“The terror is right here in this room.”
Martin Wicks
George Clooney’s Film, ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ has the feel of a
documentary. Shot in black and white, its frames saturated with cigarette
smoke, it gives a faithful representation of the 1950’s. It incorporates
historical footage from the period. The film records events without spelling
out a message in simplifying and exaggerated Hollywood style. The story
centres on the conflict between journalist Ed Murrow and the ‘star’ of the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Although HUAC is associated with the name of McCarthy, it was founded in 1937
under the chairmanship of Martin Dies, to investigative “un-American and
subversive” activities. Dies and other members of the HUAC were supporters of
the Klu Klux Klan. Dies had spoken at several of their rallies. The Klan sent
a telegram to Dies welcoming the formation of the HUAC.
“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.”
HUAC member John S Wood said of the Klan: "The threats and intimidations of
the Klan are an old American custom, like illegal whisky-making." Hardly any
wonder that demands to interrogate the leaders of the Klan were resisted.
Eventually Ernest Adamson, the HUAC's chief counsel, announced that: "The
committee has decided that it lacks sufficient data on which to base a probe."
Whilst this traditional American organisation was left to its burnings and
lynchings, the HUAC concentrated its attention on left wing radicals.
In 1940 the passing of the Smith Act (Alien Registration Act) helped to create
an anti-communist hysteria. The Act made it illegal for anyone in the United
States to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the
government, ironic given the revolutionary origins of the USA. The law also
required all alien residents in the United States over 14 years of age to file
a comprehensive statement of their personal and occupational status and a
record of their political beliefs. Within four months a total of 4,741,971
‘aliens’ had been registered.
The Act was first used against the Socialist Workers Party, whose leaders were
imprisoned under it. It was used again in 1948 against leaders of the
Communist Party who were imprisoned for 5 years. One of the tactics of the
prosecution was to ask questions about other party members. For refusal to
discuss other members the defendants were thrown into gaol for contempt of
court.
The idea that these organisations were planning to overthrow the government of
the United States was absurd. Essentially they were persecuted because their
political programmes were said to violate the Constitution.
The Hollywood Blacklist
In 1947 the HUAC began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture
Industry. In September 1947, the HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working
in Hollywood. These people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly
witnesses". During their interviews they named several people who they accused
of holding left-wing views.
Bertolt Brecht, the emigrant German playwright, gave evidence and then left
for East Germany. Ten others, known as the Hollywood Ten - Herbert Biberman,
Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz, Dalton Trumbo, Edward
Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Junior, John Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie - refused to
answer any questions. They were all were found guilty of contempt of congress
and each was sentenced to between six and twelve months in prison.
As a result of these hearings 320 people were placed on a Holywood blacklist
which prevented them from working in the industry. Anybody who refused to
‘name names’ suffered this fate. You did not have to have any connection with
the Communist Party or left wing organisations to face dire consequences. You
merely had to be at the wrong party with the wrong people, years before, to be
implicated. McCarthy was fed material by Edgar Hoover’s FBI which was used as
‘evidence’ in the HUAC hearings. Many people did not work for years, or had to
produce work by subterfuge. There was an exodus of people like the film maker
Joseph Losey and musician Larry Adler who came to Britain.
Arthur Miller, who wrote the play the Crucible as a kind of parable about the
McCarthyite witch-hunt, wrote of the period:
“It was not only the rise of “McCarthyism” that moved me, but something that
seemed more weird and mysterious. It was the fact that a political, objective,
knowledgeable campaign from the far right was capable of creating not only a
terror, but a new subjective reality, a veritable mystique which was gradually
assuming even a holy resonance. The wonder of it all struck me that so
practical and picayune a course, carried forward by such manifestly ridiculous
men, should be capable of paralysing thought itself, and worse, and of causing
to billow up such persuasive clouds of “mysterious” feelings within people. It
was as if the whole country had been born anew, without a memory even of
certain elemental decencies which, a year or two earlier no one would have
imagined could be altered, let alone forgotten. Astounded I watched men pass
me by without a nod whom I had known rather well for years; and again the
astonishment was produced by my knowledge, which I could not give up, but the
terror in these people was being knowingly planned and consciously engineered,
and yet all they knew was terror.”
Witch-hunt in the labour movement
The witch-hunt did not just affect literary/artistic circles, of course. It
was widespread, heavily impacting of union activists who were often
witch-hunted not just by the state but by the anti-communist leaderships of
the trades unions. In 1949 ‘communist dominated’ unions, with a membership of
1 million, were expelled from the CIO union federation. The UE (United
Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America), an independent union
outside the AFL-CIO, which actually left before it was expelled, records that:
“Following the war, disagreements with the CIO leadership over the direction of the labor movement led to UE's withdrawal from the CIO in 1949; within months, a CIO convention "expelled" UE and 10 other unions with a total member of one million workers. The CIO joined big business, the press and politicians in smearing UE as "communist-dominated;" the CIO chartered a new union (IUE) to take the union's place.
