After World War II, America became deeply concerned about protecting itself from the Russian “Red Menace.” The Cold War created an era of paranoia that the Soviet communists would attack with atomic weapons at any minute and bury us all before we had a chance to get to a fallout shelter or “duck and cover.”
Many might be aware of the activities of Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisc.) who tried to enhance his political profile with his witch-hunting methods of accusing people of possibly being a member of the Communist Party. There were also the publicized Congressional hearings trying to find Communist Party sympathizers in the film industry who were supposedly influencing the messages that American films were presenting.
However, few people know that, besides regular live-action motion pictures, the animation industry itself was also a target and that many animators lost their livelihood because of supposed Communist sympathies. Labelling a person a Communist was enough to get that person fired and blacklisted for years in the entertainment industry.
Walt Disney was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as a “friendly witness” in 1947, which meant not only was he vehemently against communism but that he was willing to “name names” of people publicly whom he believed might have Communist sympathies.
The 1947 committee called 24 “friendly” and eleven “unfriendly” witnesses. Eight other scheduled unfriendly witnesses were never called to testify. The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an anti-Communist, pro-free enterprise political group, furnished most of the friendly witnesses who identified instances of alleged communism in Hollywood.
In addition to commenting on perceived Communist influences in the film content, they also identified alleged Communists and Communist sympathizers at the hearings.
The friendly witnesses included Jack Warner of Warner Brothers; Louis B. Mayer of MGM; film actors Gary Cooper, George Murphy, Adolphe Menjou, Robert Taylor, and Robert Montgomery; screenwriter and novelist Ayn Rand; screenwriter Robert Hughes; animator and studio-owner Walt Disney; film director Leo McCarey, Ronald Reagan (then-president of the Screen Actors Guild); and union leader Roy Brewer.
In addition to identifying individuals they believed to be Communists, friendly witnesses were commonly asked if they believed Hollywood should make anti-Communist films to reveal “the dangers and intrigue of the Communist Party here in the United States” and if they believed that the United States should outlaw the Communist Party. Many of these witnesses falsely identified people as Communists simply because they did not like them or they disagreed with them.
Literally hundreds of careers were destroyed. However, the fear of Communist influence in the entertainment industry was not totally irrational, and it is important to realize the very real “Red Scare” that pervaded everything at the time and that Walt was testifying because he felt that the communist philosophy was completely un-American.
Additional hearings by the committee were held 1951-52, 1953-55, and 1957-58.
To call Walt Disney politically naive would be an understatement. As early as 1931, a Nazi newspaper condemned Mickey Mouse as “the most miserable ideal ever revealed … the dirty and filth-covered vermin, the greatest bacteria carrier in the animal kingdom, cannot be the ideal type of animal … Down with Mickey Mouse!”
Adolf Hitler repeatedly denounced Mickey Mouse and, in 1937, tried to ban Mickey completely from the cinemas in Germany. Walt's response at the time in Overland Monthy magazine was to state that “Mr. A. Hitler, the nazi old thing, says that Mickey's silly. Imagine that! Well, Mickey's going to save Mr. A. Hitler from drowning or something some day … then won't Mr. A. Hitler be ashamed …”
At best, Walt might have been slightly concerned about Hitler's effect on foreign market distribution of his animated product, but certainly wasn't politically astute enough to realize how deeply Hitler's political agenda would impact the American way of life.
As a young man Walt really had no political convictions, despite his early support of Franklin Roosevelt that he disavowed in later years. At best, he might have been politically considered a “populist” rather than an actual Democrat or a Republican.
Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 as a “friendly witness.”
As he grew older, Walt became a highly conservative Republican, often bullying his animation staff to make campaign contributions to Republican politicians running for office like George Murphy and Richard Nixon.
One animator told me that in the 1960s, Walt's golf cart pargo that he used to get around the backlot of the Disney Studio had a big bumper sticker that read: “Vote for Goldwater!” When he received the Medal of Freedom from President Johnson in 1964, Walt wore a Goldwater button under his lapel that he mischeivously flashed to the chief executive, who was a Democrat.
When Walt gave a speech and mentioned that he had some minor traffic tickets for illegal left turns and the officer warned him to only make right turns in the future, Walt smiled and said that would be an easy request because “I lean that way anyway.”
Many believe it was the infamous Disney strike of 1941 that turned Walt away from some of his earlier more liberal beliefs and towards a harder conservative viewpoint.
Basically, the strike happened because the animators were actively talking about creating a union, because the pay scale at the Disney Studios was arbitrary based on Walt’s whims and highly inequitable. One person in the room, like Art Babbit,could be making $300 or more a week while his assistant made $25 a week, and ink and painters might make as little as $16 a week, which was not enough to pay normal bills.
