‘GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD COMPANY’: HEDDA HOPPER, HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP, AND THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLIE CHAPLIN, 1940-1952 pptx

‘GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD COMPANY’: HEDDA HOPPER, HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP, AND THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLIE CHAPLIN, 1940-1952 JENNIFER FROST ABSTRACT: Prominent in the motion picture industry an

‘GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD COMPANY’:

HEDDA HOPPER, HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP, AND THE CAMPAIGN

AGAINST CHARLIE CHAPLIN, 1940-1952

JENNIFER FROST

ABSTRACT: Prominent in the motion picture industry and among political conservatives in the mid-twentieth-century United States, Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, together with her readers, had an impact on American popular and political culture during the Cold War, an impact most evident in Hopper’s campaign against film actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin in the 1940s and early 1950s In collaboration with anticommunist forces inside and outside Hollywood, Hopper and her readers contributed to the revocation of Chaplin’s U.S re-entry visa in

1952 which, in turn, led to Chaplin’s decision to leave the United States permanently Far from being ‘trivial’ or ‘idle’ talk, Hopper’s gossip column and her readers’ responses condemned Chaplin’s personal, political, and professional life and blurred the invisible but influential boundary between what was considered ‘public’ and ‘private’ in Cold War America

In 1938, a struggling, underemployed supporting actress and fledgling

writer had her syndicated movie gossip column picked up by the Los Angeles Times With that ‘Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood’ had the audience it

needed Following in the footsteps of her soon-to-be archrival Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper emerged as a powerful figure in the Hollywood movie industry during its ‘golden age’ and remained influential into the 1960s Syndicated in 85 metropolitan newspapers, 3000 small town dailies, and 2000 weeklies during the 1940s, Hopper’s column had an estimated daily readership of 35 million by the mid-1950s (out of a national population of 160 million).1 Among these readers were filmgoers and fans who wrote enough letters in response to the content of Hopper’s column to employ two clerks working full time by the early 1940s.2 By the middle of the last century, Hopper in her famous hats had become a Hollywood icon,

even gracing the cover of the July 28, 1947 issue of Time magazine

The staples of Hopper’s column, as with all Hollywood gossip and fan magazines, were the actual—and manufactured—details about the private lives and personal problems of Hollywood stars Gossip played a key role in the intertextual mix of movie roles and off-screen personalities, of public images and private lives that created the star persona.3 Hollywood gossip could be favourable or malicious Although most Hollywood gossip was and is favourable, as its purveyors need to support the motion picture industry upon which they depend, the popular image of Hopper was that of

a ‘vicious witch’ who engaged in ‘bare-nailed bitchery.’4 She positioned herself as the voice of small-town America and used her column to express what she saw as proper mores and values and to advise, and chastise, the residents of ‘Hollywood Babylon’ about their actual and alleged behaviour

As a consequence, the lives of individual stars became subject to popular criticism from Hopper’s readers and other moviegoers.5

Yet, Hopper saw herself and acted not only as a newspaper columnist, Hollywood insider, and moral arbiter but also as a political figure Always a political conservative and a proud, active, and highly partisan member of the Republican Party, Hopper used her journalistic platform to express her political values, endorse candidates, report on her political activities, and mobilize her readers around a variety of contemporary political issues The political content of her column often prompted newspaper editors to complain that she had been hired to write about entertainment—not politics—but she simply ignored them, with no loss of business until near the end of her career in the 1960s.6 It helped that she won a major contract

for her column with the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News Syndicate

in 1942 and had the support of Col Robert McCormick, the politically

conservative owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune In her column,

Hopper expressed strong opposition to the New Deal in the 1930s, U.S intervention during World War II, and the civil rights movement in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s At the core of her conservatism, however, was her vehement anticommunism, which led to her enthusiasm for the Cold War at home and abroad Hopper achieved the height of her prominence in popular culture in 1947, just as the Cold War began, and her career supported and benefited from the Cold War By rallying her readers to fight ‘the Red Menace,’ Hopper contributed to a grassroots anticommunism that conveyed popular support for the Cold War; in turn her staunch anticommunism brought her visibility and power inside and outside Hollywood

