A Shadow of Red: Communism and the Blacklist in Radio and Television [Hardcover]

David Everitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 2007

The Cold War came to broadcasting in 1950. In that year, just as the Korean War was about to erupt, there appeared from a small publisher a booklet called Red Channels, which listed 151 suspected Communist sympathizers in broadcasting. Within months the blacklist in radio and TV began. The purge of the airwaves, distinct from the better-known blacklist in the movie industry, provoked one of the American media's great free-speech controversies. It affected scores of writers, directors, and actors, yet it was instigated by only a handful of anti-Red watchdogs—three ex-FBI agents, a former naval intelligence officer, and a grocer from Syracuse. A Shadow of Red follows the efforts of these five guardians of the broadcast media in a revealing history of the period, based on interviews, personal correspondence, FBI reports, and court transcripts. The conflict has routinely been portrayed as a simplistic morality tale of persecutors and the persecuted, the standard witch-hunt narrative of right-wing fanatics hounding political innocents whom they insisted were agents of the Communist devil. But, as David Everitt makes clear, the blacklisters, though excessive and destructive, were not deluded hunters of an imaginary menace. Their crusade is best understood as the culmination of a long-standing ideological struggle in broadcasting, in which neither side would indulge its adversaries. Ultimately the conflict would be decided in a historic and dramatic libel trial that brought all the issues, and all the old grievances, into the open. A Shadow of Red is brilliant history, a cautionary tale about civil liberties in a time of emergency, and a vivid example of the polarized political battle over who controls the media, a battle that continues to this day.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On June 27, 1962, former grocer Laurence Johnson was found dead in a cheap motel just outside New York City. His mysterious death would have been unremarkable had Johnson not been the driving force behind the rabid hunt for Communists that gripped the radio and TV industry from the late 1940s through the 1950s. In freelance writer Everitt's deeply researched, highly detailed account of this sordid episode in American history, Johnson was the leader of a cabal of committed anticommunists who sought to eliminate what they saw as undue influence by Communists or Soviet sympathizers in the New York–based broadcast media. In 1947, with Johnson's support, a trio of FBI agents published "Red Channels," a newsletter devoted to exposing what they saw as growing Communist influence in radio and later television. The newsletter evolved into a de facto blacklist—an ad hoc compendium of writers, producers and performers who due to their association, real or imagined, with left-wing causes were effectively barred from work. Everitt's narrow focus, however, makes this more for the history buff or red scare aficionado than the general reader. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Everitt has given us a thoughtful, considered look at the issue of Communism in American life . . . with fresh, illuminating insights.

(Kutler, Stanley I. )

A complex story of clashing perspectives and personalities that will provoke thoughtful reconsideration of the balance between free speech, protest, and boycott.

(Haynes, John Earl )

Absorbing history. David Everitt's well-written account offers special insights into the protagonists whose actions shaped this sordid era.

(Theoharis, Athan )

Deeply researched, highly detailed account. (Publishers Weekly )

A refreshingly objective study. . . . A highly readable chronicle of a tumultuous period during which the cause of anticommunism suffered from mistakes that clever enemies were quick to exploit. (Goulden, Joseph C. Sunday Times )

Generally excellent. (Weekly Standard )

A 'must' for any collection strong in media history or Cold War politics, especially at the college level. (Midwest Book Review )

Readable and superbly researched. (New York Sun )

The first book to deal evenhandedly with the origins and effects of the communist blacklist in American radio and television. (Cohen, Joshua Forward )

Layered and nuanced story . . . especially pertinent at a time when many of us are terrified of our own justice department again. (Smith, Dan Blue Ridge Business Journal )

Serious in intention and illuminating. (Hajdu, David Columbia Journalism Review )

An extraordinary chronicle of the blacklist era. . . . A beautifully written and moving narrative. This is a landmark work. (Marcus Letter )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee (March 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566635756
• ISBN-13: 978-1566635752
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #570,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly balanced telling of the blacklisting in radio and television after WWII and during the Korean War, February 6, 2008

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Shadow of Red: Communism and the Blacklist in Radio and Television (Hardcover)

None of us can learn all of history in detail, but we also need to learn something more about it than the one-sentence summaries of key events that we often settle for. Worse, when we are dealing with contentious and emotional issues, we tend to grab onto a very simplistic version that happens to be `safe' to hold. However, if you do try to read something in-depth about these emotional and controversial events what you are likely to pick off the shelf will be strongly biased to one or another position. That isn't necessarily bad, but it will require you to read and study multiple sources and that may require more time and energy than you care to spend on the topic.

