The Blacklist and Suspense

The blacklist era began in December 1947 when screenwriters and producers refused to answer questions at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee. It did not end until 1960, when film producer Otto Preminger stated that one of the blacklisted writers, Dalton Trumbo, would receive full screenwriting credit for the movie Exodus.

For purposes of Suspense, the blacklists began with the publication of Red Channels in June 1950. This document listed more than 100 writers, actors, producers, and directors who had potential ties to Communist organizations. Many of these actors appeared on radio. The blacklist coincided with the years Elliott Lewis was in charge of the series.

These links may be worth reviewing prior to continuing with this page.

Wikipedia Red Channels page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Channels
The Red Channels list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist#The_Red_Channels_list

There are additional resources available at the bottom of this page, some of them academic/scholarly in nature.

The John Garfield Incident

This is the most clear case of a scheduled Suspense performance being impacted by Red Channels.

Actor John Garfield died a tragic, early death at age 39. He was known for movie roles in They Made Me a Criminal, Destination Tokyo, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and his Oscar-nominated role in Body and Soul. He appeared on Suspense in 1945 (Reprieve) and in 1948 (Death Sentence) at a time of rising popularity.

He got caught up in the Communist scare in 1950, and testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He refused to name Communist party members and said he knew none in the movie industry. He was listed in Red Channels. His reputation was damaged. He did find ways to work, but not in the kind of properties that the trajectory of his career would have deserved just a few years earlier. Just prior to his death, he wrote an article “I Was a Sucker for a Left Hook,” in reference to his movies about boxing, that he was duped by communist ideas and was staunchly against them. It was too late.

Garfield died of heart problems on May 21, 1952 at age 39. Many attributed his death to the stress of his career’s challenges, especially friends who knew how troubled he was about it. He was diagnosed with heart problems a few years before, but heart imaging and diagnosis was primitive in the late 1940s compared to today’s medical technology. It was not possible to know the full extent of his problems – doctors had to make educated guesses. We will never know the exact medical cause of his demise.

CBS executives did not want Garfield to appear on their programs during the peak of his public problems. The network devised a process to approve or not approve the appearances of various categories of talent on their programs, with special concern for keeping advertisers happy that there could be no complaints from consumers about their sponsored programs.

On October 21, 1950, Garfield was scheduled to record a performance, Concerto for Killer and Eyewitnesses. This was early in the Elliott Lewis leadership of Suspense. It was four months after the publication of Red Channels.

We do not know if a Garfield’s performance ever made it to the studio for a rehearsal, and if there was ever a recording made. We just know that it was scheduled for this particular day. Most recorded drama segments were broadcast anywhere from two to four weeks later.

The Suspense announced and promoted schedule called for the season-ending performance of June 9, 1952 to be a reprise of Sorry, Wrong Number. There are many newspaper clippings that support this. Instead, later news items report that SWN would be moved to September, to start the show’s new season.

It is possible that Agnes Moorehead was not available for a June 9 performance, and that Lewis grabbed the unproduced Concerto script out of the files to fill in… or, Lewis facilitated the delay by asking Moorehead to make herself unavailable. This was an opportunity to snub his nose in CBS bureaucracy who gave his friend, John Garfield, a hard time.

The decision was not a last-minute one, as Concerto is announced at the end of the June 2 performance of A Good and Faithful Servant with Jack Benny. Therefore, the decision to schedule Concerto was made before the Servant broadcast. It is interesting that Concerto is announced at the end of the show as “a story of revenge...” and that it would star Elliott Lewis, himself. Lewis may have been holding the script for Garfield for a time when the politics of his situation might improve.

The June 9 Los Angeles Times reported that SWN was originally planned for that night, but that…

Producer-director Elliott Lewis adds a few new chores to his activities by starring in Concerto for Killer and Eyewitnesses. He’ll do the show with earphones and toss cues to actors, musicians and sound effects men besides playing his part.

We will never know the full story, but the scheduling and performance of Concerto may have served multiple purposes for Lewis, to make CBS executives uncomfortable, and to pay homage to a maligned and departed friend.

Murderous Revision: A Different Twist

Murderous Revision is the best-known Red Channels-related incident, but Howard Duff's personal life events may have affected his availability for the program anyway.

