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HUAC’s targets were invariably nonconformists with a buried leftist past or a desire to upset the status quo–union leaders, actors, intellectuals, artists. These dupes, the committee proclaimed, were fellow travelers who hoped to use the entertainment industry to persuade God-fearing American citizens to love Joe Stalin (one of HUAC’s first targets in 1938 was ten-year-old Shirley Temple).
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It gets worse. Elia Kazan receives a $500,000 contract–the day after he testifies against his fellow artists. Adophe Menjou labels as “Reds” anyone who applauds Paul Robeson’s concerts of Soviet songs. In a new twist on the old “the devil made me do it” excuse, Sterling Hayden (Peter Brown) blames his shrink for the treachery he commits. And the mentally unstable Martin Berkeley fingers 163 people in a virtual orgy of scapegoating.