The intertwining of politics, personal life, and popular culture around Hopper’s movie gossip column during the Cold War reveals how she and her readers blurred the imaginary yet influential boundary between what was considered to be ‘public’ and ‘private’ in mid-twentieth-century America Gossip was understood to be private talk—talk about those things which ought to kept private—voiced, often illegitimately, in the public realm Not coincidentally, gossip also was seen as ‘women’s talk,’ a gendered activity, brought into a gendered domain, the masculinist public Reinforcing the gendered nature of Hollywood gossip were the facts that Hopper and most of her reader-respondents were female Yet, as in traditional societies, Hollywood gossip also had a public function It shared information and knowledge, contributed to a sense of community among moviegoers, and, in Hopper’s case, provided a platform and an audience for

her political views As practiced by Hopper and her readers, Hollywood gossip became an arena for discussion and debate—‘a discursive political forum’7—about significant and contested issues of public and private life and their intersections in mid-twentieth-century America

Of all of the instances of discussion and debate that Hopper’s long career generated, one stands precisely at the intersection of public and private life: Hopper’s campaign against the film actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin in the 1940s and early 1950s For over a decade, Hopper mounted a campaign against Charlie Chaplin, her ‘bête noir,’ according to Hopper’s biographer George Eells.8 She consistently criticized his professional output of the

1940s and early 1950s—The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952)—his political support for liberal and left

causes, and his personal life, including his status in the United States as a resident non-citizen, and his sexual and marital relationships with women

No other campaign in her career targeted the totality of a Hollywood insider’s life Although Hopper singled out specific criticisms at different points in her anti-Chaplin campaign, she found his personality and his politics, his private life and his motion picture productions equally egregious Reporting both facts and rumours on all three fronts—the personal, the political, and the professional—Hopper aimed to ruin Chaplin’s career in Hollywood, and she worked with allies inside and outside the industry to achieve this aim

Hopper’s red scare politics linked her to important forces in domestic anticommunism within and beyond Hollywood, and she collaborated with these forces in a far-reaching campaign against Chaplin between 1940 and

1952 Her critical commentaries on Chaplin appeared unedited in the

Chicago Tribune, which stood out among major newspapers for its

consistently damaging coverage of Chaplin during these years.9 Hopper also was a prominent member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, founded in 1944 to fight Communist

‘subversion’ in the motion picture industry, and she cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the House Committee on Un-American activities (HUAC), and reactive pressure groups such as the American Legion and the Catholic War Veterans These forces succeeded in their anti-Chaplin efforts when the U.S Department of Justice revoked Chaplin’s re-entry visa in 1952, leading to Chaplin’s decision to leave the United States permanently Hopper’s contribution to the campaign against Chaplin drew strong support from her reader-respondents who objected to Chaplin’s liberal-leftist politics, his movies, and his alleged violation of dominant standards of morality and traditional gender norms Attention to the views and actions of Hopper and her readers indicate both the power of popular conservatism and how issues of public and private life—true and

rumoured—played out and intertwined in Hollywood gossip and national life in Cold War America

Private Life, Personal Behaviour

Hedda Hopper never liked Charlie Chaplin Although she admired the artistry of his early film career—‘I bow to his talent, which verges on genius’—he did what a Hollywood gossip columnist could not tolerate: he ignored her.10 Chaplin’s worldwide fame and extensive economic resources gave him an extraordinary measure of independence within the motion picture industry, so he did not have to ‘truckle to gossip columnists.’11 Unlike other filmmakers, he never complained about being left out of Hopper’s column and never responded to her praise or criticism ‘It was galling,’ Eells notes.12 ‘Hedda was like a big kid,’ a Hollywood publicist remembered ‘Chaplin had slighted her.’13 Later on, after dealing with Hopper’s animosity for years, when Chaplin did have some news—the announcement of his 1943 marriage to Oona O’Neill, for example—he gave the story to Hopper’s rival, Louella Parsons.14 Hopper labelled him ‘the least co-operative star,’ reported negatively on his desire to ‘keep his name out of the papers—which is what he’s always wished,’ and was delighted when Chaplin, after shunning the public spotlight, found himself in need of publicity to market his latest film ‘Well, well Charlie Chaplin hired a press agent Brother, he can use one.’ ‘Dear Charlie,’ she added acidly, ‘It’s different when you’ve got something to sell, isn’t it?’15

