Hollywood Traitors by Allan H. Ryskind

Author:Allan H. Ryskind [Ryskind, Allan H.; Events, Human]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621572336
Publisher: Regnery Publishing

ANTI-COMMUNIST LANDSLIDE

The election campaign was in full swing following the hearings. “COMMUNIST ISSUE SPLITS SWG” ran the banner headline in the Hollywood Reporter on November 4, just fifteen days before the election and with ballots already in the mail to the Guild’s voting members. “One group is fiercely opposed to the non-Red affidavits,” reported the Reporter, while the other “doesn’t mind non-Red pledges and is ‘against political issues that have no direct relation to writers’ problems.’” A potent slogan of the second group, it noted, was “Get the Guild Back to Writers and Writing!”16

The anti-Communist All-Guild slate repeatedly rapped the “Lester Cole faction” for refusing to say whether it would ever take the non-Red pledge. The NLRB would no longer confer any union privileges on the Guild unless its officers signed the oath, the All-Guilders pointed out, so how could the pro-Red faction guarantee protection to Guild members? To its chagrin—and great detriment—the pro-Red faction could never adequately answer the question.

On November 19, the date of the annual election, more than six hundred writers crowded into the California Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles to discover the results. The outcome: a landslide for the All-Guild slate. The All-Guilders swept fourteen of fifteen Executive Board seats, including every top position. Of 886 eligible voters, 720 had cast ballots.17

The “Marxists” and “near-Marxists,” to use Lavery’s terms, had been decisively beaten. The Screen Writer was no longer controlled by Trumbo and Kahn. Lester Cole was badly defeated in his run for a position on the Executive Board. The Guild was now in the hands of what might be called the “soft left” and Roosevelt-Truman liberals; the hard-core Reds and their allies had been swept away.

The liberal Lavery and his supporters in the Guild played an important role in the win. Behind the scenes, HUAC’s friendly witnesses Fred Niblo and Richard Macaulay proved extremely helpful as well. But the victory also belonged to the anti-Communists in the Motion Picture Alliance and the much-maligned House Un-American Activities Committee, which, through its determination to hold hearings, had exposed the heavy Red infiltration in the movie industry and compelled the soft left, the more moderate liberals, and even the producers to finally confront the Communists in their midst.

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