What is so curious about the case of Howard Duff and Suspense is that his non-radio career was just fine. He was getting movie parts, and working on television. His case implies that the blacklisting rules at CBS were being enforced differently than at other broadcasters and movie studios.

Duff and producer Elliott Lewis became good friends while doing work for Armed Forces Radio. When Lewis needed someone to sit in at a Suspense rehearsal, he often called Duff to a read part even if he wasn’t in the cast. Many of the blacklisted actors and production personnel were staunch supporters of the war effort, especially for AFRS.

The original title of the script was The Twist is Murder. The drama portion was recorded with Duff in January 1951. The recording does exist, and is often mislabeled as a rehearsal.

This performance was recorded after his contract for Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective was not renewed. There were rumors that his dismissal from Spade was Red Channels-related. In the newspapers, however, Duff stood up for the sponsor. He related that he asked for a raise, but the sponsor was not forthcoming, and wanted to move in a new direction. There were no hard feelings, at least in public. Disappointed fans flooded the sponsor with mail asking for the show's renewal and Duff's return, to no avail.

Advertisers were still worried, if not petrified, that hiring any Red Channels actor or other staff would be toxic to their brand or their sales. Broadcasters were scared their ad dollars would dry up. The Spade show had another, larger blacklist issue with the character's creator, Dashiell Hammett. He was a political activist and his associations were very public. While his Hammett's activities were playing out in public, his characters were being taken off the air: Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles (The Adventures of the Thin Man), and Brad Runyon (The Fat Man). Despite the quagmire of the blacklist, Hammett's many activities, and his refusal to implicate others in court proceedings, upon his death he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery for his service in both WW1 and WW2. Duff had little interest in political activities and events and was guilty by association by playing a role (Sam Spade) created by an activist (Hammett) deeply involved in political activities. No matter the extreme disparity of the intensity of their actions, the Duff and Hammett names looked exactly the same in the printed Red Channels list.

The Spade show did return with Steve Dunne, but it was not the same. During the time of Duff's removal, his movies were still being promoted, and he was always up for parts in westerns and other films. He may not have been able to do radio, but he was doing other lucrative things. An amusing indicator in late 1950 that the blacklist was not affecting Duff in non-radio media was how the press turned Duff's broken leg into news. The newspapers were full of stories about him. Duff must have had a good publicist, and it appears the public relations pro had no problems supplying stories for entertainment reporters.

The gossip columns had a field day covering this injury, with one of the accounts being that it was retribution for a gambling debt, or implying that the break was from a fall down the stairs when he was “tipsy.” They loved revealing all of the "personal attention" he was getting from Hollywood starlets who would visit to “help” him recover. The gossip columns even mention the big argyle sock he wore over the cast as he visited restaurants on crutches to be seen with movie friends, executives, and yes, those starlets.

This is what makes the machinations around Murderous Revision very curious. The Duff case is so CBS-focused that it's likely selective blacklisting at work.

It was common for a blacklisted writer to use a pseudonym in their radio scripts to avoid problems with the advertisers and with network brass. It's probably for this reason that a complete broadcast-ready version of Murderous Revision built with the drama-only recording from January that never mentions Duff was made. (The recording is in circulation). It is not clear how long the drama recording sat unused and unedited before Elliott Lewis attempted this maneuver. It obviously did not work because it was never broadcast. It was not until the end of 1951 that Murderous Revision was produced with Richard Widmark as star.

By late 1951, Duff and Ida Lupino were newly married, starting their new life together and traveling. Lupino was waiting for her divorce to be official (October 20), and they married quickly after (October 21). Their schedules were so full that they could not have a honeymoon vacation. They took a brief break in San Francisco, but that trip involved some work there. They did get away for a while in Palm Springs, and in December they learned that Lupino was pregnant. The whirlwind of events in those weeks may have played a role in re-casting and scheduling Widmark instead of Duff. That is, unless Elliott Lewis received official word that Duff was prohibited from working for CBS Radio whether he had the time available or not. Lupino was a powerful Hollywood presence and a bankable star, and recently started her own production company. Duff asked for and was released from his movie contract with Universal. Lupino's influence protected Duff from any movie career downside caused by a Red Channels listing. Duff remained busy, but it was five years before he re-appeared on radio, and Suspense. Lupino had no leverage at CBS, it seems.

