Dupes

by Paul Kengor

  108. Pearson, “Washington Merry-Go-Round.”

  109. “The Refugees Still Wait,” New York Times, October 5, 1947, E8.

  110. The camps were also located in Britain, Canada, Belgium, and Latin America. See “Marshall Says DP Exit Would Ease U.S.-Russian Friction in Europe,” New York Times, July 17, 1947, A6.

  111. “U.S. Opposes Soviet on the Displaced,” New York Times, November 4, 1947, A5.

  112. “Marshall Says DP Exit Would Ease U.S.-Russian Friction in Europe,” New York Times, July 17, 1947, A6.

  113. “Rosenwald Urges U.S. to Take DP's,” New York Times, May 13, 1947, A8.

  114. “Bill on Displaced Faces Stiff Fight,” New York Times, May 18, 1947, A29.

  115. “Reagan Backs Bill for DP's,” New York Times, May 8, 1947, A5.

  116. I discuss this in my book The Crusader, 14–15.

  Chapter 11: October 1947: Hollywood v. “HUAC”

  1. McCarthy was a senator and thus not a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. It is a common mistake to think otherwise.

  2. “Threaten Film Folk with Jail Terms in ‘Red’ Hunt,” Chicago Star, November 1, 1947.

  3. “Star Witnesses,” Newsweek, November 3, 1947, 23–25.

  4. Reagan, “Testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee,” October 25, 1947.

  5. Quoted by Vaughn, Ronald Reagan in Hollywood, 166.

  6. “Film Stars’ Lawyer Hits Kangaroo Court,” Daily Worker, October 24, 1947, 3. (Note: the date may have been misprinted.)

  7. “I certainly do believe that the Communist Party should be outlawed,” said Taylor. See, among others, Billingsley, Hollywood Party, p. 186.

  8. Reagan, An American Life, 115. Reagan's campaign against Communism in Hollywood has been written about at length in other sources. For my own account, see Kengor, The Crusader, 10–20.

  9. Anne Edwards gives two excellent examples of Reagan (as an actor in Hollywood) warning others about being duped. In February 1947 Reagan warned a progressive Jesuit priest, Father George H. Dunne of Loyola University in Chicago, about “being a dupe for communists.” In 1950 Reagan wrote a guest column for Victor Riesel, the labor columnist, where he warned a much larger audience. See Edwards, Early Reagan, 315–17 and 404n; and Reagan, Where's the Rest of Me? 181. Reagan himself gave examples, writing about handling “innocent dupes” in Hollywood, which he also referred to as those in the “sucker group.” See Reagan, Where's the Rest of Me? 158–59.

  10. Reagan, Where's the Rest of Me? 162.

  11. On this, Reagan cited not his own speculation but the congressional testimony of Communist director Edward Dmytryk. Reagan, Where's the Rest of Me? 163.

  12. Reagan played in two movies with Bogart in 1938 and one in 1939. See Reagan letter published in Kiron Skinner, Annelise Anderson, and Martin Anderson, eds., Reagan: A Life in Letters (New York: Free Press, 2003), 128. See also Doug McClelland, ed., Hollywood on Ronald Reagan: Friends and Enemies Discuss Our President, the Actor (Winchester, MA: Faber and Faber, 1983), 182.

  13. This was widely reported at the time, and reaffirmed to me many times in discussions I've had with Michael Reagan. On the other hand, some claim that reports of both Reagan and Ann Sheridan costarring in Casablanca was merely a studio PR trick to promote King's Row, and that, in fact, Reagan had not been offered the role. Nonetheless, reports at the time stated that the role of “Rick” was first offered to Reagan. For additional information, see Gerald Duchovnay, Humphrey Bogart: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 177, 184.

  14. Duchovnay, Humphrey Bogart: A Bio-Bibliography, 177–18.

  15. Of course, these things were arranged in part through the studios. It did not mean that Bogart was a Reagan “fan” in the sense of a run-of-the-mill fan, obviously. Nonetheless, Bogart's place in Reagan's “Fan Club” is reflective of their friendship and support of each other's careers.