Further infuriating Hopper was the fact that Chaplin, born in England, lived

in the United States for decades, making movies and money, and yet he never became an American citizen She constantly referred to his lack of U.S citizenship, calling Chaplin ‘the man who came to dinner and stayed

40 years’ and considering him insufficiently appreciative or patriotic towards the United States: ‘he—who’s not an American citizen—continues taking advantage of the tolerance of a country which made him millions and gave him a home.’16 She accused him of a lack of patriotism during World War I—forgetting his prominent Liberty Bond campaign—and World War

II, contending he had acted selfishly by hiring round-the-clock bodyguards despite the ‘man power shortage.’17 Hopper never missed a chance to declare, erroneously, Chaplin’s longing to leave the United States, reporting variously on his plans to ‘quit Hollywood and spend his declining years elsewhere’ or his ‘arrangements to make his future pictures in Argentina,’ and then having to retract these statements later.18 A number of Hopper’s readers endorsed the idea of Chaplin’s departure ‘Let him go to England and stay there, not earn his money here and refuse to be a citizen,’ wrote one New York woman.19 These attacks on Chaplin’s status as a non-citizen revealed the nativist beliefs of Hopper and these reader-respondents Hopper

believed until proven otherwise that non-Americans living within the

borders of the United States posed a threat to the nation

To Hopper, Chaplin represented not only an alien threat but also a moral threat Chaplin’s reputation as a moral or sexual ‘subversive’20 emerged from his real and alleged sexual and marital relations with women, particularly with young women, and Hopper reinforced this reputation for him in her column Married unsuccessfully three times, his fourth marriage with O’Neill, daughter of the famous author and playwright Eugene O’Neill, was a lasting one Chaplin met his future fourth wife when she was seventeen, and, although the pair waited until her eighteenth birthday to marry, the thirty-six year gap in their ages appalled Hopper—despite or perhaps because of a similar age gap between her and De Wolf Hopper, whom she divorced in 1924.21 Over the years, Hopper accused Chaplin of using and abusing young women through casual sexual affairs and ‘casting-couch promiscuity’: giving or promising the woman a leading role in his latest film, having a sexual relationship, and then dropping her from the film and his life.22 In late 1943, Hopper reported on the ‘many screen tests of girls whom he’s discovered, which have never seen the light of day.’ She also emphasized the young age of the women in his life, introducing ‘little Oona O’Neill, Chaplin’s latest lady, who just passed her 18th birthday’ and recalling the story of an actress ‘who was a youngster hardly out of pigtails, busy with her schoolbooks, when her Chaplin chance came along.’23

But Hopper dealt her greatest blow to Chaplin’s moral reputation on June 3,

1943 when she facilitated and then broke the story of actress Joan Barry’s paternity lawsuit against him, a scandal that led to three trials during World War II and proved ‘a turning point in the unravelling of Chaplin’s star image,’ according to Chaplin biographer Charles J Maland.24 One day, as Hopper recalled in her memoirs, ‘a girl walked into my office I’d never seen her before; nor had I ever seen anyone as hysterical From her wild eyes, I knew she was on the borderline of something desperate.’25 The ‘girl’ was 24-year-old actress Joan Barry In 1941, Chaplin met Barry, cast her briefly in a film, had a sexual affair with her, and then broke it off in late

1942 Barry, who had a history of mental illness, continued to pursue him and, in May 1943, sought to confront Chaplin with her pregnancy, claiming

he was the father, but Chaplin refused to meet with her.26 Hopper was outraged and, together with fellow gossip columnist and ‘veteran sob sister’ Florabel Muir, encouraged the paternity lawsuit against Chaplin, publicized Barry’s side of the story, and supported her throughout the first trial and a retrial.27 ‘At stake was the life of an unborn child,’ Hopper later dramatized.28 ‘I am not responsible for Miss Barry’s condition,’ Chaplin declared, and blood tests proved him right Yet, blood test results were inadmissible in California courts, and, after the first jury deadlocked in late

