Blacklist

Regarding Jon Wiener’s rebuff (based on documents in the Screen Actors Guild) of President and Mrs. Reagan’s claim that the blacklist brought them together (Calendar Letters, Oct. 25), please consider the following:

Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman separated on Dec. 14, 1947, approximately one month after he was elected to a full term as president of SAG. Their divorce became final on July 18, 1949.

During the year 1949, Nancy Davis was cast in her first two films, “Shadow on the Wall” and “The Doctor and the Girl.” It was at this time that she started receiving Communist Party mailings.

Upset, in part, because of her ultraconservative anti-communist background, and because of what being linked to the Communist Party could to to her career, she turned to MGM producer Mervyn LeRoy for help. He, in turn, suggested that she explain her situation to then SAG president Reagan.

An investigation showed that another Hollywood Nancy Davis had been politically active around that time and that the Communist Party got the MGM Nancy Davis’ address in error. Having been cleared of Communist Party affiliation, MGM’s Nancy Davis and SAG president Reagan began dating. She was soon appointed to fill a vacant seat on the SAG board of directors. They became husband and wife on March 4, 1952.

Perhaps the best testaments to their claim comes from LeRoy, who stated in his book “Take One” (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1974): “. . . I always say that’s the one and only thing we can thank the communists for--if it hadn’t been for their propaganda material, Nancy and Ronnie Reagan might never have met.”

WILLIAM KLIPPEL

Downey