During the Disney studio strike in 1941, Walt took out an ad in Variety, the industry trade paper, on July 2, 1941, to proclaim: “I am positively convinced that communistic agitation, leadership and activities have brought about this strike.”
Animator Ward Kimball (who didn't go out on the strike but stayed inside the Disney Studio as part of management) told me that Walt calling the strikers “communists” was typical “Walt overkill.” It was an easy way of discrediting somebody.
“Look, you have to realize that in those days if you said anything against the status quo, if you were even slightly liberal, you were called a communist,” Kimball said. “It’s still the magic buzz word. If they want to destroy somebody, they say he’s a communist. In those days you were automatically called a communist if you believed in unions.”
“Walt was really getting all this from [Disney lawyer Gunther] Lessing who was sure that all labor leaders and union members were 'Commies,' that he was dealing with pure communists straight from the Soviet Union,” he said. “They weren’t! They were fellow artists who wanted an equitable wage.”
Walt's reasoning was that anybody who was against what he wanted to do had to be a Communist because Walt was such a staunch American. Basically, Walt felt betrayed by his “boys” and decided that the only reason for that betrayal must have been outside influences, like Communist instigators.
The Screen Cartoonist Guild made it known in an ad, which appeared in The Hollywood Reporter trade paper for October 30, 1947, that it unanimously voted to refute the statement made by Walt Disney to HUAC regarding the Disney strike of 1941 that “it was not a labor problem at all.”
Bill Melendez, who was president of the Screen Cartoonists Guild, stated that “the strike was caused by (1) the company’s unwillingness to recognize the union and to bargain and negotiate a contract; (2) the firing of one of our members for union activities. It was also pointed out that the National Labor Relations Board later reinstated this discharged member with full pay for the time he was out.”
That is a reference to animator Art Babbit.
Babbit was fired In May 1941 for promoting a union. A strike was called that very same day. The strike dragged on for nine weeks and finally ended September 12 when the Disney Studio resumed regular operation. The National Labor Relations Board mediator found in favor of the Screen Cartoonist Guild on every key issue.
Walt was also known to hold a grudge for a long time and, when the opportunity presented itself six years after the strike, Walt, who was still hurt by what he had gone through with the event, lashed out at those who he felt had destroyed a Golden Age in Disney Animation and the family of animators he had nurtured.
As you read Walt Disney's testimony for the HUAC, let's put some of the cast of characters whom Walt mentions into better perspective:
Herbert Sorrell was definitely hated by Walt, but there is no reason to believe he was a Communist. Other friendly witnesses failed to identify Sorrell as a Communist even though they had plenty of opportunity to do so. Sorrell was the leader and negotiator for the Screen Cartoonists Guild and was known for playing tough, just as he did for other unions. There is evidence that Walt didn't care for Sorrell personally or professionally. At the time, Sorrell was investigated heavily several times and there was insufficient evidence to prove he was a Communist. More than four decades later, supposedly paperwork was uncovered that the Communist Party might have provided Sorrell with money for his activities.
William Pomerance was hired by the union after the strike and had nothing to do with it.
David Hilberman was hardly the “the big leader” behind the strike, but he was instrumental. Hilberman's job during the strike was to study labor law at a local library and to hold one meeting at his house where people signed cards saying they wanted the Screen Cartoonists Guild to represent them. Hilberman was only one of several people who gathered the cards. Hilberman's short stint with a Russian theater company was a sad and lonely time where he was homesick and, when he joined the Disney Studios, the publicity department considered his training in Russia an artistic plus. However, that brief stint in Russia was enough to cast a shadow over his loyalties. Hilberman was Jewish, so this was often used as an example that Walt was anti-Semitic. Walt didn’t care about his religion. He just felt Hilberman was a pain in his butt.
Art Babbitt deserves that honor of being the leader. His active participation caused Walt to hate him with an intensity that resulted in Babbitt's accomplishments at the Studio being minimized or expunged completely off the record for decades. It was Babbit's initial firing that was the spark for the strike. Eventually, Babbit was reinstated and fired three more times by Walt who had to reinstate him again and again by the National Labor Relations Board. Babbit was not a communist and enlisted in the Marines after he left the studio, something he would have been unable to do if he were a communist.
Disney's testimony hurt several people, in particular Hilberman. After the strike, Hilberman left the studio and helped found the animation studio UPA and later his own animation studio, Tempo, with William Pomerance which produced animation for television commercials.
In 1954, The New Counterattack, an anti-communist newsletter dug up Walt's testimony and gave the material to newspaperman Walter Winchell, who printed it in his newspaper column and within one day all advertising agencies withdrew their work from Tempo and the company was destroyed. Literally, Walt's testimony destroyed Hilberman and Pomerance as they were blacklisted in Red Channels, a listing of unacceptable people to be employed.