Why would broadcasters and advertisers use the blacklist?

Because advertising dollars were at play, networks, advertisers, and ad agencies would justify any of their decisions in terms of minimizing their perceived business risk. Unlike movies, where public opinion can be gauged by the almost immediate and direct feedback of ticket sales and attendance, broadcasts were different. Viewership ratings and product sales occurred months after advertising decisions were made, which increased the risks of current decisions. This is why Duff, a relative bystander to the political hubbub, could have an active movie career and a simultaneously declining radio one. Predicting future revenues and the future response of consumers is very difficult, hence advertiser concerns.

The path of least resistance (and least risk and uncertainty) was often financial cowardice. That meant that those following and implementing the blacklist believed there was a financial benefit (protection of future revenues) and risk reduction provided cover for advertiser and broadcast decisions. The fact that media were changing, where television was starting to boom and radio was waning, added to the uncertain nature of broadcast advertising budget allocations. The impaired or ruined careers were not always obvious and often not reported in their time. For those affected, justly or unjustly, fighting back would often be perceived as potentially adding to their problems.

William N. Robson's Ordeal

Bill Robson was a radio production legend, his career starting in the beginning of radio's golden age. His credentials in support of the war effort were impeccable, especially the series The Man Behind the Gun, which won a Peabody Award. A second award was for Robson's 1943 production of "An Open Letter to the American People" about racial tolerance. He worked on two pioneering series, the rather experimental and creative Columbia Workshop. The series tested the bounds of radio writing, performing, and production. Calling All Cars was an early police procedural that created the foundation for numerous radio police dramas. He was involved in cold war-related dramas such as The Man Called X, and the more serious Operation: Underground. His work on Escape, similar to Suspense in its production but focused on classics and high caliber short stories, was well-regarded. Among his peers, Robson was a highly respected thought leader and a skilled practitioner.

His mention in Red Channels must have come as quite a surprise to him, and especially its repercussions. To blunt the effects of the listing and to make a living, he supplied some scripts to programs, like Suspense, using pseudonyms. When CBS no longer offered him employment, he produced a Mutual series, The Modern Adventures of Casanova. The series starred Erroll Flynn and was broadcast most of 1952. CBS was not calling him back. In April, 1953, Robson decided he had enough. He sent a personal letter to Edward R. Murrow, CBS' most prominent journalist, and to many in the viewing audience, the networks most famous, most credible, and most reliable news investigator. Murrow became known for his reports during the bombings of London in his rooftop shortwave broadcasts, beginning each one with "This... is London..." After the war, Murrow and other CBS radio reporters, many of whom he trained, set the standard for broadcast journalism. It is not a surprise that Robson would appeal to him because of their acquaintanceship and mutual interest in world events, with Murrow's perspective on news and Robson's interest in real-life drama. Excerpts of his letter, which is in the Murrow archive at Mount Holyoke College, are below. It offers great details about the effects of blacklisting. Murrow did not respond by letter, but it is likely they spoke by phone many times about it. The letter pre-dates the legendary 1954 Murrow See It Now television broadcast (click here to view) where he confronted that tactics of Senator Joe McCarthy in his efforts to identify Communists in the US government. (McCarthy did not participate in any Hollywood investigations; those occurred primarily in the House of Representatives).

"I have not worked since."

The key points of Robson's letter to Murrow asking for his help:

