The famous American actor, John Wayne, tried to
play down his involvement in blacklisting and the anti-Communist witch-hunts
that took place in the U.S. during the 1940s and '50s, "Red Scare." He did this when
Michael Parkinson asked him about it on his British TV show in 1974. He denied
that he'd ever blacklisted Hollywood stars or that there had been a blacklist
against 'Liberals' who were unfriendly to the House Committee on Un-American
Activities (HUAC).
Wayne played a (HUAC) investigator, in the 1952 film, Big Jim McLain. The film is rubbish; cheap anti-Communist propaganda. Wayne was a staunch supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his political persecution of people in the American film industry and elsewhere.
As far as I am aware, the American Communist Party was never banned in America, even at the height of the "red scare" and McCarthy, never found one communist spy. McCarthy's chief red baiter and chief counsel, was the lawyer Roy Cohn, who had prosecuted the Soviet spies Julias and Ethel Rosenberg who went to the electric chair. McCarthy and Cohn also persecuted homosexuals who were government employees.
In April 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower, had signed an executive order banning homosexuals from working for the federal government as they were seen as a security risk. This became known as the "Lavender Scare." Although it was claimed that Roy Cohn was gay, something that he denied, both McCarthy and Cohn, rooted out closet homosexuals working for the government. According to Cohn's cousin, David L Marcus, many Federal employees in Washington D.C. who were outed by Cohn and McCarthy and lost their jobs, committed suicide.
As a New York lawyer, Roy Cohn, had represented Donald Trump and even Mafia figures like John Gotti and Carmine Galante. Another of his clients was Aristotle Onassis and Rupert Murdoch. He referred to Donald Trump as his best friend and was something of a mentor to him. Roy Cohn was also closely acquainted with Nancy Regan, the former CIA director William Casey and J. Edgar Hoover, of the FBI.
Despite having friends in high places, in 1986, Cohn was disbarred by the New York State Supreme Court for unethical and unprofessional conduct. He'd been accused of misappropriation of clients' funds, falsifying a change to a will and lying on a bar application. He died in August 1986 of Aids at the age of 59. After his death, the IRS, seized almost everything that had belonged to Roy Cohn.
It was rumoured that Joseph Stalin had ordered the murder of John Wayne but if this is true, it's very surprising that he lived for as long as he did. Usually, if Stalin ordered your assassination you finished up dead. Stalin possibly murdered more communists than Hitler and he even deported German communists back to Germany. He certainly liquidated many of the old Bolsheviks.
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1 comment:
JW as you say was a rabid anti-progressive. I have seen the Parkinson interview and his response to the questions posed was an incoherent ramble. It alway struck me that the onset of " McCarthyism" was motivated by the huge respect conveyed to the Red Army, who essentially won the second world war, from those who were engaged in the struggle against the Nazi's. This admiration for what the RA had done, struck fear into the Western political establishments, who envisaged possible rebellion from their own populace. It is of little surprise that the American establishment was so hostile, given that in the New Deal election of the 1930's, over one million people voted for openly socialist and communist parties.
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