I got this e-mail from Todd Melnick today.
On your blog some time ago you wrote of Elia Kazan's death, "There goes another rat. Hope he'll be very comfortable in hell with Nixon, Martin Dyes, Martin Gang, J. Edgar Hoover, and the rest of the Un American jerks behind the black list." Martin Gang was my great uncle. I think you do him a grave injustice by mentioning his name in the same context as Nixon, Hoover, and Dyes. He loathed the blacklist and was a life-long advocate of civil liberties (he was a founding member of the National Lawyer's Guild). By his lights, keeping his clients off of the blacklists was a noble and worthy occupation. I happen to think he should have fought against the blacklist rather than working within the world that it defined. I happen to agree with his critics that advising his clients to name names was dishonorable. All that not withstanding, however, he was in no way an architect of the blacklist. He had nothing but contempt for Nixon, Hoover and the blacklist and his goal was only to keep his clients in business. He didn't hunt innocent people for personal aggrandizement or political gain. He represented those individuals and did what he needed to do to keep them working. And then he devoted his life to liberal and Democratic causes.
I disagree with Todd be that as it may history will have to be the final judge.
6:34:10 PM 
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