Operation: Underground was canceled (it was doing fairly well in the ratings; its spot in the CBS lineup was taken by a new adult western series, Gunsmoke).
Robson wrote for Suspense using a pseudonym and suddenly was prohibited from doing so (in addition to "Christopher Anthony" he used "William Norman"). The letter implies that Auto-Lite allowed Red Channels to influence the nature of their Suspense sponsorship.
The former FBI agents who published Red Channels cleared him for the claimed activities and also complimented Operation: Underground for its anti-Communist message and its sophisticated production.
Others who cleared him were actor Ward Bond and Roy Brewer. Bond was an actor who led an anti-Communist industry group that worked hard to clear talent unjustly tainted by the blacklist. Roy Brewer, an attorney who later had a long career in the entertainment industry and government, was working with this group. Brewer was a specialist in "rehabilitating" reputations scarred by the blacklist, and helped John Garfield write “I Was a Sucker for a Left Hook.”
Jack Wren was an executive at ad agency BBD&O in charge of security, and was also ex-FBI; he was likely very savvy about proper investigations and the detail work required. Red Channels did not have deep investigation behind it and instead reported suspicious behaviors and connections that implied a nefarious narrative. This is how so many on the blacklist were labeled activists when they were actually rather passive with some mild curiosity about an alternative approach to social issues.
Larry Johnson was an upstate New York owner of a small chain of supermarkets who became a prominent national leader in the movement among business executives and the American Legion (the best known war veterans organization) to be wary of Communist influences in their advertising and the broadcast programs they sponsored. Johnson was behind many boycott and letter-writing efforts in favor of keeping Communists and sympathizers out of broadcasting. Those boycotts and letter-writing put fear in the hearts of sponsors and CBS executives.
Not pictured on this web page but included in the letter is Robson identifying other actors whose Red Channels records were much longer than his with him noting that they were working for CBS while he was still not.
Robson experienced a common Red Channels aftereffect: being cleared but not being able to resume the jobs they lost or to re-engage their earlier business relationships.

Daniel O'Shea ignored the facts as presented, and the gravitas and importance of the people presenting them, all of them key players in the blacklist controversy, and chose not to act. He may have had personal animus toward Robson for some reason. We can't find any evidence of such other than the reality that he turned his back on the facts and people that Robson now had on his side. Murrow, however, did act on the facts, using his influence as a prominent journalist and personality, still in the bright afterglow of his WW2 reporting, to influence CBS head William Paley about what was going on. (It was Paley with input from Murrow who worked on the CBS loyalty questionnaire that was used with their employees during WW2 and after). It took a while, but eventually O'Shea left, likely pushed out. Like many executives, he somehow landed on his feet to lead RKO Pictures. Once O'Shea left CBS, about two years after Robson's letter, many of the actors and production executives were able to return to their professions in some way. The damage to careers had already been done.

It is not known what the two unproduced Suspense scripts mentioned in the letter were, but it is likely Robson used them when he produced Suspense from Fall 1956 to Summer 1959.

Nobody Ever Quits / Night on Red Mountain

The first post-blacklist use of Robson's work in Suspense, with his proper name attached, was the March 8, 1955 broadcast of Nobody Ever Quits. This script was repeated three additional times with the title Night on Red Mountain. His relationship with CBS was starting again after almost four years of forced hiatus. His script work and production supervision was part of series such as Romance, CBS Radio Workshop, and Fort Laramie. Finally, in October 1956, he took command of Suspense. He led the series at a time of shrinking budgets and changing production technology, with great skill and insight that made the most of a difficult set of circumstances.

One has to wonder if the title Nobody Ever Quits and its plotline had themes about his blacklist ordeal. There are interesting references throughout.

Unusually cold weather in the California mountains and an intense storm (the chill of the blacklist and its interruptions)
"You sure you were never back east?" (possible reference to CBS headquarters and Robson's early career; more likely reference to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and its activities to spread Communism to the West)
"I don't want to be owing anybody anything... particularly rats" (uttered by the person who finds the main character in the story and is out to get him because of his past; perhaps a reference to those who testified ["the rats"] before the various committees and hearings)
"Won't be much more business in this storm" (referring to the isolation of the blacklist and the financial effects it had on him)
"They ask an awful lot of questions" and "That man had me scared, they way he asked questions" (referring to the inquiries into backgrounds of those on the blacklist and the manner in which they were conducted)
"I'm not a squealer" and "I just want to be left alone" (the general sentiments of those who found themselves on the blacklist and harassed for it)
Being trapped on the mountain by the weather, and the only pass down to the town is blocked (can't get back to his career in the path he worked for, no matter how hard he tried)
Missed phone connections, communications interruptions in the storm (unable to resume normal life and business relationships because of the circumstances, "the storm")
Man in the hunt for the main character never reaches him because he drives off the road because of his own carelessness (could refer to McCarthyism falling under its own weight or that the tide is turning against the blacklist inside CBS).
Nobody Ever Quits likely has a dual meaning; in the story, once you are part of the criminal mob, no matter what you do to remove the taint, it's always with you (once you're in Red Channels any exoneration can't remove the stain of suspicion), and in a positive way, once you commit yourself to a devoted cause, no one can make you abandon it (Robson never gave up, and continued his work despite the roadblocks)
The rebroadcast title, Night on Red Mountain, where "red" refers to Communism and "Red Mountain" refers to being trapped by Red Channels, could be an additional message that Robson added to reinforce the metaphor when he produced the episode himself in 1957 and 1958.

