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Wrong witch-hunt
• REVIEWING a book entitled Witch-Hunt in Hollywood, Gerald Isaaman claims that Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “bullying actions brought tragedy to thousands, uprooting lives and crashing careers, and no more so than in Hollywood, in a decade of fear from the late 1940s where McCarthy directed his search for subversive Communists in the magical world of the movies” (McCarthy’s bad guy role in a dark Hollywood drama, August 21).
No, he didn’t. The Hollywood blacklist began in 1947 and lasted 'til the early 1950s. Joseph McCarthy did not come to prominence until February 1950, when he first made accusations of communist infiltration, specifically into the federal government and US military. He played no part in the investigation of the entertainment industry.
McCarthy was a member of the US Senate; the House Committee on Un-American Activities that conducted the witch-hunt in the film industry was created, as its name implies, by the House of Representatives. The names are often connected, falsely.
Not having read the book, I cannot say whether the author, Michael Freedland, makes the same error, though its subtitle, McCarthy’s War against the Movies, makes me wonder.
Your liberal use of McCarthy’s photograph to illustrate this article is certainly incorrect.
ROGER HUGHES
Courthope Road, NW3
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