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Reporting The Blacklist: Anti-Communist Challenges To Elizabeth Poe Kerby

2008; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439680802077139

1465-3451

Larry Ceplair,

American Political and Social Dynamics

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Notes 1. For the civil rights movement, see Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: the press, the civil rights struggle, and the awakening of a nation (Knopf, 2006); for McCarthy, see Edwin R. Bayley, Joe McCarthy and the Press (University of Wisconsin Press, 1981); and Edward Alwood, Dark Days in the Newsroom: McCarthyism aimed at the press (Temple University Press, 2007). 2. An oral history interview by me is available through the UCLA Oral History Program. Her papers are located at the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA (henceforth cited as EPKP). 3. Philip P. Kerby (1911–1993), oral history transcript (1973), UCLA University Archives, Record Series 507, Oral History Program, unfinished transcripts and audio tapes, box 23, 174–75. His papers are deposited at the Special Collections Library, UCLA. 4. Frontier, November 15, 1949. 5. Kerby, oral history, 62–67. 6. Phil Kerby, Hollywood Blacklist, Frontier, 3(9) (July 1952), 5–7. A slightly different version, The Legion Blacklist, appeared in The New Republic, 126 (June 16, 1952), 14–15. Selena Royle, I Was Accused, Frontier, 3(10) (August 1952), 5–8. Royle had been listed in Red Channels, along with 150 other ‘subversives’ by the smear-and-clear organization, American Business Consultants. 7. Elizabeth Kerby, Violence in Silver City: Who Caused the Trouble?, Frontier, 4(7) (May 1953), 5–10. She documented the history of the film company there, and she concluded that it was a series of red-baiting speeches by Congressman Donald Jackson (R-California) that had precipitated the violence. 8. Quoted in Larry Ceplair, The Marxist and the Movies: a biography of Paul Jarrico (University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 163–164. 9. Elizabeth Poe, The Hollywood Story, Frontier, 5(7) (May 1954), 6–25. 10. A Nebraskan, Brewer had been an organizer for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) since 1927 and had worked to help elect the state's progressive senator, George Norris. In 1945, he had been sent to Hollywood, as the IATSE's International Representative, to defeat the efforts of a rival union, the Conference of Studio Unions. He decided, on his arrival, that the Conference was a tool of the Communist Party, and he became the truest-believing anti-Communist in the movie industry. 11. Variety (daily), March 5, 1954, 1 and 12. 12. The Fund for the Republic had been created by the Ford Foundation in December 1952. Hutchins, who had been an associate director of the Foundation, had been appointed the Fund's president in 1954. Previously, he had been dean of the Yale Law School and president of the University of Chicago. Available online at: 13. Elizabeth Poe Kerby to Robert Hutchins, September 11 and 28, 1954, EPKP. 14. Rodger Van Allen, The Commonweal and American Catholicism: the magazine, the movement, the meaning (Fortress Press, 1974), 111; John Cogley, A Canterbury Tale: experiences and reflections, 1916–1976 (Seabury Press, 1976), 54. 15. John Cogley, Campus Communism, Commonweal, 58 (May 15, 1953), 155–56. 16. Cogley, A Canterbury Tale, 55. For Harrington, see Maurice Isserman, The Other American: the life of Michael Harrington (Public Affairs, 2000). Kerby is not mentioned in this book, nor does Harrington mention her in the brief account he gives of this period in his Fragments of the Century: a serial autobiography (Saturday Review Press/E. P. Dutton, 1973), 84–86. 17. Michael Harrington, Rights of the Guilty, Commonweal, 58 (August 7, 1953), 435–437. 18. Statement by John Cogley on the Employment of Paul Jacobs, September 10, 1956, Fund for the Republic Collection, box 48, folder 12, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University; Preliminary Survey of Hollywood Project, n.d., ibid., box 85, folder 12, [17]. (Hereafter cited as FFRC.) 19. Paul Jacobs, Is Curly Jewish?: a political self-portrait illuminating three turbulent decades of social revolt, 1935–1965 (Atheneum, 1965), 162. 20. When I approached Mont, in 1978, for an interview regarding the blacklist, he told me that I would first have to provide him with a notarized affidavit denying that I, or any member of my family, had any association of any kind with Communists or communist organizations. 21. Background History of the Hiring of Paul Jacobs, FFRC, box 48, folder 12; Statement by John Cogley on the Employment of Paul Jacobs, loc. cit. 22. Jacobs, Is Curly Jewish?, 216. 23. Elizabeth Poe Kerby to John Cogley, October 14, 1954, EPKP. 24. Jacobs, Is Curly Jewish?, 216. 25. Preliminary Survey, 6, 8, 9. 26. Hallock Hoffman, HH Trip File, December 29, 1954; Hoffman to Robert Hutchins, December 30, 1954, EPKP. 27. Phil Kerby later said that he and his wife distrusted the judgment of the people at the Fund. ‘They couldn’t believe what was going on’ and ‘they wanted to be so pure … to convince the public that they knew Communists were hateful, mysterious, terrible people, and that they didn’t have any truck with Communism.’ Phil Kerby, oral history, 180. 