West End letters: Joe McCarthy | witchhunt | Roger Hughes | US military

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 18 September 2009

Not Joe!

REVIEWING Witch-Hunt in Hollywood (McCarthy’s bad guy role in a dark Hollywood drama, August 21), Gerald Isaaman claims 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.”
No, he didn’t. The Hollywood blacklist began in 1947 and lasted till the early 1950s. 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.
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.
Your liberal use of McCarthy’s photograph to illustrate this article is certainly incorrect.
Roger Hughes, NW3

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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