Letter to the Editor from the Ayn Rand Institute

Regarding the Michael Epstein documentary: "Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and the Blacklist:
None Without Sin," (PBS, 9/3/03): the real "sin" was clearly that of the blacklisted
writers and actors. This documentary is yet another attempt by the American left to keep
alive the big lie that the blacklisted were innocent victims and unjustly persecuted.
They were neither.

American citizens have the right to hold and express unpopular views, including
communist views. However, such freedom does not include the right to forcibly overthrow
the United States government. The American Communist Party was a secret organization not
a political party. And as the KGB archives prove, it was financed and directed by the
Soviet Union, which made it an extension of Soviet foreign policy, and thus a proper
subject for congressional inquiry. Those who refused to "name names" had plenty to hide.

The Hollywood blacklist was an economic boycott--a proper response to those with whom
one does not want to deal. There is no right to a job. And the ruined careers of dozens
of American writers and actors is a just consequence of having aided and abetted the
Soviet Union, which murdered thousands of Russian writers and millions of its own
citizens.


Jeff Britting
Ayn Rand Institute