John Henry Faulk was a popular radio personality in NY in the 1950s. He was a Texas boy who was both a scholar and storyteller. In 1956, shortly after he was elected to the board of his union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, he was accused of being a Communist sympathizer by Aware Inc.
Faulk didn't work on radio of television for the next 6 1/2 years. Unlike most who were blacklisted, he sued. Louis Nizer, one of the most famous litigators of the time, took his case.
My mother, who had gone to law school and was "all but bar," wanted me to see Nizer work a courtroom. She took me down to the court in New York City on a very dramatic day. I was twelve.
First, a little more background from Fear on Trial by John Henry Faulk (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1964):
(10-11)
AWARE had been organized back 1953. It called itself "an organization to combat the Communist conspiracy in entertainment-communications," and it operated as a vigilante committee, putting out bulletins from time to time, accusing performers in radio and television of Communist or pro- Communist activities. It had played havoc with the careers of dozens of performers; any performer it attacked was blacklisted throughout the industry. AWARE also was a powerful influence in the affairs of AFTRA - in fact, they almost completely dominated AFTRA in New York.
AFTRA had been founded in New York in 1938, and although it became a national union with strong locals in Chicago and Hollywood, the New York local was the largest and strongest in the union. The governing body of the New York local was a thirty-five man board of directors, whose members were elected from the membership every December, to serve throughout the following year. From the early 1950s, this board of directors had been controlled entirely by one faction of the union. The same group was elected year after year, and they made anti-Communism a big issue. A number of them, including Vinton Hayworth, the president of the New York local in 1955, were officers of AWARE,Inc.
(13) Orson Bean, Charles Collingwood and Faulk organized a slate of candidates for the AFTRA board:
We managed, however, to get thirty-three people in all. We called ourselves the Middle-of-the-Road slate and put out a statement setting forth what we hoped to do for the union. We called it "A Declaration of Independents." Among other things, we declared that while we were opposed to Communism we were also opposed to the blacklisting and intended to do something to put a stop to it. The announcement that there was a Middle-of-the-Road slate in the election running against the AWARE-supported slate created quite a stir among the AFTRA membership in New York.
At election time, in December of 1955, we swept into office with a flourish. The Middle-of-the-Road slate won twenty-seven of the thirty-five seats on the board. this meant that we were firmly in control of the New York local as far as numbers were concerned. The constitution of the union provided that the president, five vice-presidents, a secretary and a treasurer were to be elected from the board of directors by the membership. A couple of weeks later Collingwood was elected president, Bean first vice-president, and I was elected second vice-president of the local. We took office in January of 1956.
In February, 1956, Aware published their News Bulletin accusing John Henry Faulk of "pro-Communist affiliations."
Let's continue the story with The Jury Returns by Louis Nizer (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co, 1966):
(235)
Of all the candidates on the middle-of-the-road slate, the one who received the highest number of votes was John Henry Faulk. At meetings, which only later were exposed, Aware Inc., Vincent Hartnett, and Laurence A. Johnson planned specifically to aim their guns at Faulk. They did so in a special News Bulletin.
They succeeded beyond their fondest dreams. They pulverized him out of the entertainment industry and left him unemployed and unemployable for 6 1/2 years. They ruined his reputation and left him and his family in a state of starvation. They made a ghastly lesson of him, so that all others who dared to challenge them in the future would be terrorized by his example.
(238)
Faulk's sponsors began to cancel out their programs. Libby Frozen Foods, which constituted almost 15 per cent of his radio advertising (eight spots a week), terminated a long and successful relationship with him. So did the nestle Company, Libby's Canned Foods, Diamond Crystal Salt, Nucoa, Rheingold Beer, and others. AS for new jobs. he never obtained a television engagement from the day the Bulletin was issued to the end of the trial, a period of 6 1/2 years (except for one isolated appearance on a Jack Paar program).
The main people behind the blacklist were Vincent Hartnett who was the director and "research consultant" of Aware Inc and the author of Red Channels, a book which listed the "political activities" of various performers. The money man was Laurence Johnson:
(243)
Laurence A. Johnson had become famous in the broadcasting industry as "that grocer from Syracuse," who it was ominously hinted could drive any entertainer off the air. He owned a chain of six supermarkets, but he was also an official in the National Association of Supermarkets and boasted an indirect control of thousands of product outlets throughout the nation.
Aware Inc and the radio/television blacklist of the 1950s sounds like the model of the Right Wing Noise Machine of today. Oh what mighty oaks from little acorns grow!
(Please note that union politics in the entertainment industry in New York at that time was cut-throat from a variety of directions. Years later, I talked iwth David Quaid, a cameraman and director of photography who was active in the trade union for the "crafts" people behind the scenes. He told me that "the Communists" tried to kill him one night as he was driving home. But that's another story.)