Date Night 1962-02-25

This episode written by Robson in the final season of Suspense could also have blacklist undertones.
While Nobody Ever Quits / Night on Red Mountain have numerous references to his personal CBS blacklist experience, Date Night might refer to the entire period.
The episode seems innocuous enough, a father is panicked about where his daughter is on her first date, and starts frantically calling around town, thinking that she has fallen to something evil around every turn.
Robson may be referring to the "red scare" and how there were Communists in every institution... and how he was so accused, proven not to be, but the fever pitch could not be overcome despite the facts... until the daughter comes home, or in his case, returns to CBS.
The father's drinking could be a parallel to Senator Joe McCarthy's supposed alcoholism. Strangely, McCarthy's alcoholism was more rumor than fact, but was played up by a willing press, making McCarthy subject to the same fever pitch that Robson uses in the story.

What if Robson was not blacklisted when Auto-Lite's sponsorship and Lewis' producer role ended?

The timing of Red Channels publication in June 1950 makes for some interesting speculation about how the history of Suspense might have changed if it had never been released.

The Elliott Lewis era of Suspense came to a close shortly after the Auto-Lite sponsorship ended in June 1954. Norman Macdonnell took over the production for a few months, followed by Antony Ellis. Both were extremely competent if not exceptional radio production executives. Ellis was also a writer and an actor.

Robson lost the opportunity to resume his production of Escape because of the CBS blacklisting. What if he had continued to produce Escape and also been available to replace Lewis? Norman Macdonnell could have devoted his energies more fully to Gunsmoke. It is likely that there never would have been any Antony Ellis Suspense productions. It is an interesting speculation because the Robson era began and ended with an emphasis on austerity that the prior producers did not have. The idea of Robson with resources is worth pondering, considering how productive he was despite the austere budgets he was forced to endure.

There is also another window of time that Robson might have a Suspense opportunity. He could have taken Suspense over after the 1949-1950 season that had William Spier as producer and Macdonnell as director. Red Channels was published at the end of the 1949-1950 season. Spier encouraged the hiring of Elliott Lewis for the 1950-1951 season... was that because of Robson was ruled out of consideration in light of his inclusion in Red Channels?

Other Guest Stars Possibly Affected by the Blacklist

The media industry is very dynamic, and was especially so in the beginning of the 1950s. The post-WW2 economy was growing, and that economy helped spur the growth of television and expanded the movie audience. There were many new opportunities for actors and entertainment professionals in this environment that the war years did not offer. One way of determining whether some performers were affected by the blacklist in terms of Suspense is to note whether or not they had roles prior to Red Channels or not.

Confounding the issue was that the Suspense budget for Hollywood stars was declining as television started to assert dominance in network budgets. The lack of appearance of a star on Suspense after Red Channels may be a reflection of budget limitations or a shift to a more modern approach to publicity in which radio had a lesser role. Radio's promotion effectiveness to boost movie ticket sales or television viewership ratings changed considerably to the downside in the early 1950s. There was much money to be made in non-radio media that was not possible just years before. Therefore, there was less compelling interest in securing a Suspense appearance for publicity purposes.

Lee J. Cobb appeared on Suspense (1945, The Bet) but became busy with movies and television. He would not appear on Suspense again.
José Ferrer appeared in 1947 (Pit and the Pendulum), and became busy in movie roles. He did not appear on Suspense again.
Edward G. Robinson was on Suspense five different times 1950 and earlier, and had an active movie and television career. He did not appear on Suspense again.
Marsha Hunt was on Suspense in 1945 and 1947, but then not again until 1959. She was very active in movies and television in the post-Red Channels era.
Howard Da Silva was on Suspense once, in 1947 (You Take Ballistics), and never appeared again. His blacklisting had a very severe effect on his career. IMDb shows no roles for him in movies or television from 1951 to 1959. He wasn't even appearing on Broadway in that time until a 1959 play (in a supporting role) about New York legendary mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had a successful 750+ performance run that lasted into 1960. His next radio appearances would not be until the 1970s on CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

CBS Executive Daniel O'Shea: Chief Villain of the Blacklist?