David Everitt has written a wonderfully balanced book on the broadcast blacklists in radio and television after WWII through the $3.5 million dollar award to John Henry Faulk for libel and against Aware, Inc, Mr Vincent Hartnett, and the estate of Mr. Laurence Johnson. At that time, it was the largest libel judgment ever awarded by an American jury. The author reports the facts without feeling the need to make extraneous judgments about the people who made the events.

However, this isn't a simple indictment of the people who ran Counterattack, Red Channels, Aware, and other anti-communist media. The book is frank about their background, their sloppiness, their bullying, their mistakes, and those whom they harmed, and the few that were actually innocent and blacklisted. But this book doesn't content itself to make the easy condemnations of those like Keenan, Kirkpatrick, Bierly, and Johnson who printed and promoted the blacklists. He also faults the network executives who rarely questioned or pushed back against them. In the rare cases when some brave souls put up some resistance they usually won.

What I appreciate about this book is that Everitt also provides the facts about the very real efforts by communists to use the recording and broadcast industries and their associated unions to spread the ideology. While it was never as pervasive or as dire a threat as the alarmists claimed, it wasn't without threat either. Another aspect of this telling of the story that I really appreciated is that it provides the names of those who were actively promoting communism and the undermining of the US government, how they went about it, and some of the words they used (which have largely been swept under the rug of historical convenience). One of the wonderful examples of the connection between the American communists and Moscow was their opposition to America entering WWII. But when Hitler attacked the USSR and Stalin needed America in the war they flipped their story, songs, and advocacy without missing a beat.

This book is VERY much worth reading and I recommend it strongly.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Major Step Forward, June 12, 2007

By 

MJS "Constant Reader" (New York, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Shadow of Red: Communism and the Blacklist in Radio and Television (Hardcover)

I rank this book along with Allen Weinstein's Perjury and Sam Robert's The Brother in terms of advancing the conversation about one of the most unfortunate chapters in 20th Century American History. Weinstein and Robert ended the debate, in my mind, about "were they really spies?" and thus moved the conversation to "was the punishment justified" and "why did the hysteria build?"

In this book, Everitt traces the beginnings of Red Channels, a publication that identified people in the entertainment industry with "ties to Communist Front Organizations." For years there has been debate about where these organizations were indeed fronts, whether those named were Communist sympathesizers, or just well-meaning liberals. Everitt building on others' work settles the question of CPUSA. There was a plan and action to infiltrate or create communist front organizations with an intent to influence the messages in mass entertainment.

That doesn't mean that every participant in those organizations was a sympathsizer or even aware of the intent. But some certainly appear to be based on their willingness to accept whatever party line Stalin was touting even when it directly contradicted the previous ones. Or their gullibility in declaring the Gulags a good workplace.

Everitt handles the "blacklisters" with a similarly cold eye. He points out the sheer lack of humanity in almost every action by American Business Consultants. He does a fine job of explaining how an obscure grocer from Syracuse, NY came to hold such sway over network television and how much that grocer relished that power.

Most importantly Everitt demonstrates that the blacklist was not pervasive and all powerful. Certainly, if it cost one person their job simply for having unpopular beliefs it was too much. The question Everitt raises is: if some institutions could resist, why didn't others? For example, why did CBS (the home of Edward R. Murrow) cave in while NBC pretty much ignored Johnson and Red Channels? Why did P&G and Mark Goodson have no trouble getting the writers, performers and directors over Red Channel objections? There are numerous examples given by Everitt that shows what paper tigers Red Channels and Johnson truly were. Was it merely hysteria that made so many kowtow to them? Was it simple cowardice?

Finally, Everitt makes that case that the tendency to demonize the opposition is still alive and well on both sides of the aisle and this tendency is as dangerous today as it was in 1951.

Highly, highly recommended.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 'must' for any collection strong in media history, June 17, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Shadow of Red: Communism and the Blacklist in Radio and Television (Hardcover)

A SHADOW OF RED: COMMUNISM AND THE BLACKLIST IN RADIO AND TELEVISION tells of the arrival of the Cold War and its politics in the broadcasting world, surveying the unique circumstances of the purge of the airwaves, different from movie industry blacklisting. This approach challenged media's free speech rights and affected writers, directors, and more - yet only five anti-Red watchdogs affected the media's freedoms and rights. SHADOW OF RED follows these five and uses interviews, personal correspondence, FBI reports and more to examine blacklister history and politics. A 'must' for any collection strong in media history or Cold War politics, especially at the college level.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch