One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (27 page)

Throughout the planning stages, organizers of the Southern California School of Anti-Communism advanced the ideology of piety and patriotism in numerous ways. Before the school, they convinced forty-one mayors from the area to declare “Anti-Communism Week in Los Angeles.” In his own proclamation, Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty asserted that all American freedom had resulted from “fundamental belief in God.” The program, likewise, carried a bold-print motto: “Under God a new birth of Freedom, a new and deeper understanding of it; a new and deeper dedication to it.” The program wrongly attributed these words to Abraham Lincoln; in truth, they came from a rather different Republican, Representative Walter Judd of Minnesota. A staunch conservative and a prominent member of Vereide's organization, the congressman had delivered the line as the climax of his keynote speech to the 1960 Republican National Convention. Organizers arranged for Judd to address the Southern California school through a closed-circuit connection, while other prominent figures, such as physicist Edward Teller and Democratic senator Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut, appeared in person.
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While these figures gave the program gravitas, their popularity paled next to the all-star slate on Wednesday's “Youth Night.” The evening began with the patriotic rituals that now routinely brought the nation's public religion to life. First, the capacity crowd of sixteen thousand teens watched a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with a Marine color guard on hand; they then took part in the mass recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. (Thousands more, turned away by anxious fire marshals, listened outside.) Then a series of celebrities took the stage. Marion Miller, a suburban housewife who had infiltrated leftist groups for the FBI, offered tales from her popular autobiography,
I Was a Spy.
Ronald Reagan warned the crowd that socialism at home was every bit as dangerous as communist attacks from abroad. “Advocates of the welfare state,” the actor-turned-activist said, “fail to realize that our loss is just as
great if it happens on the installment plan.” Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and John Wayne followed with similar warnings. Pat Boone closed the show, singing a few songs before offering some impromptu comments that electrified the crowd. “I don't want to live in a Communist United States,” he told them. “I would rather see my four girls shot and die as little girls who have faith in God than leave them to die some years later as godless, faithless, soulless Communists.” As his eyes filled with tears, the audience erupted in applause.
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The Southern California School of Anti-Communism proved to be a major accomplishment. The conservative columnist George Todt deemed it “eminently successful in more ways than one. From the standpoint of attendance, speakers, interest, publicity, educational programming, organization, banquet, master of ceremonies [and] accomplishments, this was one of the best performances of its kind in recent years.” Others agreed. “As far as I'm concerned,” columnist Vincent Flaherty wrote in the
Los Angeles Examiner,
“the most refreshing movement to be launched here in many a day is the Southern California School of Anti-Communism.” While the school made an impression on the public, it also impacted the finances of the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. The accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst reported that the organization raked in $311,253 for the week, an impressive sum in light of the low admission fees. Even after expenses, the CACC still turned nearly $250,000 in profits. Schwarz promised the proceeds would be used to operate similar schools across the country. But in the short term, he decided to capitalize on the overwhelming local popularity of the Southern California school of by staging a sequel two months later, billed as “Hollywood's Answer to Communism.”
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Organizers worked diligently to surpass the success of the first event. Frawley again led the way, this time securing the landmark Hollywood Bowl for the rally. As master of ceremonies, he enlisted the former song-and-dance man and future US senator George Murphy. (Recruitment here was likely easy. In one of his many corporate duties, Frawley served as CEO of the Technicolor Corporation, where Murphy was then employed as a vice president.) A number of the “faculty members” who had lectured at the Southern California school made a return appearance, including Judd, Dodd, Skousen, and of course Schwarz. The actors made
a curtain call as well, with Reagan, Wayne, Boone, Rogers, and Evans all on hand again. This time, though, they were joined by a cast of all-stars that included Jimmy Stewart, Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Nat “King” Cole, Jane Russell, Edgar Bergen, Andy Devine, Walter Brennan, Tex Ritter, Irene Dunne, Vincent Price, Cesar Romero, and a host of others then starring on television and in film. Notable directors such as John Ford and studio executives such as Walt Disney and Jack Warner offered their support too.
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The program was a powerful combination of patriotic display and showmanship that, in the words of one reviewer, evoked “the same star glitter that enwraps a Hollywood premier.” More than two hundred American Legionnaires worked as ushers, while 350 Boy Scouts served as a massive color guard. John Wayne led the capacity crowd of more than fifteen thousand in the Pledge of Allegiance, after which Connie Haines, a singer who had gained fame as Frank Sinatra's partner in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, offered her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Opening the program, George Murphy introduced the stars as “some of the crowd in Hollywood that for years have been opposing Communism.” Producer Jack Warner of Warner Bros. echoed that theme in the first address of the evening, noting how communists had sought to infiltrate Hollywood “twenty-five years ago” but their industry “had the guts to fight them in the open” and drive them out. The celebrities then turned the event over to the more substantive lecturers. “When I finally spoke,” Schwarz remembered, “only ten minutes remained, so I delivered an uncharacteristically brief message. It was sufficiently forceful to earn me a comparison to Adol[f] Hitler in the student newspaper of Stanford University.”
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The highlight of the Hollywood Bowl event, however, was a special appearance by C. D. Jackson, the publisher of
Life
magazine. After the Southern California school, his publication ran a two-paragraph item that dismissed the event as a gathering of wild-eyed extremists no different from the John Birch Society. Privately, Schwarz knew well that the two far-right groups often shared a common constituency. In a nine-page, single-spaced letter, Birch Society founder Robert Welch informed him in the fall of 1960 that “we have told our members to encourage, support, and work for your ‘schools' wherever they were put on, so far as they had
the opportunity and ability to do so; and to encourage the attendance of friends and acquaintances (as well as attending themselves).” In some instances, Birchers had taken an even more prominent role in the CACC schools. “I know,” Welch wrote, “that at your recent school in San Diego, some of the people who worked hardest to bring it off successfully were our members, for I saw right on the listing of committees and workers the names of some of our members who had specifically written to ask us whether or not they should participate, and whom we encouraged to do so.” Likewise, “quite a number of the leaders and hardest workers” in the Milwaukee and Chicago schools had been Birchers too.
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In 1961, Fred Schwarz introduced “Hollywood's Answer to Communism,” a star-studded conservative rally at the Hollywood Bowl filled with denunciations of the communist influence at home and abroad.
Ralph Crane, The LIFE Picture Collection, Getty Images.

Publicly, however, Schwarz bristled at any suggestion that his organization had anything in common with the increasingly marginalized Birchers. In retaliation for the hit piece in
Life,
CACC's sponsors lashed out. An FBI report noted that Frawley “at once cancelled $80,000 ‘Life' advertising accounts [for] Schick Razor and Technicolor.” At the same time, “Richfield and other large national advertisers also withdrew substantial contracts calculated to total half million dollars.” (The sponsors
went after less prominent critics with equal zeal. In September 1961, an executive with Richfield Oil sent the head of the Los Angeles FBI office the names and addresses of a dozen private citizens who had written the corporation to complain about its sponsorship of the school, suggesting that they needed to be formally investigated.) Meanwhile, conservative activists organized a grassroots campaign calling for individuals to cancel their subscriptions.
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In panicked damage-control mode, the publisher flew from New York to attend the Hollywood rally and offer his personal apology. Before taking over
Life,
Jackson had worked first as an expert on psychological warfare in the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA created during the Second World War, and then as a special assistant to President Eisenhower. He was, in short, someone who could handle a crisis. Confronting an angry crowd at the Hollywood Bowl, the publisher begged for their forgiveness. He noted that Schwarz had dedicated his life to enlightening the nation, but as was the case with “all dedicated men,” his selfless work was subject to slanderous attacks from others. “Regretfully, my own magazine recently published an oversimplified misinterpretation” of his work, Jackson confessed. “I believe we were wrong, and I am profoundly sorry.” Seeking to atone, the publisher publicly embraced the individuals his magazine had wrongfully maligned. “It's a great privilege to be here tonight to align
Life
magazine with Senator Dodd, Representative Judd, Dr. Schwarz and the rest of these implacable fighters,” Jackson announced. To demonstrate the sincerity of his remarks and the strength of his commitment to their cause, he quoted from Schwarz's
You Can Trust the Communists,
which he characterized as “one of the best books analyzing the Communist menace I have read.” Dutifully reciting a lengthy section from its closing chapter, Jackson seized on Schwarz's characterization of the Cold War as a religious struggle. “Fundamentally,” he read, “the problem is a moral and spiritual one.”
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By all appearances, the publisher's public apology was accepted. “I don't believe I have ever witnessed a more thrilling reaction from a large crowd of people than was apparent Monday night through your appearance at the Hollywood Bowl,” Murphy wrote. “It was very definitely the highlight in the entire procedure and I would like to add my voice to the literally hundreds which have called us on the phone to say it was one
of the most gracious and courageous public statements that I have ever seen or heard.”
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Schwarz was also encouraged by the publisher's public apology and struck up a friendly correspondence with Jackson over the coming months, during which they shared their thoughts about the state of anti-communism in America.
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Meanwhile, Jackson found himself overwhelmed by the support from those who had witnessed his humbling at the Hollywood Bowl. “I am still being deluged with mail,” he marveled at the end of October, “more mail than I have ever received on any occasion during my thirty years with Time Incorporated, 95% enthusiastically favorable.”
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As the publisher's mail suggested, the general reaction to “Hollywood's Answer to Communism” was overwhelmingly positive. All told, an estimated audience of four million people watched the live broadcast. KTTV, which had dominated local ratings with nightly coverage of the Southern California School of Anti-Communism, aired the Hollywood rally locally as well. Several bid to sponsor the popular program, but Frawley won the rights for Schick. As a consolation prize, Richfield Oil secured the rights to a regional broadcast on thirty-three stations across California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. Taking stock of the overnight ratings, Murphy reported that “in San Diego where we were on a CBS station we led the field by five points, in Seattle on an NBC station we lead the field by eight points, and in San Francisco on a rather poor independent station we came within two points of the leader.” The broadcast was such a hit across the West that organizers edited together a three-hour film made up of highlights from the Southern California School and the Hollywood Bowl rally to be aired elsewhere. The program ran in November 1961 on WPIX in New York City, for instance, presented as a public service by Schick and Technicolor.
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While these corporations had long been involved in advancing the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, other business interests came to back the Hollywood program in particular. In December 1961, for instance, Roger Milliken sponsored a broadcast of the three-hour film version of “Hollywood's Answer to Communism” through a chain of twelve stations across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. As the head of Deering-Milliken, one of the world's largest textile corporations, Milliken was at the time embroiled in an incredibly bitter struggle
with local unions, one that soon led to a record fine from the National Labor Relations Board, followed by an unsuccessful appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. By sponsoring the broadcast, with its condemnations of creeping socialism and big government, the textile magnate hoped to sway opinion in the region. He was delighted with the result. “The response was unbelievable,” Milliken told Schwarz excitedly. “All of the stations involved have advised us that never in their history have they had such a tremendous and overwhelming support for any program they have ever run.”
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