"Newman, Kim - The McCarthy Witch Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

Devil (Mischa Auer) to run a movie studio. There were romantic melodramas,
like Gilda with Rita Hayworth and Spellbound with Ingrid Bergman, of love
potions and seductive sorceresses. And patriotic war films, like Coven 13,
with Edward G. Robinson, and The Strange Curse of Adolf Hitler, with Gale
Sondergaard, of American warlocks working underground in Europe. It was
only when the real stories about Berlin started filtering back to the
States the climate changed.
The Hollywoodians were beached whales in Washington, cut off from
cocktails and contracts and deals and dollars. They had nothing to
contribute but hot air and Thomas was going to strut and preen until the
building floated away on it. Witchcraft wasn't an issue to the
Congressman, just a way to keep him in the papers.
Only in the inner sanctums of the Bureau was the full extent of the
Satanic threat truly understood. Instinctively, Archbishop Hoover
understood the danger. He was the one who realised the women were the
dangerous ones, the witches rather than the warlocks. Reports came in from
undercover men, suggesting an interlinked network of covens criss-crossed
the country, tying in with every tier of American life. Workplaces, homes,
city halls, army camps, small towns, everywhere.
The Devil was finding work.
Now Ronald Reagan, President of the Screen Actors' Guild, was explaining
at length why he refused the lead role in Little Devils, co-starring the
Dead End Kids, risking a suspension because he didn't want to appear in a
picture espousing an Un-Christian way of life. Finlay could think of other
reasons why someone would want to stay away from the Dead End Kids...
Finlay's empty socket hurt. He was still wearing a patch; soon the doctors
could fit him with a glass eye.
He excused himself as Ayn Rand took the stand to deliver a stinging
indictment of the sacrilegious undertones of Columbia's Reveille With
Beverly and slipped out of the Caucus Room. The corridor was empty.
A couple of writers and directors would wind up in the stocks after these
hearings, but not for raising the dead or invoking demons. They would all
do penance for Contempt of Congress, which was the rap Thomas slapped on
them when they refused to name the others in their circles. If anything,
that was the important precedent: the criminalisation of silence. Those
initially subpoenaed were known as the Hollywood Thirteen, and at least a
third of them had already testified against their coven-mates.
He checked his watch. It was time to call the office. The real work of the
Inquisition wasn't yet begun. Thomas's all-star road show was a
curtain-raiser.
Finlay heard testimony droning on. Inside the Caucus Room, the director
Leo McCarey volunteered that Satanists didn't care for his Going My Way
because there was a character in the film they didn't like. 'Bing Crosby?'
asked Thomas. 'No,' replied McCarey, 'God.' Finlay had seen that picture
and not cared for it much either. None of the priests he'd worked with
were like Barry FitzGerald or Bing Crosby.
He closed his good eye and saw the fiery outline of the pikadon in the
darkness. It was imprinted on his mind, a constant reminder of what the
crusade was all about.
He would spend the rest of his life trying to get the lid back on