BLACKLISTEES

I enjoyed reading Richard Natale’s article about Ring Lardner Jr. and his troubles during the McCarthy era (“The Hollywood Two,” Jan. 28). However, Natale doesn’t appear to know the difference between “socialism” and “national socialism.”

He says about Lardner, “But his reasons for espousing national socialism were born of idealism.” “National socialism” was the name Hitler gave to his Nazi Party and has no connection whatever to the socialism that Lardner espoused.

ESTELLE G. NOVAK

Beverly Hills

*

I must take umbrage at the lead sentence of Natale’s article. Dismissing the reality of age discrimination in the film and television industry because somebody has hired a world-famous 80-year-old writer to write something is like denying there is job discrimination against blacks because Magic Johnson owns a theater complex, or that there is no glass ceiling against women because one of them is first lady.

I know writers who have lost their careers, their houses, their marriages, their self-esteem and in some cases their lives because of the age discrimination running rampant in the entertainment industry.

BOB SHANE

Malibu

* It’s been 50 years and Edward Dmytryk still doesn’t get it (“The Hollywood Two,” by Glenn Lovell, Jan. 28). He justifies his decision to betray the other victims of the House Committee on Un-American Activities witch hunt by saying, “They said they were fighting for freedom of speech, the commonweal. They weren’t. They were protecting freedom of speech for the communists.”

That’s what the 1st Amendment is all about. Freedom of speech for everyone! Communists, fascists, skinheads, Mafioso, Klansmen and letter writers. No exceptions.

FORREST G. WOOD

Professor of History

Cal State Bakersfield