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that the renewal in the 1970s of controversy over political stands
taken thirty years ago reveals "how deep were the divisions that beset
the liberal community," he nevertheless fails to note that the side
that was on the defensive in the 1950s chose to renew the battle,
taking advantage of the revival of radicalism and opposition to
American foreign policy in the wake of Vietnam. Hellman initiated
her publicized fights with Wechsler, Diana Trilling, and Mary
McCarthy, and no one is writing books or making movies critical of
the Hollywood Communists.
The most important argument bearing on the specific issue of
naming names is the "question of candor," taken up in the very last
chapter. Navasky wants us to honor the moral courage of people
who remained silent in order to avoid legal penalties when
questioned by a tribunal of our major elected assembly about their
past or present membership in a political party which demanded of
its members unqualified support of a foreign dictatorship
threatening independent and democratic nations abroad.
Unquestionably, many of these witnesses chose not to talk because
informing was morally repellent to them and others refused because
they rejected the "unjust authority" of the tribunal, anticipating the
Supreme Court judgment that curbed such inquiries a few years
later. But some remained silent because they had previously lied to
other agencies and feared the truth would expose them to perjury
indictments. There were witnesses who declined to testify in
response to pressures from spouses, friends , and coworkers, just as
some of the namers gave in to like pressures to do the opposite. And
some, especially among the Hollywood Ten, were obeying not their
consciences but Communist party orders directing members never
to
admit to membership. Navasky's own account reveals the
presence of all of these motives. His conclusion that the mute
witnesses are "moral exemplars" of the lesson "that one must abide
by one's code" is simply not warranted by his evidence.
Naming Names
ends with a major offensive against the liberal anti–
Communists, complaining that when accused of moral dereliction
for "abandoning" Communist victims of McCarthyism, "they prefer
to change the subject to Stalin." "Who, then, lacks candor?" Navasky
ripostes. The feeble
tu quoque
character of this sally will not be lost on
anyone who remembers ever having tried to persuade even the
mildest fellow-traveler of the reality, let alone the enormity, of
Stalin's crimes. But Navasky is too young to recall that debate, and
his question, as the tense indicates, is addressed to the re ponse of
anti-Communist liberals
today
to the reproach that they did not