Walt had very strong anti-Communist beliefs. An associate remembers that, in the mid-1950s, Walt was complaining about the Communist influence in the motion picture industry. Walt was the founder and vice-president in 1944 of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA). “The MPA was organized to combat a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this American way of life.”
In 1947, the same year of Walt's testimony, the MPA published a guide for producers that listed some of the “subtle communistic touches” to avoid in motion picture scripts. Among its recommendations:
- Don't smear the free enterprise system.
- Don't smear industrialists.
- Don't smear wealth. “It is the proper wish of every decent American to stand on his own feet, earn his own living, and be as good at it as he can.”
- Don't smear the profit motive.
- Don't smear success.
- Don't glorify failure.
- Don't glorify depravity. “Go easy on stories about murderers, perverts and all the rest of that sordid stuff.”
- Don't deify “the common man.” “The common man is one of the worst slogans of communism and too many of us have fallen for it without thinking. Don't ever use any line about the common man or the little people. It's not the American idea to be either common or little.”
It is important to remember during this time the quote from Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter who suffered severely from the blacklisting and the communist witch hunts: “When you look back at that dark time, as I think occasionally you should, it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims.”
The truly sad thing is that the Los Angeles Police Department had already infiltrated the Communist Party (a legitimate, legal political party by the way) starting in 1928. From 1936-1945, two undercover LAPD officers were the party's membership directors, so the House Committee did have access to the Communist Party's membership lists and other files and had no need to gather names and information by the public hearings, except to create public spectacles that served the re-election interests of the committee and its members.
For historical purposes, the next installment of this column is a copy of Walt's testimony to HUAC. This is one of the few documents from this time period that shows an unedited presentation by Walt himself without help from the publicity or legal department which may help us understand how he thought and how he expressed himself. It also reveals how Walt felt the studio operated.
In later years, most historians believe that the real villain of the Disney strike was the head of the Disney studio legal department, Gunther Lessing, who gave Walt misleading and “selective” advice about unions and how to handle them. It is interesting to note that after the strike, Lessing’s influence over Walt diminished greatly and continued to do so.
“Walt and Roy Disney were called ‘American Firsters.' They believed that there’s a communist behind every tree, every bush and so on,” Art Babbit said. “Everyone who didn’t agree with Walt’s way of doing things was a communist. One time when I tried to get a raise for my assistant, he said, ‘If he was worth it, he’d be getting it. The trouble with you is that you and your communist friends live in a world so small you don’t know what’s going on around you’. I think a lot of this was coming from Lessing.”
During his testimony, Walt “mis-spoke” himself, confusing the League of Women Voters with another group called the League of Women Shoppers, a leftist group who had been sending letters to the Disney Studios supporting the Guild and berating Walt Disney during the Strike.
This slip resulted in Walt being made fun of in several editorials (like Fred Othman's column in the October 25, 1947, edition of the Washington News among others) so Walt fired off a telegram to the HUAC and at the October 28, 1947, meeting, the following from Walt Disney was read into the official record:
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Chairman, before we call the first witness, I would like to read into the record a telegram which was received yesterday from Walt Disney, who has previously testified. It says:
“Some confusion has arisen over my testimony regarding the League of Women Voters. My testimony referred to the year 1941, at which time several women represented themselves as being from the League of Women Voters. I want you to know that I had no intention of criticizing the League of Women Voters as of now. Please see that this is read to the committee on Monday and that it is added to my testimony. Walt Disney.”
I ask that that be made part of the record.
THE CHAIRMAN: Without objection, so ordered.
But even that was not enough to quell Walt's slip of the tongue and so probably with the help of the Disney Studio legal staff, the following letter was sent to J. Parnell Thomas, the Chairman of HUAC on November 3, 1947 from Walt Disney:
“Gentlemen: I am taking the liberty of referring you to my testimony before your committee in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 1947, in the course of which and in answer to a question by your chairman, I stated substantially that when Mr. Sorrell 'Pulled the strike,' the first people to smear me and put me on the unfair list were certain organizations among which was The League of Women Voters.
“Since returning to my office in Burbank, Calif., I have had an opportunity to carefully review my files pertaining to this subject matter. I can now definitely state that while testifying as above I was confused by a similarity of names between two women's organizations. I regret that I named The League of Women voters when I intended to name the League of Women Shoppers.
“Therefore I trust your committee will find it consistent to make requisite amendment to the record with respect to my testimony so as to erase any implication that The League of Women Voters had at any time intervened or taken any action with regard to the matters about which I was being interrogated.
“For the information of the committee I am enclosing herewith photostatic copies of letters received from various units of the League of Women Shoppers which are self-explanatory.
“Respectfully submitted, Walter E. Disney”
In Part Two, the complete and unedited testimony of Walt Disney to HUAC in 1947.
