Red Channels

Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television is an anti-Communist tract published in the United States at the height of the Red Scare. Issued by the right-wing journal "Counterattack" on June 22, 1950, the pamphlet-style book names 151 actors, writers, musicians, broadcast journalists, and others in the context of purported Communist manipulation of the entertainment industry. Some of the 151 were already being denied employment because of their political beliefs, history, or mere association with suspected "subversives"; "Red Channels" effectively placed the rest on the industry blacklist.

The case is made

American Business Consultants Inc., a company established by a group of former agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), began publication of the "Counterattack" newsletter in May 1947. Its self-declared purpose: to "expos [e] the most important aspects of Communist activity in America each week." ["Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television" (New York: Counterattack, 1950), p. 214.] By the time "Red Channels" was published in 1950, three of the founders remained: John G. Keenan, company president and the businessman of the trio; Kenneth M. Bierly, who would later become a consultant to Columbia Pictures; and, best known, Theodore C. Kirkpatrick, officially "Counterattack"'s managing editor and the group's chief spokesman. A former Army intelligence major, Francis J. McNamara, was the primary editor of "Counterattack". The introduction to "Red Channels", running just over six pages, was written by Vincent Hartnett, an employee of the Phillips H. Lord agency, an independent radio-program production house, or "packager." Hartnett would later found the anti-Communist organization AWARE, Inc. [Strout (1999), p. 2; Doherty (2003), p. 8 (Doherty misspells Keenan's name "Keegan"); Miller (1971 [1952] ), pp. 83–84; Cogley (1971 [1956] ), pp. 3, 18, 25–26. See also "By Appointment"; Schwartz (1999). Email correspondence with the staff of the "Authentic History Center" website (see Sources below) confirms, "Nowhere in the document ["Red Channels"] is any author credit given," but Hartnett's contribution was apparently common knowledge at the time and Cogley quotes Hartnett referring to it as "my "Red Channels" (p. 18). There are many mistaken Internet claims that "Red Channels" was cowritten by "right-wing television producer Vincent Harnett ["sic"] ." One published text—"A Charmed Life" (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005 [2004] ), by Lynn Haney—makes precisely that assertion, giving no source, and its discussion of "Red Channels" is otherwise riddled with errors. For instance, Haney states that the tract "claimed [the 151 listees] had been members of subversive organizations before the Second World War" (p. 163). "Red Channels" makes no such claim; in fact, it carefully avoids making any direct claims about the listees, but simply records raw data, some of it as recent as May 1950 (see, e.g., "Pete Seeger" entry, "Red Channels", p. 131). Haney states that those named "had not so far been blacklisted" ("A Charmed Life", ibid.). In fact, as just one example, radio professional William Sweets, named in "Red Channels", had already been blacklisted for a year (see Cogley [1956] , pp. 25–28; "Who's Blacklisted?"). As for Hartnett's supposed occupation as a "television producer," his name does not appear on [http://www.imdb.com/ IMDb.com] , with its extensive record of television credits—either under the proper spelling of his name or "Harnett."] The tract, released three years after the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began investigating Communist Party influence in the entertainment field, claims to expose the spread of that influence, most specifically in the radio and television business. Referring to current television programming, the "Red Channels" introduction declares that

[s] everal commercially sponsored dramatic series are used as sounding boards, particularly with reference to current issues in which the Party is critically interested: "academic freedom," "civil rights," "peace," the H-bomb, etc.... With radios in most American homes and with approximately 5 million TV sets in use, the Cominform and the Communist Party USA now rely more on radio and TV than on the press and motion pictures as "belts" to transmit pro-Sovietism to the American public. ["Red Channels", pp. 2–3.]

"Red Channels" goes on to describe how the Communist Party purportedly attracts both financial and political backing from those in the entertainment industry:

No cause which seems calculated to arouse support among people in show business is ignored: the overthrow of the Franco dictatorship, the fight against anti-Semitism and Jimcrow,sic civil rights, world peace, the outlawing of the H-Bomb, are all used. Around such pretended objectives, the hard core of Party organizers gather a swarm of "reliables" and well-intentioned "liberals," to exploit their names and their energies. ["Red Channels", pp. 3–4.]