UE came under ferocious attack as the anti-communist hysteria intensified in the early 1950s. Attempts were made to officially brand the union as a "subversive organization" and to deport UE leader James Matles. UE shop leaders were fired and blacklisted, even jailed. Politicians, big business and the CIO worked closely together to destabilize UE; the union lost more than half its members.”
There were thousands upon thousands of personal tragedies as people lost their
jobs, their livelihoods, and in some cases their lives.
The case of Milo Radulovich
The film’s story begins with Murrow’s team considering whether to run with a
programme on Milo Radulovich, a Lieutenant who was thrown out of the Air Force
Reserve owing to the supposedly radical views of his father and sister. He was
told if he repudiated them he might get his commission back, but he refused.
The TV programme caused such an outcry that Radulovich was reinstated.
Emboldened by this success, Murrow and his team decided to attack the high
priest of HUAC, Senator McCarthy. The President of CBS eventually agreed to
screen the programme, though Murrow and the Producer of his programme Fred
Friendly had to stump up the $3,000 advertising revenue lost as a result of
the refusal of the corporate backers of the programme to be associated with an
attack on McCarthy.
Murrow was told to drop anybody from his team who might have something in
their past which McCarthy and his friends could pick up on. One of Murrow’s
team offers to resign, but he is told not to. Joe Werschba, a member of the
team records that:
“When we looked at the near-final cut of the McCarthy broadcast and the staff
showed fear of putting it on the air, Murrow spoke a line that landed like a
lash across our backs: "The terror is right here in this room." And later: "No
one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices." When
someone asked what he would say on the McCarthy broadcast, he replied, "If
none of us ever read a book that was 'dangerous,' nor had a friend who was
'different,' or never joined an organization that advocated 'change,' we would
all be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants."
Murrow condemned McCarthy:
"The line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the
junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. We will not be
driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history
and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not
men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which
were for the moment unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator
McCarthy's methods to keep silent. We can deny our heritage and our history,
but we cannot escape responsibility for the result."
When the broadcast went out, there was a flood of supportive calls to CBS -
12,348 people phoned in comments about it, with a fifteen to one majority in
Murrow's favour. The sponsors also reported receiving over 4,000 letters, with
the vast majority supporting Murrow's stance. This did not stop the McCarthy
crowd attempting to smear Murrow, but the tide was already turning against the
witch-hunt which carried his name. The following morning the New York Times
claimed that with the programme, "broadcasting recaptured its soul".
But the witch-hunt wasn’t over yet. When the See It Now programme ended on 9th
March, Don Hollenbeck, came on the air with the regular 11.00 p.m. news and
said: "I want to associate myself with every word just spoken by Ed Murrow."
Hollenbeck was denounced in the pro-McCarthy press as a communist. After three
months of smears, Hollenbeck, unable to take the strain, committed suicide.
Murrow offered McCarthy the right of reply. When he did, instead of dealing
with the issues raised by Murrow he simply denounced him, calling him the
“leader of the jackal pack”. Murrow, said McCarthy, had been a member of the
‘terrorist’ organisation the IWW (the International Workers of the World or
Wobblies), and had links with ‘communist’ organisations. It was not a credible
performance.
McCarthy was a hypocrite and a fraud. He was originally a supporter of
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. However, after failing to become the
Democratic Party candidate for district attorney, he switched parties and
became the Republican Party candidate in an election to become a circuit court
judge. McCarthy shocked local officials by fighting a dirty campaign. This
included publishing campaign literature that suggested that Werner was senile
as well as guilty of financial corruption.
When the United States entered the Second Word War McCarthy resigned as a
circuit judge and joined the Marines. After the war McCarthy ran against
Robert La Follette to become Republican candidate for the senate. As one of
his biographers has pointed out, his campaign posters pictured him in "full
fighting gear, with an aviator's cap, and belt upon belt of machine gun
ammunition wrapped around his bulky torso." He claimed he had completed
thirty-two missions when in fact he had a desk job and only flew in training
exercises.
A mythical war record
In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the
war. He had been forty-six when Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and was in fact
too old to join the armed services. McCarthy also claimed that La Follette had
made huge profits from his investments while he (McCarthy) had been away
‘fighting’ for his country. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of
war profiteering (his investments had in fact been in a radio station), was
deeply damaging and McCarthy won by 207,935 to 202,557. La Follette, deeply
hurt by the false claims made against him, retired from politics, and later
committed suicide.
On his first day in the Senate, McCarthy called a press conference where he
proposed a novel solution to a coal-strike that was taking place at the time.
McCarthy called for John L. Lewis and the striking miners to be drafted into
the Army. If the men still refused to mine the coal, McCarthy suggested they
should be court-martialed for insubordination and shot.
McCarthy's first years in the Senate were unimpressive. People also started
coming forward claiming that he had lied about his war record. He was also
being investigated for tax offences and for taking bribes from the Pepsi-Cola
Company. In May, 1950, afraid that he would be defeated in the next election,
McCarthy held a meeting with some of his closest advisers and asked for
suggestions on how he could retain his seat. Edmund Walsh, a Roman Catholics
priest, came up with the idea that he should begin a campaign against
communist subversives working in the Democratic administration.