  16. This information is printed on an official Reagan Fan Club document that lists honorary members, chapters from around the country, various departments within the club, and associated groups. I received this information from Ron Werntz of Freeport, Illinois, who owns an impressive collection of original Reagan memorabilia and materials from Hollywood and Dixon, Illinois. As another sign of their friendship, Reagan was present at Bogart's funeral. See Duchovnay, Humphrey Bogart: A Bio-Bibliography, 36–37.

  17. Gerald Cook, “Stars Arrive at LaGuardia on Bill-of-Rights Tour,” Daily Worker, October 30, 1947.

  18. I say there were “roughly two dozen” people who flew to Hollywood. For whatever reason, historians have differed on this point, saying anywhere from nineteen to twenty-nine people. Billingsley says nineteen. The Radoshes say twenty-nine. The Daily Worker, at the time, reported twenty-six.

  19. Radosh and Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood, 152.

  20. Quoted in, among others: Billingsley, Hollywood Party, 191; and Stephen Humphrey Bogart, Bogart: In Search of My Father (New York: Penguin, 1995), 147.

  21. Among the better summations of Bogart's character were those by Alistair Cooke and Bosley Crowther, both quoted in Duchovnay, Humphrey Bogart: A Bio-Bibliography, 22, 121–22, and 131–32.

  22. Billingsley, Hollywood Party, 192.

  23. See Lauren Bacall, By Myself (New York: Ballantine Books, 1990), 212–16. This is also the name reported by the Radoshes in Red Star Over Hollywood. Other accounts have the name listed as Star of the Red Sea, which may have been shorthanded “Red Star.” The Daily Worker reported “Star of the Red Sea.” See Cook, “Stars Arrive at LaGuardia on Bill-of-Rights Tour.”

  24. “Bogart, Bacall Lead 26 Notables,” Daily Worker, October 27, 1947.

  25. Quoted in Bacall, By Myself, 212.

  26. The Hollywood Ten included: Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo.

  27. See Paul Kengor, “Buchenwald and the Totalitarian Century,” posted at the website of the Center for Vision & Values, March 2010.

  28. “Jail for Kenny, Cite 3 Writers,” Daily Worker, October 29, 1947.

  29. Ralph Izard, “Contempt Proceedings Launched Against Lawson,” Daily Worker, October 28, 1947; and Billingsley, Hollywood Party, 193.

  30. Billingsley, Hollywood Party, 193–94, 271–79; and “Leading Books Put on Probers’ Purge List,” Daily Worker, October 29, 1947.

  31. “Jail for Kenny, Cite 3 Writers.”

  32. This has been widely reported. Among others, see Rees, World War II Behind Closed Doors, 32.

  33. “Jail for Kenny, Cite 3 Writers.” On Maltz, and, for that matter, Lawson, Trumbo, and Bessie, see Radosh and Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood, 123–35.

  34. See Wald, Trinity of Passion, 18–19.

  35. “Jail for Kenny, Cite 3 Writers.”

  36. The play was released in 1957. See Wald, Trinity of Passion, 19–20.

  37. As Ron and Allis Radosh record, “Communists were not satisfied by a defense of their political rights as American citizens; they wanted their defenders to join forces with them in the campaign against ‘incipient fascism.’” Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood, 152.

  38. Quoted in Edwards, Early Reagan, 404.

  39. For instance, the quote was carried (among others) in the October 27 and 30, 1947, editions of the Daily Worker.

  40. Jim Kepner, “Hollywood Fights Back,” Daily Worker, November 9, 1947.

  41. “Bogart, Bacall Lead 26 Notables,” Daily Worker, October 27, 1947.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ibid.

  45. “Stars Fly to Fight Probe,” Daily Worker, October 27, 1947.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Kelly said this in an interview done and broadcast by radio station WIP in Philadelphia at 10:00 PM on October 29, 1947. This was one of the stops by the traveling stars of the Committee for the First Amendment. A transcript of the broadcast was created by the Philadelphia office of the FB
I, which in turn was sent to FBI headquarters in Washington. I found the transcript in the FBI file of Humphrey Bogart. Several stars were interviewed, including Bogart, Danny Kaye, Sterling Hayden, and others.

  48. Quoted in Gladwin Hill, “Stars Fly to Fight Inquiry into Films,” New York Times, October 27, 1947.

  49. “Sen. Pepper Urges Film Stars Defy House Probe: Says Committee Helps Fascism,” Daily Worker, October 22, 1947. See also “Hollywood, B'way, Liberals Question Committee's Legality,” Daily Worker, November 2, 1947.

  50. “Sen. Pepper Urges Film Stars Defy House Probe.”

  51. Jack O'Keefe, “PCA Urges Abolition of Thomas Comm.,” PM Daily, October 27, 1947.

  52. Samuel Sillen and Louise Mitchell, “Film Snoopers Front … ,” Daily Worker, October 27, 1947.

  53. Ibid.

  54. Quoted in, among others: Jeffrey Meyers, Bogart: A Life in Hollywood (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 209.

  55. George Dixon, “Washington Scene,” Washington Times Herald, October 31, 1947.

  56. Also on the editorial board was Howard Fast. See “Fifth Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, 1949,” California Legislature, published by the California Senate, 545.

  57. Mary Spargo, “Lawson Cited in Contempt as Audience Cheers, Boos,” Washington Post, October 27, 1947; Mary Spargo, “3 More Film Writers Cited for Contempt for Defying House Quiz on Communism,” Washington Post, October 29, 1947; and “Script Writer Won't Tell If He Joined Commie Party,” Washington Daily News, October 27, 1947.

  58. Biberman was one of the Hollywood Ten.

  59. All of these individuals were sponsors of the American Peace Mobilization rally in New York City on April 5, 1941. “Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States,” Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 78th Congress, Second Session, on H. Res. 282, App. part 9, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1944), 432–33, 446.

  60. Spargo, “Lawson Cited in Contempt as Audience Cheers, Boos.”

  61. Billingsley, Hollywood Party, 193–94 and 271–79.

  62. Bacall, By Myself, 212–16.

  63. Lauren Bacall speaking in the 1997 documentary Bogart: The Untold Story, hosted by Stephen Bogart.

  64. Radosh and Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood, 161.

  65. Ibid.

  66. California Legislature, “Fourth Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, 1948, Communist Front Organizations,” California Senate, Senate Committee on Un-American Activities, 210–11, 236–38, 252–53.

  67. Reagan, Where's the Rest of Me? 200.

  68. This testimony took place in February 1948. On Gershwin and others, see “Tenney Group Bares Red Front Links Here,” Hollywood Citizen-News, February 20, 1948; and “Hot Clashes Mark Tenney Red Inquiry,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1948.

  69. These remarks from Bogart began circulating in November–December 1947. Ultimately they ran in a piece titled “I'm No Communist,” which ran in the March 1948 issue of Photoplay, 52–53, 86. Among the articles that carried some or all of these quotes, see “The Playbill: Citizen Bogart in Defense of a Principle,” New York Herald Tribune, November 23, 1947; “The Movie Hearings,” Life, November 24, 1947; and “Bogart's Regret,” Newsweek, December 15, 1947. See also Duchovnay, Humphrey Bogart:A Bio-Bibliography, 29.

  70. Ibid.

  71. Duchovnay, Humphrey Bogart: A Bio-Bibliography, 29.

  72. “Was Bogart's Face Red?” News Chronicle, December 15, 1947. See also “Bogart ȈRegrets’ His Red Protest,” UP, December 3, 1947; and “Bogart Admits He Was Foolish,” Associated Press, December 3, 1947.

  73. George E. Sokolsky, “Who Foxed Whom?” New York Sun, February 6, 1948.

  74. Some of Bogart's friends on the left called his recanting “graceless and unnecessary.” See Radosh and Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood, 162; and Duchovnay, Humphrey Bogart: A Bio-Bibliography, 29.