"Red Channels" provides little that may be construed as evidence for its assertions that Communists "dominate" American television and radio. It relies on nonspecific declarations from such sources as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and an editorial in "Broadcasting" magazine; provocative quotes from former Soviet premier V. I. Lenin, at that point deceased for over twenty-six years; and blind items of a style familiar from tabloid gossip columns: "a prominent entertainer has recently confided that whenever a certain critic...." ["Red Channels", p. 5.]

While "Red Channels" would serve as a vehicle for the expansion of the entertainment industry blacklist that, since 1947, had denied employment in the field to a host of artists deemed to be sympathetic to "subversive" causes, the book argues that a Communist-organized "blacklist" is actually in effect in the industry. The party, it claims, sees to it that "articulate anti-Communists are blacklisted and smeared with that venomous intensity which is characteristic of Red Fascists alone." ["Red Channels", p. 4.]

The list is drawn

Without making any blatant, potentially libelous accusations, "Red Channels" lists 151 professionals in entertainment and on-air journalism who it clearly implies are among "the Red Fascists and their sympathizers" in the broadcasting field. ["Red Channels", p. 6.] Each of the names is followed by a raw list of putatively telling data, with the sources of evidence varying from FBI and HUAC citations to newspaper articles culled from the mainstream press, industry trade sheets, and such Communist publications as the "Daily Worker". For example, under the heading for Burgess Meredith, identified as "Actor, Director, Producer—Stage, Screen, Radio, TV", the first three of a total of seven data points read:

Many other well-known artists are also named, ranging from Hollywood stars such as Edward G. Robinson and Orson Welles (who had already left the country), to literary figures such as Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman, to musicians such as Pete Seeger and Leonard Bernstein. Ex-leftist and HUAC informant J. B. Matthews claimed responsibility for providing the listings; he would later work for Senator Joseph McCarthy. [Schrecker (2002), p. 90; Strout (1999), 27.] By 1951, those identified in "Red Channels" were blacklisted across much or all of the movie and broadcast industries unless and until they cleared their names, the customary requirement being that they testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

For a complete tally of those named in "Red Channels", see The "Red Channels" list.

Notes

ources

Published

*"By Appointment," "Time", September 11, 1950 (available [http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,813149,00.html online] ).
*Cogley, John (1956). "Report on Blacklisting." Collected in "Blacklisting: An Original Anthology" (1971), Merle Miller and John Cogley. New York: Arno Press/New York Times. ISBN 0-405-03579-9
*Doherty, Thomas (2003). "Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture". New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12952-1
*Miller, Merle (1952). "The Judges and the Judged." Collected in "Blacklisting: An Original Anthology" (1971), Merle Miller and John Cogley. New York: Arno Press/New York Times. ISBN 0-405-03579-9
*"Who's Blacklisted?" "Time", August 22, 1949 (available [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,800646,00.html online] ).
*Schrecker, Ellen (2002). "The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents". New York: Palgrave. ISBN 0-312-29425-5
*Strout, Lawrence N. (1999). "Covering McCarthyism: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950–1954". Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31091-2

Online (authored)

*Schwartz, Richard A. (1999). [http://comptalk.fiu.edu/blacklist.htm "How the Film and Television Blacklists Worked"] . Part of the Florida International University website.

Online (archival)

* [http://dlib.nyu.edu:8083/tamwagead/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/counter.xml&style=/saxon01t2002.xsl&part=body Guide to the American Business Consultants, Inc. "Counterattack": Research Files 1930–1968] narrative summary and inventory of document holdings in the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives; part of the NYU–Elmer Holmes Bobst Library website
* [http://www.authentichistory.com/1950s/redchannels/redchannels.html Red Channels: The Blacklist] links to many reproduced pages of the original book; part of the "Authentic History Center" website