(NOTE: The image of text is from the 1956 report Report on Blacklisting; a downloadable PDF of the report is available, with details listed at the bottom of this web page)

Daniel T. O'Shea joined CBS in 1950, just before the release of Red Channels, after years in the movie industry with David O. Selznick and RKO Pictures. His role at CBS was to participate in their diversification in other media and markets from a legal and negotiation perspective. Part of that role was to enforce the blacklist, protecting the value and business potential of CBS properties from being compromised by hiring talent whose political activities might negatively affect the success of those projects.

Advertisers were jittery, and CBS did little to truly reassure them, promising instead to avoid employing those actors and writers. From some reported comments about talent he made to others, O'Shea seemed to have an attitude of "if we can't get this one, we'll just get another one."

On August 1, 1955, O'Shea left CBS and returned to lead RKO Pictures. Newspaper articles made his CBS departure seem like it was his choice, but he may have been pushed out by Paley. He retired in 1958, but remained very active on the board of directors and handling special projects. One of those projects was negotiating the rights for the 1975 re-make of King Kong by Dino deLaurentis, indicating he still played a prime role in the company nearly two decades later.

O'Shea died in 1979; his obituaries mentioned nothing of the blacklist and his role in it at CBS. In accounts of the behind-the-scenes decisions about the blacklist era, his name is prominent and very specific in most every analysis.

Blacklisted Suspense Writer: Robert L. Richards

Red Channels affected many screenwriters, but about ten of those writers also scripted for radio. The one writer affected the most was Robert L. Richards. He wrote or adapted 49 different scripts, but after 1950 there was not one script authored by him that premiered on the program. Eleven of his scripts were repeated, but only three after 1950. By the end of 1950, Suspense had about 400 broadcasts; one out of every seven were Richards scripts, adaptations, or repeats. While blacklisted, his movie writing was under pseudonyms "Ben Kadish" and "John Loring."

NOTE: The script Spoils for Victor is often credited to Richards as the original author, but using a pseudonym of Joseph Hudock. Richards help adapt that script which was written by Hudock, a real life high school chemistry teacher! The script was first presented in 1946 and has both their names on it, well before the Red Channels problems began.

Silvia Richards was also blacklisted for a time

Robert's ex-wife Silvia did testify before Congress and renounced her involvement with the Communist Party. Her decision to testify, and his decision to resist, was a factor in breaking up of their marriage. When Silvia re-married, she stopped writing scripts and moved on to other activities. Overall, she had 13 scripts used on Suspense, with three of them repeated.

Consequence - The episode that starred Jimmy Stewart - had three blacklisted writers!

The 1949-05-19 script was a collaboration of Robert L. Richards, Vladimir Pozner, and George Sklar. This was the only script that Pozner and Sklar submitted to Suspense.

Other blacklisted writers

It's hard to say if the submissions by these writers before Red Channels and their lack of submissions after is the effect of CBS blacklisting. These authors were mainly screenwriters by the time Red Channels was released. George Corey's work on The Black Curtain was to adapt the script from Cornell Woolrich's short story.

Pollack's IMDb profile has a gap from 1951 to 1955, and the latter was as an uncredited writer for Lady and the Tramp. Endfield was an associate of Orson Welles (who was also blacklisted). The two became acquainted when Endfield's knowledge and skill in magic came to Welles' attention. Endfield learned filmmaking by working with Welles on the movie set. His run-ins with the House investigations led him to move to the UK where he could continue his film work without interruption. His blacklist pseudonym was "Hugh Raker." Argyle Album was one of the few movies based on a script first performed on Suspense. It was released in 1948 as The Argyle Secrets and can be viewed on YouTube.