Murrow’s programme on McCarthy was a turning point. But Murrow did not defeat
McCarthy single handed. Wide sections of American society were sick to death
with the atmosphere of fear. Moreover, McCarthy’s arrogance was unbounded. Not
used to be challenged by people who were fearful of the consequences, his wild
accusations were directed at the Democratic Party which he denounced as being
‘soft’ on communism. In a 1950 speech he said:
“The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because
the enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the
traitorous actions of those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest
nation on earth has had to offer - the finest homes, the finest college
educations, and the finest jobs in Government we can give.
While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who
have been named as members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205
that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist
Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the
State Department.”
McCarthy's next target was “anti-American” books in libraries. His researchers
looked into the Overseas Library Program and discovered 30,000 books by
"communists, pro-communists, former communists and anti anti-communists."
After the publication of this list, these books were removed from the library
shelves.
Anybody who did not support the HUAC was deemed to be ‘defending the communists’. Truman was portrayed as a dangerous liberal and McCarthy's campaign helped the Republican candidate, Dwight Eisenhower to win the presidential election in 1952.
In October, 1953, McCarthy began investigating ‘communist infiltration’ into
the military. Attempts were made to discredit Robert Stevens, the Secretary of
the Army. The President, Dwight Eisenhower, was furious and began moves to
undermine McCarthy. The United States Army passed information about him to
journalists who were known to be opposed to him. This included the news that
McCarthy and Roy Cohn had abused congressional privilege by trying to prevent
David Schine from being drafted. When that failed, it was claimed that Cohn
tried to pressurize the Army into granting Schine special privileges. Drew
Pearson published the story on 15th December, 1953.
McCarthy attacks the wrong targets
Whilst the US rulers were not worried about the consequences of the witch-hunt
for ordinary people, McCarthy would not be allowed to take on the upper
echelons of the ruling elite. Five days before Murrow’s programme, under
instruction from Eisenhower, Vice President Richard Nixon, made a speech
attacking McCarthy (not by name, but the target was clear).
"Men who have in the past done effective work exposing Communists in this
country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the
issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply."
This was the context in which Murrow’s programme was screened on March 9th
1954.
McCarthy's eventual fall from grace came as a result of the televised senate
investigations into the United States Army. Leading politicians in both
parties were embarrassed by McCarthy's hysterical performance and on 2nd
December, 1954, a censure motion condemned his conduct by 67 votes to 22. He
lost the chairmanship of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate.
He was now without a power base and the media lost interest in his claims of a
communist conspiracy. As one journalist Willard Edwards pointed out: "Most
reporters just refused to file McCarthy stories. And most papers would not
have printed them anyway."
“Fat, comfortable and complacent”
The film begins and ends with a speech of Murrows to the Radio and Television
Directors’ Association. He committed the sin of lecturing them on the dangers
of TV being, as would be said today, dumbed down. He accused them of being
"fat, comfortable, and complacent" and television for "being used to detract,
delude, amuse and insulate us."
In the film Murrow is shown interviewing Liberace, discussing the improbable
prospect of finding the woman of his dreams. Ray Strathairn, with the merest
raising of his eye brows gives us a look which asks, ‘what am I doing this
rubbish for?’ The withdrawal of Murrow’s programme was a straw in the wind so
far as the direction of US TV was concerned. His critical comments came back
to bite him. His programme was replaced by a game show, ‘The $64,000 dollar
question’.
‘Good Night and Good Luck’ provides a snapshot of McCarthyism. At 90 minutes
long this in inevitable. It would have needed double the time to give a deeper
historical context. George Clooney has been criticised for suggesting that
there are parallels between the McCarthy period and Bush’s America. It is
certainly true that the witch-hunt of the McCarthy period was much deeper than
the current one. However, if you are of Arab or Muslim origin in the USA, then
the impact on you would be much greater than the rest of the population.
The film does not turn Murrow into a saint. It shows that he signed the
‘loyalty oath’ which CBS introduced, like many other companies, to show their
fealty to the anti-communist campaign. What the films shows, however, and this
is relevant for today’s situation, is that innocent people were persecuted and
hounded, on the basis of innuendo and fabrications. So deep was the paranoia
that many people were desperate to prove their loyalty, though guilty of
nothing. Such a mentality continues to this day. Clooney rightly excoriates
the Democrats who say they were ‘misled’ over WMD. As he points out they
supported the war on Iraq because they were desperate not to be faced with the
charge of being ‘un-American’ and lacking in ‘patriotism’. Bush told us all,
“you are either with us or with the terrorists”. McCarthy told people dragged
before the HUAC, if you don’t name names you are against us; you are with the
HUAC or against it. ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ is a film well worth seeing and
may well motivate people who are not acquainted with McCarthyism to look at
the rich literature about it.
To read about McCarthyism go to:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm
To listen to a Murrow broadcast on McCarthy and a broadcast from Buchenwald
concentration camp go to:
http://www.otr.com/murrow.html
May 2006
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