Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities 1938-1968

by Eric Bentley (Compiler), Frank Rich (Compiler)

The testimony that the author has gleaned for this book from the thirty-year record of the House Un-American Activities Committee focuses on HUAC’s treatment of artists, intellectuals, and performers. This highly readable and absorbing collection of significant excerpts from the hearings shows with painful clarity how HUAC grew from a panel that investigated possible subversive activities in a “dignified” manner to a huge, unrelenting accusatory finger from which almost no one was safe. This book serves as a warning for the future and creates living history from the documentary record. “The basic document with which all future studies of the [House Un-American Activities] Committee will have to begin.” —Dalton Trumbo “...what he has done is give us HUAC as spectacle, and the perspective is shattering.”—Victor Navasky, The New York Times

Genres: History, Politics

1000 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1971

About the author

Eric Russell Bentley was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, singer, editor, and translator whose work shaped twentieth-century theatrical discourse. Educated at University College, Oxford, and Yale University, where he earned his doctorate, he later taught at Black Mountain College and Columbia University and served as theatre critic for The New Republic. Known for his incisive and uncompromising criticism, he became one of the foremost English-language authorities on Bertolt Brecht, translating, editing, and performing Brecht’s work and recording landmark albums of Brecht songs. Bentley was also an accomplished playwright, with Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been, drawn from Un-American Activities Committee hearings, becoming his most produced play. He appeared for decades as a cabaret performer and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. An advocate for artistic and political freedom, he publicly opposed the Vietnam War and later spoke openly about his homosexuality and its influence on his work.

Reviews

[Memed Koz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belgesel nitelikte bir kitap aslında. Bir komitenin sorgulama içindeki diyaloglarını (tutanakları) içeriyor. Amerika’ya karşı çalışmaları araştırma komitesi. İsmi bile trajikomik. Bir anti-kominist tasfiye hareketi.
2.Dünya savaşı bitince oluşturulan ve o dönemki adıyla SSCB’de hakim olan sol görüşün, komünizmin ABD’ye sıçramaması ve yaygınlaşmaması için, Hollywood dünyası başta olmak üzere, sinema ve tiyatro dünyasından isimleri sorguladıkları, “sakıncalı” gördüklerini tutuklamayıp kara listeye aldıkları ve iş kapılarının kapatılmasının sağlandığı bir komite.
Bizdeki Ergenekon gibi!
Dik duran, onurlu bir şekilde sorgulamaya yanıtlar veren sanatçılar olduğu gibi, başına bir iş gelmemesi için ihbarcılık yapan, tek tek isim veren oyuncu da var. Sonradan ABD başkanı olan Ronald Reagan son derece kararlı ve ateşli bir şekilde anti-komünist ifadelerde bulunmuş, 1999’da Onur Oscar’ı ödülü verilen Elia Kazan da maalesef yanar dönerli tavırlarını bazı isimler vererek ihbarcılığı da eklemiş.
ABD o yıllarda da, günümüzde de dünya devi olan bir ülke. Yazık ki o dönemlerdeki adaletli olmayan, suçlayıcı yaklaşımla ve sol-fobik bir tavırla, ava çıkmış resmen.
Duruşmada onurlu duruşunu bozmayan Arthur Miller ve Bertolt Brecht’e saygıyla..
Not: Kitabı yıllar önce sahaflardan almıştım. Bu yıl okumak için elime alıp ilk sayfasını açtığımda, kitabın çevirmeni şair Ülkü Tamer’in bir kişiye kitabı imzalamış olduğunu farkettim. Farkında olmadan Ülkü Tamer imzalı bir kitabım oldu.

[Mike Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

The HUAC to my thinking was very un-American this audiobook confirms my thoughts. As Americans we must always vigilant for those in power to exceed there authority and abuse this authority. Often they cloak themselves in the flag or a religion. This audiobook demonstrates just how easy this is. I do remember some of this period and listening to this audiobook was very informative.