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Elia Kazan: An American Hero or Shameful Symbol of the Past?

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To say, as Ricco Ruiz says (“Letters to Counterpunch,” March 1), that Elia Kazan was not culpable because he was simply exercising free speech in winning immunity for himself by betraying his friends and associates to the blacklisters is like saying the French collaborators in World War II were simply exercising free speech in exposing members of the Resistance to the Nazis, who would then execute them.

Ruiz may call it “free speech”; others would call it “snitching” or “informing,” for a price.

IRVING STANTON ELMAN

Pacific Palisades

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Perhaps all those so enraged by the special Oscar to Mr. Kazan should remember not just all the scripts never written by blacklisted authors Kazan named, but, rather, all the millions of lives that were never lived or cut short because of communist rulers around the world. These leaders put the philosophy supported by the blacklisted authors into action.

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Had the blacklisted authors’ ideas been put into practice here, how many other lives would have been lost with no further books, scripts, plays or directing jobs even possible ever again? These lost lives are facts that lie 6 feet in the ground. They were there 40 years ago, and they are still there now. They always will be.

Many knew these facts; few were willing to do something concrete to stop it. Kazan deserves more than just a special Oscar for his contribution to the eventual victory over a dark philosophy of enslavement disguised as “paradise.”

MICHAEL CREGAN

Santa Barbara

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Giving the honorary Oscar to Elia Kazan is tantamount to saying that what Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee did was not so bad--and let’s forget it. If the academy insists on giving this award to Mr. Kazan--and I fervently hope it will not--I propose this: As Mr. Kazan is on stage having accepted his Oscar, he should remain there, statuette in hand, while the academy then awards honorary Oscars to all the men and women whom Mr. Kazan informed on, who were blacklisted, hounded for years, whose careers were ruined, whose lives were ended.

If this takes place, it will be rather beautiful, and will do something to make persons in the film industry, the theater world, America itself, cleaner, and honestly prouder.

ANNE FIELDING

New York

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There is no doubt that Elia Kazan’s work is worthy of a special lifetime achievement Oscar, but only if his other “contributions” are also recognized by his golden statuette having a golden dagger in its back.

WALT HOPMANS

Santa Barbara

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