Citizen Rauh: An American Liberal's Life in Law and Politics

9. Naming Names

chapter nine NAMING NAMES Are you now, or have you ever been . . . —house committee on un-american activities HUAC Lillian Hellman refused to talk about other people’s politics or activities. But the thought of going to jail terri‹ed her. Dashiell Hammett, her longtime companion and lover, had barely survived a prison term. She also hated taking the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and enduring the label of “Fifth Amendment Communist.” Arthur Miller had no fear of congressional investigators, but he wanted to protect his ‹ancée from swarms of reporters in Washington. John Watkins never wrote an acclaimed drama or won the Pulitzer Prize. But as a veteran of the depression-era labor wars at International Harvester, he became a brave man when faced with inquisitors on the House Committee on Un-American Activities who liked to ask witnesses: “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” As their lawyer, Joe Rauh quickly discovered that the defense of civil liberties in the fetid climate of the Cold War required more than attacking anonymous character assassins, the loyalty-security apparatus, or the oppressive behavior of grand juries. One had to confront the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its director, J. Edgar Hoover, as well as Congress, its investigative machinery, and powerful politicians such as Joseph McCarthy and Pat McCarran. Few attorneys in Washington had the courage or stamina for confrontations of that magnitude in the heat of the domestic Red Scare. Chief among the congressional investigative committees stood Martin Dies’s old entity, now rechristened the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). In 1945 it became a standing committee endowed with 107 broad subpoena powers and the only permanent investigative body in that chamber charged with uncovering “the extent, character and object of unAmerican propaganda activities in the United States.” Armed with the threat of sending witnesses to prison for contempt, HUAC’s long-running probe into domestic Communism brought Rauh two of his most famous clients— Hellman and Miller—and one of his greatest triumphs in the Supreme Court when he represented Watkins. He also suffered through the ordeal of a close friend, Jimmy Wechsler, the New York Post columnist, whose hatred for Senator McCarthy’s methods led him into a disastrous confrontation with the junior senator from Wisconsin. Near the end of February 1952, the House Un-American Activities Committee served a subpoena on Hellman, the distinguished dramatist and screenwriter whose works included The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, and Watch on the Rhine, the latter among the most powerful antifascist plays produced during World War II. With Hellman and others in the witness chair, HUAC hoped to launch the second wave of its assault on Communist in›uence in the nation’s entertainment industry, speci‹cally Hollywood. The ‹rst round in 1947 brought the committee into sharp con›ict with some of the motion picture industry’s leading Communist Party members and fellow travelers. The so-called Hollywood Ten, including John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, and Ring Lardner Jr., de‹ed the committee, refused to answer questions on grounds of the First Amendment, and went to prison for contempt when courts rejected their constitutional claims of privilege. During and after the Hollywood Ten hearings and trials, many actors, directors , and screenwriters bowed to HUAC’s interrogations and agreed to “name names” by identifying friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who had either supported the party or become active members. Others found safety in the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer such questions on grounds of self-incrimination. They quickly earned the label “Fifth Amendment Communists .” The major studio executives at ‹rst declared they would not be “swamped by hysteria or intimidated from any source,” but they soon ‹red the Hollywood Ten, af‹rmed their opposition to hiring Reds, and promulgated a new morals clause in all contracts that permitted them to ‹re any employee whose behavior, including political conduct, embarrassed the studios.1 Hellman, outspoken and de‹antly left-wing, presented a tempting target for the Red-hunters on HUAC. Since the 1930s she had been to Spain in support of the republic, traveled to the Soviet Union during the war, sponsored the Waldorf Conference for World Peace, interviewed Yugoslavia leader Tito in Belgrade, contributed to the Moscow Art Theater, and cam108 citizen rauh paigned in 1948 for Henry Wallace. Throughout these times, she had lived with Hammett...