“I can’t believe they’ll do that to us; we make them too much money, and that’s all they care about.”
“Sid there are other interests working hard to convince them that employing you or any of the unfriendly witnesses will cost them money. If they believe that, how do you think they will act?”
“Hy, I’m already committed to this.”
“Sid, there’s a way out for you. You can come out of this untainted if you’ll just listen to me.”
“I’m listening, Hy.”
“The investigator told me less than fifteen minutes ago that you can testify as a friendly witness in Alan’s stead, that you can make a statement for the record that you are or were a Party member, and you can state your reasons for staying in or getting out, whatever they are. Then, in the questioning that follows, you’ll name the five other people Alan was going to name. You’ll be on the stand for less than half an hour, and you’ll spout a few platitudes about what a great country this is and how you would never do anything to harm it. At the end, you’ll be dismissed with the committee’s thanks. That will be a kind of coded message to others involved in this, and you will not be blacklisted.”
“Hy, if I do that, no one I know will ever speak to me again.”
“Wrong. No Communist you know will ever speak to you again. How many people is that? And all of them will be disgraced; they won’t be in any position to harm you.”
“Hy, it all boils down to this: the committee has no right to demand of an American citizen that he explain his political views; they don’t have a constitutional leg to stand on.”
“Sid, the party has advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government. If you’re a member, then you’re tarred with that brush; that’s the leg they have to stand on.”
“Well, I don’t advocate the violent overthrow of the government, and I’ll be glad to tell them that.”
“If you cooperate with them they’ll believe you; if you don’t, they’ll just...”
“Hy, I’m not going to become a friendly witness; if I did, I might have to do what Al James did.”
“You’ll lose everything, Sid: your career, your home, your wife.”
“My wife? Nonsense, I just talked to her.”
“Did she offer her undying support?”
“Not exactly. In fact, she said pretty much what you’re saying.”
“Well, there you are.”
“Hy, if I begin losing things, am I going to lose my agent?”
“I hope not, Sid. You and Dalton Trumbo are the highest paid writers in Hollywood, and I want to see you both survive this. I think of you as my friend, and I’ll do everything I can to help you, regardless of what you say before the committee. Just don’t tie my hands.”
“Thank you, Hy. I appreciate that. When I get back from Washington, let’s have lunch and talk about where to go from here, okay?”
“Okay, Sid. I guess all I can do is wish you luck.”
“Thanks, Hy.”
Sid hung up and went back to his packing.
23
Saturday nights during the location shoot, Manny White staged a square dance for the cast and crew. He hired a western band and a caller, and everybody caught on to the moves quickly. Rick was amazed at how everybody had somehow acquired western outfits — fancy shirts, fringed skirts and cowboy boots — and he and Glenna enjoyed the dancing as much as everybody else.
On Friday, he had sent Alice Brooks back to L.A. on the airplane with the film stock. All the participants in the hearings — friendly and unfriendly witnesses, the members of the Committee for the First Amendment, who had chartered an airplane, the lawyers and investigators — were in Washington now. Eddie Harris was there, too, on his way to New York for the studio heads’ meeting at the Waldorf. Rick hadn’t spoken to him since his first call after the phones had begun working, their only communication having been telegrams about the donation to Temple Emanuel in Alan James’s memory.
On Sunday, their only day off, Rick and Glenna put the girls and their nurse, Rosie, in a Jeep and drove out to the riverbank with a picnic lunch. Rosie took the girls down to a sandy bank to wade, and Rick and Glenna had a moment alone.
“Did you speak to Alice before she left?” Rick asked.
“Yes, and she was very upset.”
“She seemed very quiet and uncommunicative.”
“That’s how I knew she was upset. I tried to get her to open up, but she wouldn’t. She’s very angry with Sid, I think, about his choice not to cooperate with the committee.”
“I think that’s a mistake, too, at least as far as his career is concerned, but he feels it’s some sort of moral imperative to oppose the committee, that he’s acting to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans.”
“Do you think Sid is really a Communist?”
“Glenna, I haven’t told you this — in fact, I haven’t told anybody, not even Eddie — but a few weeks ago I got an internal mail envelope at the studio that contained a photostat of Sid’s party card.”
“Who the hell would send you that?”
“I don’t know. Just somebody at the studio; could be anybody.”
“That’s a shitty thing to do to Sid.”
“Yes, it is. And I have to tell you, the next day I got another envelope that had another photostat of a party card, this one with your name on it.”
Glenna’s mouth dropped open. “With my name on it?”
“Louise Brecht, with a Milwaukee address.”
“That’s impossible; I never joined the party.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Did you know any people who did?”
“There was a little group, half a dozen people I socialized with. I don’t know if they were actual members, but they tossed around a lot of party-style rhetoric.”
“Were you close to any of them?”
“I went out with one of the guys for a while; I guess you could call him my boyfriend. He’s how I met the others.”
“Did you ever go to a meeting or sign any petitions or anything?”
“No, but I went to a couple of cocktail parties with him, and he tried to get me to go to some sort of rally once, something about supporting aid to the Soviet Union. Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I didn’t know what to think; I didn’t know you when you lived in Milwaukee, and I don’t know any of your friends from that time, except Barbara Kane, your old roommate.” Barbara Kane had been Martha Werner, and she and Glenna had gone to high school together. Rick had gotten her a contract at Centurion, and she was doing well in supporting roles, mostly in comedies.
“Martha/Barbara ran with a different, wilder kind of crowd,” Glenna said. “Lots of drinking and sex. The men she liked didn’t go to political meetings; they hung out in pool halls.”
“Did any of the people in your group come out to L.A.?”
“I don’t know; after I broke up with Hal — Harold Schmidt — I didn’t see any of them anymore. We had different interests. Why do you think somebody would fake a party card like that?”
“My first thought was blackmail, but I haven’t heard anything more about it.”
“Do you think the card with Sid’s name on it was a fake, too?”
“I don’t doubt that Sid was or maybe still is a party member, but I have no way of knowing whether the card I was sent was real or fake.”
“Now that I think about it, I’m glad you didn’t tell me about this before; in fact, I’m sorry you told me about it now.”
“I think it’s better that you know. If anything else comes up about this, then you might see a connection you might not have otherwise.”
“This is going to get ugly, isn’t it?”