Historical and Cultural Context

ON THE WATERFRONT AND THE POLITICS OF

“NAMING NAMES”

The Cold War in America

• At the end of World War II, the United States and the USSR emerged as the world’s major powers. They also became involved in the Cold War, a state of hostility (short of direct military conflict) between the two nations.

• Many Americans feared not only Communism around the world but also disloyalty at home. Suspicion about Communist infiltration of the government was rife.

• A lot of Americans thought the Soviets got the atomic bomb by using spies. It was charged that secret agents, working under cover, had stolen our secrets and given them to the Enemy. Even worse, these spies supposedly were hardly ever Russians themselves, but often American citizens, the kind of people you see every day on the street and hardly even notice.

• A Communist could be anybody. It sort of makes a Communist sound like the bogey-man, doesn’t it? To many people in 1953, a Communist was just as scary as the bogey-man, and a lot more real.

HUAC Congress began to investigate suspicions of

disloyalty. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) sought to expose Communist influence in American life.

Beginning in the late 1940s, the committee called witnesses and investigated the entertainment industry. Prominent film directors and screenwriters who refused to cooperate were imprisoned on contempt charges.

As a result of the HUAC investigations, the entertainment industry blacklisted, or refused to hire, artists and writers suspected of being Communists.

Joseph McCarthy

Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin gained power by accusing others of subversion.

In February 1950, a few months after the USSR detonated its first atomic device, McCarthy claimed to have a list of 205 Communists who worked in the State Department.

Although his accusations remained unsupported and a Senate committee labeled them “a fraud and a hoax,” McCarthy won a national following. Branding the Democrats as a party of treason, he denounced his political foes as “soft on Communism” and called Truman’s loyal secretary of state, Dean Acheson, the “Red Dean.”

McCarthyism• McCarthyism came to mean false charges of disloyalty.• In September 1950, goaded by McCarthy, Congress

passed the McCarran Internal Security Act, which established a Subversive Activities Control Board to monitor Communist influence in the United States.

• McCarthy’s influence continued until 1954, when the Senate censured him for abusing his colleagues. His career collapsed.

• Fears of subversion continued. Communities banned books; teachers, academics, civil servants, and entertainers lost jobs; unwarranted attacks ruined lives.

The HUAC and HollywoodHUAC investigated communism within Hollywood,

calling a number of playwrights, directors and actors known for left-wing views to testify.

Some of these, including film director Elia Kazan, testified for the committee to avoid prison sentences

the Hollywood Ten, a group of entertainers, refused to testify and were convicted of contempt and sentenced to up to one year in prison.

THE HOLLYWOOD TENThese industry workers called before the HUAC

to testify about their ties to communism knew they had three options:1. They could claim they were not and never had been

members of the Communist Party (this would have meant perjuring themselves)

2. they could admit or claim membership and then be forced to name other members (and this would have meant losing their jobs both because of their former membership and their dubious position as informers)

3. or they could refuse to answer any questions (which is the choice they made).

BlacklistingOver 300 entertainers were

placed on a blacklist for possible communist views and were thus forbidden to work for major Hollywood studios (many of these were writers who worked under pseudonyms).

Elia Kazan and HUAC• In 1952 Elia Kazan was called before the HUAC.

He testified to being a member of the Communist party for 12 months in 1934, and “named names” of others involved at that time (8 people involved in the left-wing Group Theatre). He lost many friends and come under much public scrutiny for this decision. This controversy remained with Kazan for the rest of his life.

READING ON THE WATERFRONT AS AN ALLEGORY

Kazan’s decision to testify echoes the choice made by Terry Malloy in the film. Kazan has admitted “When critics say that I put my story and my feelings on the screen, to justify my informing, they are right” (1988). Thus Terry’s decision to disregard the principle of “D n D” and confess to the crime commission can be read as an attempt to rationalise and glorify his own choice to testify to HUAC.

In 1999, Kazan received the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, despite the protestors outside the Kodak Theatre who marched holding placards with the slogans “Kazan: Snitch”. The response he received from his Hollywood peers during his acceptance speech was mixed.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YziNNCZeNs

Key Terms and Figures• Cold War: term used to describe the ideologically based

tensions between the USA and the USSR from 1945 to 1991.• Communism: a political system whereby all differences are

banished from society and people share things equally with equal status.

• Senator McCarthy: A Republican US Senator who rose to prominence in 1950 when he asserted that there were 57 communists and 205 communist sympathisers in the US State Department.