Robert Cenedella, blacklisted prior to Suspense

Cenedella (sometimes Cenadella) was a busy radio writer for programs such as Bergen & McCarthy, Theater Guild, Cavalcade of America, Radio Readers Digest, and others. His blacklisting was mainly for television, where his IMDb listing shows a big gap in his career from 1952 to 1960. He was head writer for the TV version of The Guiding Light in 1952 when his blacklist ban took effect. He was able to write for radio for a portion of that time, including Rocky Fortune, Best Plays, and Biography in Sound, but even then the work stopped. His radio work gap was from 1956 to 1961, ending when his Suspense script for Juvenile Rebellion was broadcast. He contributed many scripts for Theater Five. His main specialty for television writing was for soap operas such as NBC's Another World and its spin-off Somerset in the 1970s and 1980s.

Allan Sloane, blacklisted before writing for Suspense, wins Emmys, Peabodys, and Writers Guild Awards

Allan Sloane was another blacklisted writer, but he did not work for Suspense until it moved back to New York in 1959. His adaptations were of Eleazar Lipsky stories: Infanticide, The Thimble, and End of the Road. He and Lipsky had worked before on the CBS series Indictment. His original Suspense scripts were Call Me at Half-Past and Stranger with My Face. Based on RadioGoldindex, there appears to be a gap in his radio work for network programs from 1950 through 1957, except for some public service and religious programs (remember: RGI only counts existing recordings, not the total number of broadcasts). He was blacklisted by CBS in 1952, and it was a news item, unlike others where it was done with no public announcements. He didn't take it lightly: he sued Red Channels and he testified in the House. The investigator of Red Channels identified Sloane's activities and told the committee that they were in the past and no longer an issue. The investigator explained to the Committee that one of the problems with the blacklist was that exonerated or cleared persons were not getting their jobs or business relationships restored. Essentially, once they were out, they were out for good. His radio writing resumed with the late 1950s CBS series Indictment and also adapted a script for Have Gun Will Travel. For 1950 and prior, he wrote for some top network series, notably Man Behind the Gun (which won a Peabody Award), Cavalcade of America, The Big Story, Radio City Playhouse, and Top Secret. His television work after 1950 became infrequent, and it is likely that blacklist issues were the cause. His TV career picked up significantly starting in 1959 in long-form presentations such as TV movies. Using the pseudonym "Ellison Carrol" to avoid blacklist recognition, his scriptwriting was held in high esteem. Sloane won three Emmys, six Peabody Awards (four for radio), two Writer’s Guild Awards in his career, mostly after the blacklist. Some of his most highly regarded work involved scripts about children with physical or mental handicaps. Sloane died in 2001 at age 86.

The Writers Guild has a project to restore credit to blacklisted writers by changing the official records from pseudonyms to their actual names. Their page is at https://www.wga.org/the-guild/about-us/history/corrected-blacklist-credits

