Trumbo and Associates

I don’t know how others feel, but I am well past being weary of the all the sanctimonious handwringing over the sad fate of Dalton Trumbo and other communists who were blacklisted in Hollywood in the years after World War II.  Trumbo was an apologist and advocate for a horrific tyranny which in number of murdered victims and duration exceeded that of  Nazis and a member of a subversive organization under control of the intelligence secret service of a hostile foreign power.

Because of this, a group of potential private employers who were not obligated to do business with him decided  they would not do so,  while another group required him to use an assumed name when working for them. That was it - the extent of his martyrdom during the so-called dark days of the blacklist.  He was not executed. He was not tortured into making a false confession at a show trial. He was not sent to Siberia or a concentration camp. He remained free to speak out.  His property was not seized. His  family was not harmed.  (He did do a short stretch in jail for an offense - contempt of congress -  of which he was clearly guilty, but that is separate from the story of the blacklisting.)

My sympathies are with the people who refused to hire him. I would not want someone like that working for me in a position where he could influence public opinion any more than I would want an advocate of any other murderous doctrine or ideology in such a position.  That others would want that, and even more, think such a person was entitled to it, is interesting.