1944, the jury at the second trial in mid-1945 decided he was indeed the father and obligated him to pay child support—a decision one Los Angeles attorney considered ‘a landmark in the miscarriage of justice.’29

In the meantime, with help from Hopper, federal authorities used the Barry-Chaplin scandal to indict Barry-Chaplin for violating the Mann Act, popularly known as the White Slave Traffic Act, which ‘made it illegal to transport a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.’30 Chaplin had paid for a roundtrip Los Angeles-New York City train fare for Barry in October 1942 but denied having sexual relations with Barry at that time Hopper’s role in the federal indictment, as with the paternity suit, again proved important She provided information on Chaplin’s relationship with Barry to the FBI during its investigation, served as a popular media outlet for the FBI’s alleged findings, testified before the grand jury that indicted Chaplin, and publicized the charges and subsequent 1944 trial in her column Hopper successfully worked to foster sympathy for Barry and enmity for Chaplin among her readers by publishing stories about a ‘very nervous’ Barry testifying in court and an incident when Barry ‘collapsed completely.’31 ‘I wish to congratulate you on your stand in the Chaplin matter,’ a Chicago woman wrote ‘Apparently you are the only columnist who isn’t afraid of him because the others either avoid it altogether or handle it with gloves.’

‘P.S.,’ she added, ‘we don’t think C Chaplin is a genius.’ Another female reader saw Hopper’s defence of Barry as integral to American involvement

in World War II

Just a few lines to let you know that one American woman

appreciates the efforts you have made in your fight for Joan

Barry’s Civil Rights … This case in the paper brings home

to us all of the things we are fighting for and sacrificing

much That one small girl can’t be pushed around by a lot

of people with authority and influence is just one more good

example of our American way 32

The Justice Department and the U.S Attorney’s office in Los Angeles later concurred they had ‘flimsy evidence’ against Chaplin stemming from the Barry affair However, when Chaplin won an acquittal, Hopper remained silent about his victory and continued her personal attacks, undermining his vindication.33 Later, she attributed his acquittal to his ‘suave, insinuating,’ and expensive lawyer ‘As usual,’ she muttered, ‘he kept out of jail.’34 Hopper’s readers echoed her indirect accusation of Chaplin buying his acquittal in the Mann case ‘I hope that his dough hasn’t silenced justice completely,’ wrote one reader, while a woman reader believed ‘he got away with murder…with all his millions and marriages.’35 Hopper often called attention to Chaplin’s personal wealth, estimated at upwards of $30 million,

and with more than a hint of anti-Semitism She assumed Chaplin was Jewish, as did many other critics on the political right, and she often drew

on anti-Semitic stereotypes to denounce him.36 She continually referred to his money and accused him of miserliness Instead of giving to her favourite charities, ‘Mr Charlie Chaplin has held onto all his…money.’ ‘He’s had an opportunity to contribute to the Motion Picture Relief Fund Home,’ she declared ‘He didn’t.’37 When Chaplin denied the mistaken assumption that

he was Jewish, Hopper criticized him ‘Jews should be proud of their heritage,’ she wrote smugly ‘Christ was a Jew.’38

During and after the Barry-Chaplin scandal and trials, Hopper’s coverage of Chaplin and letters from her readers made his private life and behaviour into

a public policy concern Hopper linked his alleged immorality with his status as a non-citizen, and during the scandal she quoted an unnamed source on ‘moral turpitude as good and sufficient grounds for the deportation of an alien.’39 Similarly, North Dakota Senator William Langer sought Chaplin’s deportation in 1945, emphasizing ‘his unsavoury record of lawbreaking, of rape, or the debauching of American girls 16 and 17 years

of age.’40 An ‘indignant reader’ of Hopper’s spared no ugliness in agreement

Ye Gods cannot that Chaplin beast be thwarted? Moral

turpitude has landed some…in Ellis Island and worse

places and that nasty repulsive little enemy alien flies

high… He should be ridden out of this America which he

so scorns Get busy you grand person and show him up 41

By seeing the private Chaplin as a public threat and unworthy of residence

in the United States, Hopper, her reader, and conservatives, like Langer, anticipated the revocation of his re-entry visa in 1952, a move that stemmed from Cold War attacks on Chaplin as guilty of both ‘moral perversion’ and