Here is Louis Nizer's account of what happened on that hot June day in a New York courtroom. It certainly agrees with my recollection, for that was the day my mother took me to see the great lawyer at work.
(371-373)
During the second day of cross-examination I noticed that Hartnett would occasionally take a pink card out of his pocket, write something on it, put it back in his breast pocket, and proceed to answer my questions. At first I thought he was making notes for his counsel for redirect examination. Even this would be strange behavior by a witness. it is the lawyer who usually carries this burden, while the witness is preoccupied enough responding to hostile questions. But soon I observed that before Hartnett made these notes on his colored card, he had looked at the doors of the courtroom which were almost directly opposite him. On one occasion as I followed his eyes to the door, then to the clock on the wall, and then saw him unclip his fountain pen and write a note on a card, I interrupted cross-examination of a subject I was pursuing:
Q. Incidentally, you have made notes of people coming into the courtroom even while you have been on the stand, haven't you and the time they have come into the courtroom, on those pink slips?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you write down the time they entered the courtroom?
A. I did.
Since comment on this incident had to await summation, I indulged in the only communication possible at the time - a long, meaningful look at the jury.
Now, several days later, Bolan was conducting redirect examination of Hartnett. he decided to exploit this incident to his own purpose.
Q. On cross-examination Mr. Nizer asked you if you were recording the names of the people who came into the courtroom during your testimony. Do you recall that?
A. I do.
Q. Who were the names of the people you wrote?
A. Elliot Sullivan, who was sitting next to Mrs. Faulk; John Randolph, Alan Manson, Jack Gilford, were some of them.
That struck me as extraordinary. Was attendance at a public trial to be included in some future report by Harnett, as evidence of pro-communism? Harnett had considered an artist's attendance at a funeral of an alleged pro-Communist, activity which required listing in his reports. Now, apparently being present at a trial of Aware and Hartnett was proof of disloyalty to our country and warranted a notation with the precise time of entry. Aside from the neurotic illogic of the whole thin, for the crowded courtroom often held many members of Aware, I was particularly struck by Hartnett's reference to the fact that one of these visitors sat down next to Mrs. Faulk. What an exquisite extension of the doctrine of guilt by association; Now it was guilt by proximity. I marked his answer on my pad with several penciled stars, to remind me that this was worthy of recross-examination in depth. I needed no reminder. I had already decided to take a gamble which the prudent rules of cross-examination would have ruled out. But there are times when caution is the great risk, and besides, my anger was getting the better of me. Now the time for recross had come. Once more, I faced Hartnett, although we had thought we were through with him.
Q. You have said that when you were on the witness stand, when somebody came into the room you wrote down the name, and in answer to your counsel's question you gave the name of one person, Mr. Sullivan, and you added he sat right down next to Mrs. Faulk. Did you say that?
A. I did.
Q. Do you see Mrs. Faulk in the court now?
A. I believe she is the lady over there, I am not sure.
The court: Which lady?
Mr. Nizer: Will you stand up?
(A woman rose in the courtroom.)
Mr. Nizer: What is your name, please?
The Woman: Sofer. S-O-F-E-R.
There was a roar of laughter in the courtroom which rose and rolled on as the full realization of his blunder took over. I imagined the hilarity was also tinged with ridicule. The jury too revealed the shock underneath its own burst of mirth. Against this emotional background of derision, I shouted.
Q. Is that the way you identify people when you also choose -
Objection was sustained.
Q. Would you like to have a second chance at... identifying her? ...Can you identify Mrs. Faulk in this courtroom now?
A. A certain lady was pointed out to me, described by Mr. Sibley as being Mrs. Faulk.
Q. Which one is that?
Mr. Bolan: He said Mr. Sibley of the New York Times pointed out -
Mr. Nizer: Mr. Bolan, I am not asking you to testify.
The court: Now wait a minute, Mr. Bolan. We want the answer from the witness.
A. It looked like her, Your Honor. I mistook her then.
Hartnett's reflex was typical. When he was caught in an egregious, embarrassing error, he immediately shifter the blame to someone else - Sibley, a New York Times reporter had misled him! Of course, this wasn't true. Sibley took the stand later, to deny vehemently that he had ever pointed out Mrs. Faulk to Nartnett of anyone else. He did not relish Hartnett's clutching at him to lift himself out of a hole. Hartnett, instead of taking his loss in a manly manner, revealed a persecution complex - a reporter had done him in by false identification.
"He will lie on credit when he could tell the truth for cash" as John Henry Faulk might say.
PS: Turns out John Henry Faulk spent some of the weekends during the trial staying with my mother's cousin in Long Island. We went to a party there one of those weekends and I remember John Henry Faulk drinking and talking on the patio. Unfortunately, I was more interesting in swimming in the pool.