are being very disingenous here. The Army-McCarthy hearings were an investigaton OF McCarthy. It would be more accurate to say "The American public saw Josesph Welch in action"
HUAC did vigorously investigate the Klan in the mid 60's, and I was confabulating my historical eras. Nevertheless I believe they did investigate some right-wing groups during the forties and fifties, although apparently (you again may be correct) not in the depth they did leftwing groups.
I continue to insist, however, that the argument of yours I was responding to is extremely far fetched. The right wing groups most similar to communists in terms of their antipathy to the American system of government were organizations like the German Bund or the Silver Shirts. To suggest that members of such groups, under any conceivable circumstances, would have acheived the same (or any) status of "heroism" among the right generally, as recalcitrant commies did among the left by defying HUAC, is just silly.
"...and their attatchments to hostile foreign governments or political movements," I might have added.
My point is lost in the details. This is a conservative site, supposedly. I am a little surprised by the enthusiasm for using the power of government to haul citizens into a forum and question them under penalty of imprisonment about their political affiliation and associations. While it may be distasteful to be a communist it is legal. And if the government has the power to do this to them, it can do it to you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.