  75. Bogart, Bogart: In Search of My Father, 147.

  76. Quoted in Radosh and Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood, 162.

  77. David Platt, “Sorry Spearfield, Ferrer,” Daily Worker, September 25, 1951.

  78. Editorial, “Apologia,” Washington Post, December 4, 1947.

  79. See Stephen Bogart speaking in his 1997 documentary on his father, Bogart: The Untold Story.

  80. Platt, “Sorry Spearfield, Ferrer.”

  81. Dmytryk said this before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on April 25, 1951.

  82. “Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States,” Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 78th Congress, Second Session, on H. Res. 282, App. part 9, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1944), 1768–69. The report stated: “When he was a witness before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Earl Browder stated categorically that he would attempt to plunge this country into civil war in the event of a war between the United States and the Soviet Union.”

  83. The 1944 report by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which quoted Browder, Clarence Hathaway, and William Weinstone, stated that “the foregoing quotations are only a few among hundreds which might be cited from official Communist Party sources.” Ibid., 1769.

  Chapter 12: Trashing Truman: World Communism and the Cold War

  1. The dissolution of the Comintern took place on May 13, 1943, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, held in Moscow. Herb Romerstein has written about this on many occasions. See, for instance, his October 1988 paper for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the U.S. Department of State. The report was published as: Herbert Romerstein, “History of the ID [International Department],” in The International Department of the CC CPSU Under Dobrynin (U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, September 1989).

  2. On this subject, three excellent scholarly examinations were done by Mark Kramer, Herb Romerstein, and Donald E. Graves. Graves was with the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the U.S. Department of State. The three papers were presented at a conference hosted by the bureau October 18–19, 1988, and were published in International Department of the CC CPSU Under Dobrynin. Graves did the introduction to the proceedings. Kramer's analysis was titled “The New Role of the CPSU International Department in Soviet Foreign Relations and Arms Control.” Romerstein's paper was titled “History of the ID [International Department].”

  3. Discussion with Herb Romerstein, July 9, 2007.

  4. Maria Reiss also went by the names Manya Reiss and Maria Aerova. See Romerstein and Breindel, The Venona Secrets, 92–93.

  5. Discussion with Herb Romerstein, July 9, 2007.

  6. As Donald Graves described it in October 1988, “The International Department … is the successor organization to the Comintern.” Mark Kramer stated: “The International Department was founded in 1943 at roughly the same time the Comintern was abolished.… The International Department … remained in charge of relations with all Communist parties in the capitalist world and in developing countries.… Much of the economic and military aid that the Soviet Union provided to Third World clients, especially the money transferred to local Communist parties, passed directly through the International Department.” As Herb Romerstein put it: “The work of the international Soviet fronts is coordinated by the International Department.” The two major forces who spearheaded the International Department were Boris Ponomarev and Mikhail Suslov. Source: Graves, Kramer, and Romerstein, in The International Department of the CC CPSU Under Dobrynin.

  7. E-mail correspondence with Herb Romerstein, April 16, 2007.

  8. Morris Childs, the longtime number-two figure in CPUSA, revealed in great depth the extent to which the party took orders from Moscow. We know this because Childs for thirty years was a spy working for the FBI. For the definitive biographical account of Childs's incredible story, see John Barron, Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1996).


  9. Joseph Stalin was obviously expansionistic. And yet some academics dispute even this matter-of-fact issue. Those on the political Right have argued that Stalin's extension into Eastern Europe was in keeping with his goal (the Bolshevik goal) of achieving global communism. A counterview, not confined solely to Stalin apologists, maintains that Stalin took Eastern Europe because he wanted a “buffer zone” between Russia and the West; after all, the Russians had been invaded multiple times over the centuries, and as recently as the 1940s. The truth is that Stalin did want a buffer zone and that was a primary motivation for him seizing Eastern Europe. But he also wanted the region for purposes of Communist expansion. Furthermore, if Stalin wanted merely a buffer zone, he wanted a very, very deep buffer zone that also included most of Western Europe. He relished the prospect of France, Germany, and Italy going Communist. The only debate is the extent to which he was willing to use force to take these nations. He preferred they go Communist on their own, not desiring a direct military confrontation with a nuclear-armed United States, which had a monopoly on the bomb until the Soviets successfully tested in August 1949.