Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition : An Oral History [Paperback]

Griffin Fariello (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996

This remarkable document of an era that permanently changed the American political landscape offers firsthand accounts of the 20 years of anti-Communist repression instigated by the U.S. Government in 1947, during which millions of Americans were investigated. Arthur Miller, Alger Hiss, and Pete Seeger join more than 60 others to reveal how the hunt for the "disloyal" penetrated every rank of American life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Red Scare is a vivid oral history of a time when subscribers to the Nation, devotees of foreign films, and even those who supported Franklin Roosevelt's fourth term came under suspicion of being Communists or fellow travelers, a time that Griffin Fariello likens to the Inquisition. The author talks with sources such as retired FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, who ferreted out suspected Reds in Chicago for nearly two decades; Harvey Matusow, a Communist who worked as a paid government informant; and blacklisted filmmaker Edward Dmytryk, who went on to direct Raintree County and The Caine Mutiny after enduring a government campaign of harassment.

From Publishers Weekly

Fariello exhumes the legacies of Senator Joseph McCarthy and company in an oral history in which people from both sides of the Communist witch-hunt offer their recollections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 575 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books (P) (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380727110
• ISBN-13: 978-0380727117
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,463,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars IN THE TIME OF THE THE AMERICAN INQUISITION, October 25, 2006

By 

Alfred Johnson (boston, ma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition (Hardcover)

I have always been intrigued by the American Communist Party's ability up until the period of the "red scare" of the late 1940's and the 1950's to draw to and recruit a relatively large number of free-lance intellectuals and cultural workers. Whether the party could keep them over the long haul is a separate question. However, if one was to draw up a Who's Who of those members of the American intelligentsia who passed through the party's orbit during the first half of the 20th century one would find numbers far greater than would be indicated by the party's actual influence in American politics. The Red Scare obliterated that connection between the intellectuals and the working class and that connection has never been put back together in any radical form to this day. Left-wing politic life in particular, and political life in general, has suffered as a result. Here's the story, in their own voices, of a cross-section of those intellectuals, cultural workers, organizers and ordinary rank and file workers who got crushed by the juggernaut of the red scare-and it ain't pretty.

At the time of publication the book under review Mr. Fariello simply believed that he was unearthing a period in American history, the Red Scare of the late 1940's and 1950's, that had either been conveniently forgotten, dismissed as an important but episodic blemish on American democracy or had been reduced to the ` sound bite' ravings of one man-Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Reading this book in the post 9/11 anti- Islamic, anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner period in America made me realize that the author had rendered much more than a historical narrative of a particularly disturbing period. He has presented, in the form of interviews of the participants on both sides of the issue, a collectively compelling story that parallels the anxieties and fears of contemporary America. Despite differences of time, place and target it is hard to argue against the proposition that there is something endemic in the American experience that exhibits both a xenophobic and cruel streak that the rest of the world has come to fear. Make no mistake- it can and did happen here and it can happen again.

The author, painstakingly and systematically, interviewed whomever of the survivors of the red scare of the late 1940's and the 1950's, which in effect was the modern day American version of the Spanish Inquisition, that he could round up, This compilation is a grim reminder of the effective liquidation of the left-wing of the American working class and its allies in late 1940's and the 1950's. What clearly comes through after reading the interviews on both sides of the issue is that after the end of the World War II there was a serious class war going on not only in the Cold War internationally but also domestically in America - and the working class and its allies took a terrible beating. Why?

One can at least understand the motives of those who cleared out of the left-wing movement when the heat came down. One can understand, while at the same time condemning, those who sold out their friends and relatives under intense governmental pressure. One can even understand the actions of the various Roy Cohn-types looking to make a name for himself or herself or just plain make cash over the bodies of their political opponents. What is not understandable is the great mass of people who were not directly affected and who volunteered information to the government, who shunned former friends, who formed vigilante squads to root out their friends and neighbors. As that generation, my parents' generation, the ones who survived the Depression and fought World War II, dies out much ink has been spilled declaring that generation the `greatest generation'. No, a thousand times no. That generation sold its heritage out for a mess of pottage. For the most part, if they were not actively involved in the destruction of democratic rights when some people really tried to use them, they looked away while the nefarious deeds of other were being done. Read this book to find out what happened to their victims.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red Scare, April 5, 2000

By 

researcher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition : An Oral History (Hardcover)

The oral history format is vivid, personal and enormously effective. Studs Terkel's "Working" for 20 years was at the top of the genre, and now Fariello's "Red Scare", personal histories of the effects on victims and relatives of victims of the so-called "American Inquisition", moves into the finals as contender.

San Francisco is the venue for some of the personal histories, and Fariello's assertions are thus possible to check. The son of Harry Bridges was a fellow longshoreman with this reviewer, as were other children of Mr. Bridges, and Ronnie Bridges' differences with his famous, beleagured father show up in his narrative.

A footnote that Jack and Bobby Kennedy had famously vowed to "get" Harry Bridges is tempered by the photograph this reviewer took of Teddy Kennedy and Harry Bridges head to head together on the stage at a campaign rally for Teddy's Preseidential candidacy in May, 1980 a few days before the California Presidential primary.

Fariello's narrative of the quest of Morton and Helen Sobell for Morty's freedom was verified to this reviewer by Mr. Sobell himself, who loaned his copy of "Red Scare" to me two days ago, with his own annotations.

More, Mr. Fariello, please. I would suggest the late Dr. Carlton Goodlett, progressive publisher for four decades in San Francisco, whose FBI file is in the possession of this reviewer; Dr. Goodlett's son lives in Iowa.

Michael Smith, M.A.; Teacher, San Francisco Public Schools

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red Scare, April 5, 2000

By 

researcher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition : An Oral History (Hardcover)

The oral history format is vivid, personal and enormously effective. Studs Terkel's "Working" for 20 years was at the top of the genre, and now Fabriello's "Red Scare", personal histories of the effects on victims and relatives of victims of the so-called "American Inquisition", moves into the finals as contender.

San Francisco is the venue for some of the personal histories, and Fabriello's assertions are thus possible to check. The son of Harry Bridges was a fellow longshoreman with this reviewer, as were other children of Mr. Bridges, and Ronnie Bridges' differences with his famous, beleagured father show up in his narrative.

A footnote that Jack and Bobby Kennedy had famously vowed to "get" Harry Bridges is tempered by the photograph this reviewer took of Teddy Kennedy and Harry Bridges head to head together on the stage at a campaign rally for Teddy's Preseidential candidacy in May, 1980 a few days before the California Presidential primary.

Fabriello's narrative of the quest of Morton and Helen Sobell for Morty's freedom was verified to this reviewer by Mr. Sobell himself, who loaned his copy of "Red Scare" to me two days ago, with his own annotations.

More, Mr. Fabriello, please. I would suggest the late Dr. Carlton Goodlett, progressive publisher for four decades in San Francisco, whose FBI file is in the possession of this reviewer; Dr. Goodlett's son lives in Iowa.

Michael Smith, M.A.; Teacher, San Francisco Public Schools