THIRTY YEARS OF TREASON: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Un-American Activities Committee 1938-1968

by Eric Bentley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 30, 1971

Professor Bentley, an authority on the drama and something of a political activist, has assembled transcripts of the struggles in HUAC hearings between Committee interrogators and artists, actors, and intellectuals in the '40's and '50's, followed by anti-war organizers and New Leftists in the '60's. In the third of the book available for review, the '40's and '50's victims for the most part make a pretty sad showing: the composer Hans Eisler squirms while repudiating revolutionary intent in his compositions; poor Brecht sustains the following kind of exchange: ""The Chairman: 'You are certain?' Mr. Brecht: 'I think I am certain.' The Chairman: 'You think you are certain?' Mr. Brecht: 'Yes, I have not attended such meetings, in my opinion."" Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand, along with Committee member Nixon, seem much more straightforward than, say, Larry Parks, who proceeds to fink on the other members of his actors' cell, or Elia Kazan, who submits a curriculum vitae including the ""antiCommunist pictures"" he has made and the front organizations he stayed away from, or former member of the Hollywood Ten, Dmytryk, who explains that he has seen the light about the Communist menace in the U.S. A few witnesses refused to cover or tattle: Lillian Hellman, whose memoir of Dashiell Hammett is also included, and the actor Elliott Sullivan, who told the Committee it had no right to question him. Not until Tom Hayden, Progressive Labor, et al. did the Committee go on the defensive -- a development Bentley praises. He condemns the Communist Party for its callous and manipulative secrecy and abuse of front groups, though he offers no developed political analysis of why they operated that way. He also provides no interpretation of the origins and function of the Committee in its relation to the roll-back-the-New-Deal effort, etc., but suggests in passing that Eleanor Roosevelt (?) was HUAC's principal target in its early years. If the other two-thirds of the documents are as absorbing and instructive as the selections here, however, the collection will be an indispensable historical source.

Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION