![]() ![]() That statement appears below following the testimonies of Moffitt and Lawson. When his turn came, Lawson attempted unsuccessfully to read a statement into the record warning that the investigation threatened basic American rights and liberties. During that first week, film critic and former screenwriter John Charles Moffitt detailed Lawson’s supposed instructions to writers on how to get propaganda into films. This followed a week-long session during which numerous studio heads, stars, and others spoke at length about purported Communist activity in the industry. Playwright and screenwriter John Howard Lawson, the president and organizing force of the Screen Writers’ Guild and acknowledged leader of the Communist Party in Hollywood in the late 1930s, became the first “unfriendly” witness subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) on October 27, 1947. “They Want to Muzzle Public Opinion”: John Howard Lawson’s Warning to the American Public ![]()
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