‘political subversion.’42

Public Life, Political Activism

Chaplin’s liberal-left politics and support for progressive causes had long drawn the attention and ire of Hopper and other Hollywood conservatives,

as well as state and federal authorities Jack B Tenney, a California state senator and chair of the Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities (California’s ‘little HUAC’), considered Chaplin ‘within the Stalinist orbit.’43 Hopper also deeply distrusted Chaplin When he gave two speeches in 1942 calling for a ‘second front’ against Germany in western Europe to aid the Soviet Union’s fight in the east, she argued he had pre-empted and undermined authorities, as ‘that front had already been arranged

by the British and American governments.’44 During the Cold War, Chaplin’s ‘second front’ speeches looked like ‘procommunist subversion’ to Hopper, her allies, and her readers ‘It is high time our lefties begin to learn that we are wise to em,’ wrote one California man to Hopper.45 Reinforcing Chaplin’s leftist reputation were his support for organized labour and refusal

to cross picket lines during the 1945-1946 Hollywood strikes, and his endorsement of the Progressive Party’s candidate Henry Wallace during the

1948 presidential campaign Most damning of all, however, were his interactions with Soviet artists and diplomats, friendships and associations with the Hollywood Left, and defence of the civil liberties of Communists.46 When Hopper falsely charged Chaplin with contributing $25,000 to the Communist Party, the charge made it into Chaplin’s FBI file; an investigation into whether Chaplin indeed ever had joined or financially supported the Communist Party USA concluded in November 1949 that he had not.47

But Hopper never wavered in her belief that Chaplin, as a foreigner and political progressive, upheld ‘an ideology offensive to most Americans and contrary to the principles that have left this nation the last refuge of freedom-loving people,’ an ideology he was—she claimed—‘fostering’ through his activities and his films.48 Hopper’s assumption that ‘Red propaganda has been put over in some films’ was shared by her allies on the anticommunist right, including the American Legion, the FBI, and HUAC, which subpoenaed Chaplin for its October 1947 hearings about Communist subversion in the motion picture industry ‘Despite protests, Charlie Chaplin, Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, John Howard Lawson and Clifford Odets will soon be making a trip to Washington, D.C., for that Commie investigation,’ Hopper wrote in early September that year, but Chaplin was never called to testify.49 Still, she regarded his films with great suspicion As

an isolationist who opposed U.S entry into World War II, Hopper saw

Chaplin’s pro-intervention, satirical attack on Adolf Hitler in The Great Dictator (1940) as an affront Chaplin’s final speech, which scholars

consider an ‘impassioned six-minute attack on the dehumanizing material and spiritual conditions that have led to fascism,’ left Hopper ‘colder than

an icicle.’50 For the FBI, The Great Dictator was ‘nothing more than subtle

Communist propaganda.’51

Chaplin’s 1947 film Monsieur Verdoux, in release just as HUAC was

gearing up for its October hearings, also advanced a progressive, antifascist view of politics and society and provided fodder for Chaplin’s enemies, including Hopper The comedy’s black humour and Chaplin’s role as a French Bluebeard who married and murdered wealthy women for their money marked a distinct ‘departure from Chaplin’s aesthetic contract.’52 Hopper could not have been happier ‘Poor dears,’ she called the publicists

for the film’s distributor United Artists, because ‘they’re expected to perform miracles in reclaiming Chaplin’s lost popularity and prestige with

Mr and Mrs America.’ ‘I’ve witnessed a historic occasion,’ Hopper quoted

an unnamed industry executive about a screening of Monsieur Verdoux

‘I’ve just seen Chaplin’s “last” picture.’ 53 This comment was not far off the mark Despite an innovative marketing strategy by the ‘brash’ free-lance publicity agent Russell Birdwell, who played up the film’s controversial content—even Hopper received Birdwell’s promotional telegrams—

Monsieur Verdoux was a box-office failure and panned by critics in the

United States.54 Even more significantly, the film was subject to picketing, boycotts, and bans, and the FBI labelled it ‘Soviet propaganda.’55 Hopper reported positively on the protests, received material from the FBI, and aided in the red-baiting of Chaplin by publicizing enthusiastic reviews of

