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All EARS: Reagan wrote Hefner that Hollywood Òhas no blacklistÓ

From Liberal Voter To Anticommunist
	The April 1960 issue of Playboy carried an article, "The Oscar Syndrome," by Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter who had been a member of the Communist Party in the 1940s, denouncing Hollywood's blacklist. Reagan, who had known Trumbo during the communists' attempted takeover of the film-actors' union, expressed dismay over the article to a friend of Hugh Hefner's, triggering a correspondence with the Playboy publisher in which Reagan gives his thoughts on free speech and his political odyssey from New Deal Democrat to Republican.

Dear Mr. Hefner:

. . . Your letter has been very much on my mind and I question whether I can answer in a way that will make sense to you. First because I once thought exactly as you think and second because no one could have changed my thinking (and some tried). It took seven months of meeting communists and communist-influenced people across a table in almost daily sessions while pickets rioted in front of studio gates, homes were bombed and a great industry almost ground to a halt . . . Because so much doubt has been cast on "anti-communists," inspired by the radicalism of extremists who saw "Reds" under every "cause" I feel I should reveal where I have stood and now stand.

My first four votes were cast for FDR my fifth for Harry Truman. Following World War II my interest in liberalism and my fear of "neo-fascism" led to my serving on the board of directors of an organization later exposed as a "communist front" namely the "Hollywood Independent Citizens Commission of the Arts, Sciences and Professions." Incidentally Mr. Trumbo was also on that board.

Now you might ask, "who exposed this organization as a 'front'?" . . . A small group of board members disturbed by the things being done in the organization's name introduced to their fellow board members a mild statement approving our democratic system and free enterprise economy and repudiating communism as a desirable form of government for this country. The suggestion was that by adopting such a policy statement the board would reassure our membership we were liberal but not a "front" . . .

Leaders of the opposition to our statement included Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, and a number of others who have since attained some fame for their refusal to answer questions. I remember one of their group reciting the Soviet Constitution to prove--"Russia was more Democratic than the United States." Another said if America continued her imperialist policy and as a result wound up in a war with Russia he would be on the side of Russia against the United States . . .

The "seven months" of meetings I mentioned in the first paragraph or two refers to the jurisdictional strike in the motion picture business. There are volumes of documentary evidence, testimony of former communists etc. that this whole affair was under the leadership of Harry Bridges and was aimed at an ultimate organizing of everyone in the picture business within Mr. Bridges longshoreman's union. Now none of what I've said answers your argument that "freedom of speech means freedom to disagree," does it? Here begins my difficulty. How can I put down in less than "book form" the countless hours of meetings, the honest attempts at compromise, the trying to meet dishonesty, lies and cheating with conduct bound by rules of fair play? . . .

I, like you, will defend the right of any American to openly practice and preach any political philosophy from monarchy to anarchy. But this is not the case with regard to the communist. He is bound by party discipline to deny he is a communist so that he can by subversion and stealth impose on an unwilling people the rule of the International Communist Party which is in fact the government of Soviet Russia . . .

Hollywood has no blacklist. Hollywood does have a list handed to it by millions of "moviegoers" who have said "we don't want and will not pay to see pictures made by or with these people we consider traitors." On this list were many names of people we in Hollywood felt were wrongly suspect. I personally served on a committee that succeeded in clearing these people. Today any person who feels he is a victim of discrimination because of his political beliefs can avail himself of machinery to solve this problem.

I must ask you as a publisher, aside from any questions of political philosophy, should a film producer be accused of bigotry for not hiring an artist when the customers for his product have labeled the artist "poor box office," regardless of the cause? . . .

      Sincerely,
      Ronald Reagan

NEXT LETTER: Dirty Words Tell the Truth

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