28. Elizabeth Poe Kerby to Robert Hutchins, n.d., EPKP. 29. John Cogley to Elizabeth Poe Kerby, January 5, 1955, EPKP. 30. Elizabeth Poe Kerby to Robert Hutchins, February 14, 1956, EPKP. 31. Michael Harrington, Fragments of the Century, 85. 32. The basis of those rumors was the case of Sidney Buchman, who had refused to use the Fifth Amendment during his appearance before the Committee on Un-American Activities. But just before he did so, one of the Committee members left the hearing room, leaving behind only one member. When Buchman's case for contempt was litigated, the judge ruled that the contempt citation was not valid, and Buchman received only a fine and a suspended sentence. 33. Elizabeth Poe Kerby to John Cogley, May 30, 1955; Cogley to Kerby, August 18, 1955; Kerby to Cogley, September 8, 1955, EPKP. 34. John Cogley to Elizabeth Poe Kerby, September 26, 1955, December 6, 1955, EPKP. 35. Cogley, A Canterbury Tale, 59. 36. Elizabeth Poe Kerby to Robert Hutchins, February 14, 1956; Kerby to John Cogley, February 15, 1956, EPKP. 37. John Cogley to Elizabeth Poe Kerby, February 21, 1956; Kerby to Cogley, February 24, 1956, EPKP. Cogley replied that he did not see how honor bound her to silence and again urged her to feel free to criticize the report. February 27, 1956, EPKP. 38. Cogley, Report on Blacklisting, v. 39. Preliminary Survey, 1–2. The ‘many people,’ it turned out, were ‘various members of the anti-Communist Motion Picture Association for the Preservation of American Ideals,’ in particular actor Adolphe Menjou, who had been one of the most strident friendly witnesses at the October 1947 hearings. Ibid., 3. My research has uncovered only anecdotal statements by a few anti-Communists. In addition, only one blacklisted industry employee, Sidney Buchman, had a position in which he could influence hiring and firing decisions, but his boss, Harry Cohn, always had the final say. 40. Preliminary Survey, x, 32–33, 45, 53. 41. Cogley, A Canterbury Tale, 60; Sidney Hook, Wanted, An Ethics of Employment for Our Time, New York Times Book Review, July 22, 1956, 6. 42. New York Times, July 8, 1956, 24. 43. Jacobs, Is Curly Jewish?, 230; Los Angeles Examiner, July 11, 1956, 4. 44. Cogley testimony, United States, Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of So-Called ‘Blacklisting’ in Entertainment Industry—Report of the Fund for the Republic, Inc.—Part I, 84th Congress, 2nd Session, July 10 and 11, 1956 (United States Government Printing Office, 1956), 5218–5219. 45. Woltman testimony, ibid., 5242, 5244. The encounter with Cogley occurred at a press conference, where 20 journalists had quizzed Hutchins about the Fund. New York Times, November 8, 1955, 34; Milton Mayer, Robert Maynard Hutchins: a memoir (University of California Press, 1993, 445. Cogley immediately sent a telegram to Frank Kelly, the Fund's vice-president, stating: ‘There is nothing in my background that would make such a statement [about why I hired Kerby] credible. I would be particularly stupid if I were to make such a statement to so famous an anti-Communist as Mr. Woltman.’ Cogley to Kelly, July 12, 1956, FFR Papers, box 48, folder 3. 46. Investigation of So-Called ‘Blacklisting’ Part II, July 12 and 13, 5321. 47. Ibid., Part III, July 17 and 18, 5389. The questioning of the last two witnesses, Gale Sondergaard and Jack Gilford, was designed not to elicit any facts about the existence of a blacklist, but to get them to admit that they were Communists. 48. The sensationalist Hearst newspaper, the Los Angeles Examiner, ran a picture of Kerby next to a story titled ‘L.A. Republic Fund Aide Called Pro-Red,’ and it printed her statement. July 12, 1956, 3–4. The Los Angeles Times composed a more moderate title: ‘L.A. Woman Cited at Quiz into Blacklisting Report,’ July 12, 1956, 2 and 11. It also printed her statement. 49. Telegram from Hallock Hoffman to Frank Kelly, regarding copy of Fund for the Republic press release, July 12, 1956, FFRC, Box 48, Folder 3. 50. Enclosed with press release from Frank K. Kelly, vice-president of the Fund for the Republic, May 27, 1957, FFRC, Box 47, Folder 9; John Cogley to Elizabeth Poe Kerby, May 6, 1957, EPKP. 51. Elizabeth Poe Kerby to John Cogley, May 9, 1957; Kerby to Robert Hutchins, May 9, 1957; Hutchins to Kerby, May 10, 1957, EPKP. 52. John Cogley to Elizabeth Poe Kerby, May 10, 1957; Kerby to Cogley, May 13, 1957, EPKP. 53. Prior to becoming a mother, she wrote: Credits and Oscars, The Nation (March 30, 1957), 267–69; Blacklisting and Censorship in Motion Pictures, Mass Media (July 1959), 14–18; Movie Blacklist: A New Attack on an Old Evil, Frontier, 12(4) (February 1961), 10–12. After the birth of her son, she wrote two articles about the only successful suit against blacklisting: The Ordeal of John Henry Faulk, Frontier, 13(4) (February 1965), 18–19; Faulk Blacklist Case: More and Less to It, Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1975, II(7). Frontier was absorbed by The Nation, in February 1967, and Phil Kerby joined the editorial staff of the Los Angeles Times. He won a Pulitzer prize in 1976, for his editorials on government secrecy and judicial censorship. 54. Elizabeth Poe Kerby, Oral History interview conducted by Larry Ceplair, 2001, UCLA Oral History Program. It has not yet been printed, but when it is, it will be available in the Special Collections Library, Charles E. Young Research Library.