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

Archbishop Hoover had worked out to investigate possible witchcraft in the
press, motion pictures, television, radio, publishing and advertising.
McCarthy was still chasing teachers and State Department employees which
left the anti-sorcery field wide for other players. Madison Avenue was
begging for a probe. Although Stevens was not as yet suspected of any
involvement in his wife's coven, she was in a perfect position to
influence him and he was in a perfect position to influence an entire
nation. If Stevens could sell toothpaste, washing powder and root beer, he
could easily wrap a little Satan in with the package.
He sat in his hotel room, the ice in his untouched bourbon melted to
specks, listening to the sounds of the city. Every hotel room was the
same: prominent wooden cross, embroidered Bible sayings, tiny radio.
Finlay was beginning to feel Mrs Stevens wouldn't give them her twelve
names.
The family had a lawyer now, a New York sharpie. Since Mrs Saylor's
suicide, Mrs Stevens had avoided contact with Dwight and his sidekick,
courteously refusing Cohn's tactfully-worded invitations. The lawyer used
expressions like 'not too late' and 'all this unpleasantness can be
avoided', but didn't see they only made the witch more determined to stick
it out... If she broke, it would be on the stand. She could plead the
Fifth, which was tantamount to an admission of guilt. But whether she was
judged guilty or innocent was an irrelevance, because she was not charged
with any prosecutable crime. It was not against the law to worship Satan.
Just as it wasn't against the law to refuse service, to terminate
employment, to call in loans, to avoid a neighbour, to isolate a child, to
comb tax records.
Finlay turned on the radio. Walter Winchell had just named Lucille Ball as
a former witch. The star admitted she had attended a seance in the late
thirties to please her grandfather but denied any other allegations.
Winchell pressed sternly on naming names. Funnily enough, the radio
columnist always named Lucille Balls and Veronica Lakes - after all,
hadn't she been in I Married a Witch? - and Bela Lugosis. He wasn't much
interested in Samantha Stevenses or Tansy Saylors. Samantha Whosits? Tansy
Whyevers? There were a sight too many celebrity inquisitors - Roy Cohn
included, Finlay reflected - in this crusade.
No, he decided, Goodwife Stevens would not give in easily. It wasn't in
her nature. She would not give them her twelve names.
They already had thirteen names.
Testifying meant nothing. The coven was already broken, Mrs Stevens must
know that. Cohn had leap-frogged her and gone on to the Holroyds and the
others. Finlay, with responsibility for Mrs Stevens alone, didn't know,
but she could easily be the single hold-out. In the group of thirteen, she
would be the traitor to the common cause. She would be the only one not to
inform on the others. They would want her to. As long as she refused,
their testimony was shameful cowardice. If she too recognised that she had
sinned and pleaded for absolution by naming names, then they were all
absolved, all reconciled to the church.
It was madness to continue. But it was a madness Finlay understood. Though
he prayed for Mrs Stevens' salvation, devoutly hoping she would find a way
to the light, he had to admire her. For many, sorcery was just a fad; for