The Bottom Lines

Suspense, like other CBS programs, was negatively affected by Red Channels and blacklisting. The case of John Garfield and the less clear Duff incident are the ones we know about. There were likely many other performers affected by their not being considered for roles once producers had some foreknowledge about which actors were acceptable and which ones were not. In that sense, no one may have technically lost a role because of the blacklist. That was because they were never considered for them. Just months or years before many of these actors would have been inserted into casts without question.
Had John Garfield lived, it is likely that he never would have appeared on Suspense, even though he was being cleared through the efforts of attorney Roy Brewer. If Brewer cleared Robson and Robson still had problems, then it was likely that Garfield would have encountered problems, too.
The implementation of the blacklist at CBS was different and likely more severe than it was in the radio divisions of other media companies.
The writers seemed hardest hit by the blacklist. They were not usually known by the public, and their plights more easily ignored. Dan O'Shea encouraged CBS producers to seek writers other than the blacklisted ones, believing there were plenty of other writers available, and they would be cheaper to hire. O'Shea may have been a successful movie executive, but it's clear he didn't "get" radio. By the time he went back to RKO, be may not have "gotten" movies, either. He retired three years later and ended up working on special projects and legal issues rather than day-to-day affairs. The old saying goes that you can get "kicked upstairs" to a higher and better-paying position if you are incompetent at your current one. He may have parlayed it into greater pay and influence despite the debris left behind by his prior decisions and actions.
Networks were right to be concerned about the content of their productions, and the sentiments of their sponsors. The implementation of such concern by CBS proved to be arbitrary, opportunistic, and inconsistent, brushing up against natural freedom of speech and the freedom to pursue one's profession. Those were very confusing times, with real geopolitical threats and paralyzing fears. The confusion only compounded itself with blacklists and similar efforts. Specific Communist activities in the US would not be known for certain until decades later when FBI and KGB files started to open after 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall fell and Russia's period of glasnost led by Mikhial Gorbachev. Many of Soviet Communism's failings and abuses were withheld from the public or otherwise kept secret for decades, including the decades that coincided with the blacklist era. These included the Ukrainian Famine, the true nature of Soviet economic conditions, and the jailing of dissidents. The latter was detailed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago and other works. Had these been known at the time, interest in Communism as a means to address social problems would have been limited, and curiosities likely redirected to mainstream accepted progressive movements.
Most of the CBS blacklisting issues and practices occurred during Elliott Lewis' tenure as producer. We are unlikely to ever learn how Lewis' casting decisions and scripts selection were affected by the blacklist and what his decisions might have been if the times and the internal network politics were different. Part of blacklist culture and implementation was its secrecy and deliberate lack of a paper trail. We do know, however, that William N. Robson and others eventually returned to the airwaves.
Robson's case is particularly interesting in that when Ed Murrow left CBS at the end of his career, he led the United States Information Agency, appointed to the role by JFK. Reporting to that agency was Voice of America. Murrow hired Robson as a producer for documentaries and other programming, sent around the world, especially behind the Iron Curtain and Communist-dominated countries. Small victory for an awful and unnecessary experience.

Resources

How the Film and Television Blacklists Worked by Richard A. Schwartz, https://comptalk.fiu.edu/blacklist.htm is a brief online document, but the author has a much larger work, Cold War Culture (New York: Facts on File, 1998). Schwartz also recommends Eric Bentley, Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities: 1938-1968 (New York: Viking, 1971); William F. Buckley, Jr., The Committee and Its Critics (New York: Putnam, 1962); William F. Buckley, Jr., McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning (Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1954); John Cogley, Report on Blacklisting, vols 1 and vol 2 (1956; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1971); Victor Navasky, Naming Names (New York: Penguin Books, 1980); Robert Vaughn (yes, THAT Robert Vaughn, "Napoleon Solo" from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was also an academic researcher and author), Only Victims (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1972) [the book was based on Vaughn's doctoral dissertation in communications for USC in 1970]; and Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2nd ed., 1996).
Report on Blacklisting by John Cogley (downloadable as a searchable PDF) https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Bookshelf/History/Report-On-Blacklisting-II-(Radio-TV)-Cogley-1956.pdf
Two of the three broadcasting history books by Columbia University professor Eric Barnouw mentions the blacklist, CBS, Bill Robson, Dan O'Shea, and others. The books are available as searchable PDFs. The radio era is covered in The Golden Web is at https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Bookshelf/UK-Books/The-Golden-Web-Barnouw.pdf and the television era is covered in The Image Empire is at https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Bookshelf/UK-Books/The-Image-Empire-Barnouw.pdf
Raised on Radio by Gerald Nachman (Pantheon, 1998)
In All His Glory: The Life and Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting by Sally Bedell Smith (Simon & Schuster, 1990)
Inside Out: A Memoir Of The Blacklist by Walter Bernstein (Knopf, 1996)
Naming Names by Victor S. Navasky (Penguin, 1980)
Dissertation by Daniel Hahn, The Far Right Opposition to the Mass Media published in 1968 is a searchable PDF downloadable at https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/285027
Dissertation by Gregory M. Tomlin, The Fishbowl World: Edward R. Murrow, John F. Kennedy, and the Cold War published in 2013 and mentions Robson and Murrow. It is downloadable at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjr2JmYz7PkAhVxneAKHbIsA-QQFjAAegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fscholarspace-etds.library.gwu.edu%2Fdownloads%2Fxw42n794d%3Flocale%3Dit&usg=AOvVaw3Iy_-T3tYALmb2LGc4v3II Tomlin did turn his dissertation into a book, Murrow's Cold War: Public Diplomacy for the Kennedy Administration, published in 2016 by University of Nebraska Press.

Google Sites

Report abuse