A Matter of Reporting

Fishing for a way to open its long-planned investigation of the controversial Fund for the Republic, the House Committee on Un-American Activities last week harpooned Author John Cogley, pulled him to Washington to make some explanations. Commissioned two years ago by the fund to survey political blacklisting in the entertainment world, Cogley had resigned as editor of the liberal Catholic magazine, the Commonweal, selected ten assistants, undertaken a twelve-month study. Published last month, Cogley's report found that blacklisting of Communists, "unrehabilitated" ex-Communists and Commie liners was 1) "almost universally accepted as a fact of life" in Hollywood, 2) prevalent in radio and TV, 3) part and parcel of life in the Manhattan advertising agencies that have powerful influence on radio and TV programming. But Cogley's findings were poorly catalogued, highly opinionated, unbalanced, and in some instances, incomplete.

The Power to Wound. The House committee (most of whom had not read his two volumes) listened while Staff Director Richard Arens led the 41-year-old Cogley through a three-hour examination that touched on some glaring weaknesses. In one key section Cogley quotes an anonymous "New York public-relations expert who has guided more than a dozen once-blacklisted performers to the 'right people' " to get their names cleared. Cogley's strong implication: the "clearance men" are vicious operators, "with the power to wound and the power to heal the wound." Next day Counsel Arens called in the anonymous public-relations expert. He was Arnold Forster, general counsel for B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League. Forster recalled an interview by a Cogley assistant, said he had not expected word-for-word quotation, and insisted that Cogley had quoted him incompletely. Though he had indeed linked newspapermen, advertising executives and American Legion officials to "clearance" activities that could "un-blacken" performers, Forster said he had no intention of making them out to be "reprehensible" men. Said he: "From where I sat, the men who are alleged to be clearance men in this context were doing good, and not evil." But when Committee Chairman Francis Walter suggested that there really was no blacklisting going on, Forster disagreed, called it "a serious problem."

Fees & Figures. Behind Forster, by invitation instead of subpoena, came the New York World Telegram and Sun's Frederick Woltman and American Legionnaire James F. O'Neil to deny they were clearance men. Most breathless witness of the four-day hearing was Vincent Hartnett, 40, author of the unofficial, inexact, who's who of subversion, Red Channels. Hartnett described himself as a "talent consultant," denied Cogley's charge that he was "frankly in the business of exposing people with 'front records' and then, later, of 'clearing' them." But Hartnett admitted that he charged moderate fees ($2 to $200) for providing dossiers on entertainers' Communist affiliations and for the research work frequently required to clear the names of entertainers who wanted to clear up their troubles. Hartnett arched congressional backs by informing the committee its labors had exposed only 5% of the Communists in the entertainment industries.

In Manhattan the Fund for the Republic's President Robert M. Hutchins was shocked and indignant at the committee's questions and methods; e.g., it promised Cogley a private hearing, then yanked him without aides or counsel into the open hearing. The New York Times bristled editorially that the hearing came "perilously close" to being an effort "to intimidate a man for writing what he believes." There was no doubt that the committee's heavyhandedness had weakened its case. Likewise, there was little doubt that Congress had every right to eye the major activities of a tax-exempt foundation, that the hearing had strongly suggested that Cogley's report was inept journalism at best. As Reporter Woltman put it: "Any newspaper that proceeded the way Cogley did would be subject to grave criticism."

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