Monsieur Verdoux that appeared in left-wing publications.56 This ‘hate campaign,’ to borrow film historian Tino Balio’s apt term, was directed at Chaplin and his film because his financial independence made him invulnerable to the Hollywood blacklist, the punishment meted out to other filmmakers accused of Communist sympathies beginning in late 1947.57 This hate campaign culminated in the cancellation of Chaplin’s re-entry permit in 1952, a few months before U.S national elections returned Hopper’s Republican Party to the White House after two decades of Democratic control Between 1947 and 1952, the Cold War and domestic anticommunism intensified with the Soviet atomic bomb, Communist victory in China, the Klaus Fuchs and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spy cases, and the Korean War Hopper continued to work against Chaplin In 1950,

when Chaplin decided to re-release his 1931 classic City Lights as a way to

reconnect with American audiences, Hopper sought to undermine him

‘Charlie Chaplin’s fearful about reissuing his picture, “City Lights” here Thinks there’s too much ill feeling against him personally.’58 She also strategized with Richard Nixon, at the time a U.S Senator from California but soon to be the Republican Party’s nominee for Vice President ‘I agree with you that the way the Chaplin case has been handled has been a disgrace for years,’ Nixon wrote Hopper in May 1952 ‘Unfortunately, we aren’t able

to do much about it when the top decisions are made by the likes of Acheson and McGranery,’ referring to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General in the Democratic administration of President Harry S Truman But a Republican victory in November could change the situation.59

To help achieve victory for the Republicans in 1952, Hopper sought to associate Chaplin’s image of alien, moral, and political subversion with the Truman administration At a time of intense competition between the two main political parties, members of the Republican Party benefited from

accusing the Democrats of being ‘soft on communism.’60 When Chaplin and his family planned a trip to Europe in September to promote his new film

Limelight (1952), Hopper reported that ‘Charlie’s arrangements were made

through the Justice Department, and their permit to re-enter America was obtained through the same source,’ implying collusion between Chaplin and the Truman administration when, in fact, he secured his permit just like every other resident alien, through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).61 But U.S Attorney General James McGranery erased any appearance of Democratic favouritism toward Chaplin when, two days after Chaplin left the country, he rescinded Chaplin’s re-entry permit and ordered the INS to hold him for hearings about his political beliefs and moral behaviour upon his return.62

Although the now bipartisan campaign against Chaplin cut short Hopper’s partisan political attack, she had gotten what she wanted, and she crowed Chaplin had thought he had ‘the right to go against our customs, to abhor everything we stand for, to throw our hospitality back in our faces.’ ‘I’ve known him for many years,’ she continued ‘I abhor what he stands for, while I admire his talents as an actor I would like to say, “Good riddance to bad company.”’63 Hopper’s ‘vituperative’ condemnation ‘was one of the worst press lashings Chaplin ever received,’ according to Charles J Maland,

and received a wide audience when Time magazine included it in their

coverage of Chaplin’s immigration troubles.64 ‘When I finished reading your column,’ one woman wrote Hopper, ‘I said out loud “Give it to him Hedda” and I know you will.’ ‘Good riddance to his type of British,’ agreed another.65 Hopper’s readers confirmed Chaplin’s popular image as both politically and morally subversive, with one woman reader including in the same sentence criticism of the age difference between Chaplin and Oona O’Neill and his support for Henry Wallace back in 1948 ‘Ever since I saw pictures of Chaplin and his wife, also making out checks for Wallace I have felt something should be done.’ A male reader held nothing back, calling him ‘that infamous, morally depraved, and pinko Charles Chaplin.’66

Hopper later revealed her access to inside information about Chaplin’s re-entry permit application in her column ‘I’ve had a very close check on that for months,’ she claimed, very probably accurately given her relationship with the FBI Similarly, she later reported that Chaplin ‘never would have allowed his dancing feet to wander away from our shores’ if he had known the decision of government officials, who ‘were so afraid he’d get wind of their plans they practically held their breaths for two months.’67 The campaign against Chaplin involved a number of American institutions, including the two main political parties, the FBI, Congress, the Department

of Justice, the INS, and the press—Hopper most notoriously—cooperating formally and informally.68