Roy Huggins and HUAC

[Adam H. Kerman]

Googling for something else, I came across a blog post about Roy Huggins'
testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.
I never knew. He named names. This is several years before he created
Maverick.

http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/black-list-white-wash/

It's written in rebuttal to another blog claiming that Huggins was blacklisted.

[AlbertClarkson]

Adam, thanks. What an important post. I had no idea of Huggins's
testimony. I don't know what to think, except these things: I guess
it's all too easy easy post mortem to say you had a "failure of
nerve." On the other hand, I've read enough history, e.g., Timothy
Snyder's BLOODLANDS (if you haven't, you should, as dreadful as it is)
to know that people cave (and in even far worse ways than did
Huggins). I'm glad MAVERICK and ROCKFORD came to be, and all of us
always should be hesitant to cast the first stone, but you just can't
help lowering your view of Huggins.

UCLA comes out here for me as despicable.

[Adam H. Kerman]

I've read plenty about Huggins over the years. Even if I hadn't, I'd have
known that Jack L. Warner wouldn't have hired a blacklisted writer. None of
heads of major studios did. That was the point of the blacklist. He
certainly didn't use the pen name John Thomas James to get work, though
Huggins was blacklisted. It wasn't an alias; those were just his kids' names.

It's a disappointing revelation for sure.

On the other hand, that he named an optomistrist made me laugh. I'm sure
it wasn't funny for the optometrist, but still...