Sounds like a good movie about some very courageous people facing the full
force of some very powerful opposition. I knew Ronald Reagan was in the pocket
of big business, but I didn't know that rat fink testified against those brave
Americans in those shameful hearings. The ILWU archivist and librarian Robin
Walker who is quoted in the article is a friend of mine. I met her in 2004 at
Heinholds First and Last Chance Saloon on the Oakland waterfront while in port
there. She's a very unique and interesting person and we developed a mutually
satisfying relationship, though I haven't spoken with her in 5 years. She has
been passionate about Union history and popular movements for longer than I've
known her.
Kelly A.
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 24, 2015, at 14:51, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
“Trumbo” movie is tangled with ILWU history
The famous Hollywood screen writer Dalton Trumbo who
is portrayed in the new film “Trumbo,” was helped by
the ILWU during a difficult time when his advocacy for working-
class politics became a dangerous liability during the Cold War.
Targeted for his views
Trumbo is played in the filmby Bryon Cranston, famous for his
award-winning role in the AMC series “Breaking Bad.” The new film explains
Trumbo’s personal commitment to working-class politics and world peace that
made him a target of anti-com-
munist witch hunters during the “Red Scare” that dominated American
politics for 15 years after WWII.
Like Harry Bridges
Like ILWU co-founder and International President Harry Bridges,
Trumbo was deeply committed to promoting social change in America. Both were
among many of their generation who drew inspiration from the Russian
revolution and American organizing efforts that helped millions of workers
and the unemployed build unions during the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
Trumbo’s passion led him to join the U.S. Communist Party for five years
beginning in 1943, believing at the time it could help bring about an alter-
native to capitalism that would make America better.
Repression after WWII.
After the war, Trumbo, Bridges and thousands of other Americans
became tangled in a web of informers, stool pigeons, politicians and
government investigators who persecuted them for supporting the Communist
Party in America – which was a seri-
ous crime punishable by imprisonment until the laws were later found
to be unconstitutional.
Refusing to inform
In 1947, Trumbo and dozens of Hollywood actors and writers were
ordered to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC). The Committee demanded witnesses to confess their Communist beliefs
and involvement, and required
them to name others who shared similar beliefs. Ten prominent screen
writers, including Trumbo refused to cooperate and became known as the
“Hollywood Ten.” Most were sent to federal prison for their refusal to “name
names.” A larger group of writers and actors cooperated with the Committee
and FBI, including actor Ronald Regan who became a lifelong FBI informant and
confidant of FBI Director, J.
Edgar Hoover.
Writing for “fronts”
In addition to facing prison terms for their beliefs, Trumbo and the
“Hollywood Ten” were fired from major studios who maintained a “blacklist” of
banned writers. But the blacklisted
writers continued producing Hollywood screenplays by using assumed
names – or asking other writers who were willing to serve as “fronts” for the
banned authors. Trumbo wrote several movies using this system, including the
Academy Award-winner “Sparticus” of 1960 which told the story of a Roman
slave revolt. Actor Kirk Douglas who played Spartacus in the film, helped
break the blacklist by identifying Trumbo as the film’s true writer.
ILWU help
It was during the difficult days of the blacklist that some of the
“Holly-
wood Ten” writers sought and received work from the ILWU.
ILWU Librarian and archivist Robin Walker says Trumbo wrote an
essay for the union, “The Everlasting Bridges Case,” which appeared in the
first edition of the ILWU Story. That essay also appears in the current
version of the same ILWU official history.
Walker says Trumbo also authored an ILWU pamphlet titled: “Harry Bridges:a
discussion of the latest effort to deport civil liberties and the rights of
American labor.”
The ILWU also helped “Hollywood Ten” screenwriter, Alvah Bessie,
who worked as Editor of the union’s
Dispatcher newspaper after he was
released from federal prison for refus-
ing to cooperate with the FBI and
HUAC.
The Bridges case
Having experienced government
repression himself, Trumbo was
well-suited to summarize the govern-
ment’s shameful attacks against Harry
Bridges in the essay he wrote for The
ILWU Story:
“For twenty-one years, Harry
Bridges, who emerged as the leader
of the new longshoremen’s union in
the strike of 1934 and remained as its
president until his retirement in 1977,
was a defendant before the courts.
He was the subject of a Congressio-
nal investigation and of two pieces of
federal legislation, one of which was
enacted into law. He underwent two
deportation hearings, and a denatu-
ralization proceeding and twice was
vindicated in other actions before the
Supreme Court. All four prosecutions
were based on the same false charge:
his alleged Communist affiliation. He
was wrongfully convicted, illegally
imprisoned, fraudulently stripped of
his citizenship, and his attorneys sent
to jail for defending him. Not without
reason did Supreme Court Justice Mur-
phy declare at the time of Bridges first
vindication before the highest court
that, “The record in this case will stand
forever as a monument to man’s intol-
erance of man.”
The film “Trumbo” is now screen-
ing in theaters everywhere.
On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 12:22 PM, Redacted sender sblumen123 for DMARC
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Everyone
Stanley
