The Black List

HUAC 1950 - W's Blueprint?

Because of the death of Arthur Miller, PBS replayed a great American Masters documentary last night: American Masters: Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and the Blacklist

If you don’t know much about that chapter of history, the height of the Cold War and the Red Scare (1947-1960), it is both eye opening and educational. For example, one of the “talking heads” pointed out something I found enlightening.

Elia Kazan, a very prominent progressive director, was called to testify in front of H.U.A.C. (House on Un-American Activities committee) in 1952 and “named names” of fellow Hollywood communists, who were his friends in the 1930s. In this way he was allowed to continue to work in Hollywood while the people he named were blacklisted and were not able to find work unless they too ratted out their friends. His best friend, Arthur Miller, wrote a play titled “The Crucible” in 1954 which took place in Salem, Mass during the witch hunts of the 1600s but obviously was a critique of contemporary America and probably was an accusation aimed at Kazan. Miller once loved Elia like a brother but, after Kazan’s testimony, they did not even speak for the decade that followed.

Arthur Miller, was called in front of the committee in 1956. At that point in time his prominence was waning (Death of a Salesman was in the 1940s) and the only reason he was targeted, besides the extreme right wing’s hatred of him, was because he was having a relationship with Marilyn Monroe. He refused to talk and was held in contempt of Congress which was later overturned on appeal. He was lionized by American intellectuals for standing up to tyranny.

What this talking head correctly pointed out is that even though the two men’s testimony was only 4 years apart the climate was radically different. By 1956 Sen. Joseph McCarthy was already disgraced and H.U.A.C.’s power was diminished. Although both people were put in the same agonizing position, and took two polar opposite courses of action, Kazan’s predicament was much more serious. To refuse would have immediately ended his film career while Miller had a lot less to lose. Remember the first recognized legitimate credit for any blacklisted writer was Dalton Trumbo for “Spartacus” and “Exodus” in 1960.

Kazan later would win academy awards for “On The Waterfront” but, from that point on, he would always be branded a traitor. Many people even consider “Waterfront’s” unequivocal triumph as a piece of propaganda which Kazan boldly justifies his own shame through the Marlon Brando character, a thinly veiled version of himself, who is a long shoreman who turns snitch against organized crime. When Kazan was given the Lifetime Achievement Oscar 50 years later there were loud protesters in the streets in front of the auditorium and many of the actors inside silently showed there disgust by not standing up and applauding when Kazan took to the podium. Miller never again achieved the earlier success of “Death of a Salesman” but his place in the American Play Write Pantheon is secured. In many respects, it was all a question of timing.


The documentary ends with a quote which summed up the film’s point and that whole chapter in the American experience beautifully. It was from Dalton Trumbo’s acceptance speech when he received the Writers Guild Laurel Award for career achievement in March of 1970. He said:

The blacklist was a time of evil. No one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil... There was bad faith and good, honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice, selflessness and opportunism, wisdom and stupidity, good and bad on both sides... It will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims. Some suffered less than others, some grew or were diminished, but in the final tally we were all victims because almost without exception each of us felt compelled to say things he did not want to say, to do things he did not want to do, to deliver and receive wounds he truly did not want to exchange. That is why none of us--right, left, or center--emerged from that long nightmare without sin.

Truly remarkable words from a person who had every right to gloat or thumb his nose at an establishment who barred him from his craft for years A man whose only crime was standing up for free speech. This could have been a beligerant “Michael Moore moment.” Instead he was pragmatic and reconcillatory, speaking with an understanding that comes from being in the eye of the storm.

He is speaking through experience and with intimate knowledge of the people involved. He went to jail for several years as part of the original “Hollywood Ten “ and I think his point was that they, “the ten,” were also flawed people. Obviously standing up to that kind of fascist shit has to be considered a good thing but no one is a saint. For example Edward Dmytryk, who was also part of “the ten,” actually went to jail for the cause and then later turned rat to get work.

But the larger impact of his words is one of reflection. What is the lesson of the black list? Is it that villains (such as H.U.A.C.) fought a hard battle for America’s soul with heroes (such as Trumbo) who, momentarily defeated in the darkest days of the early 1950s, ultimately prevailed?

Or is there a more grandiose moral in that whole episode? Could it be the observation that we, as people, are reducing complex ideas and emotions into simple concepts like good and evil, right and wrong, black hats and white hats in our quest to make sense of life? And when these simple schematas we cling to are taken to the extreme, the majority may feel superficially safer and more comfortable, but, in the process, flawed innocent people are steamrollered, forced to make painful choices and suffer immensely for no reason at all. Is the lesson of the “Red Scare” or the Salem witch trials for that matter, that ultimate truth and real justice will continue to elude us if we continue to have such a black and white philosophy?

I think Trumbo’s statement is by a man, older and nearing the end (He died in 1976) looking back at his life, career and culture with regret at the way things unnecessarily played out.

I would argue that many people, young and vibrant today, years from now are going to have the same feelings about their thoughts and actions in the situation we find ourselves in.

Sixth Army


P.S. If this period of time interests you check out: The Front (1976)

It takes place during this time and stars many actors who were actually blacklisted. The lead is played by Woody Allen in a very rare “acting only” capacity so it shows how strongly he felt about the subject.