The Gordon File: A Screenwriter Recalls Twenty Years of FBI Surveillance - Hardcover

Gordon, Bernard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0292728433 ISBN 13: 9780292728431

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2004

Synopsis

For twenty-six years, the FBI devoted countless hours of staff time and thousands of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the surveillance of an American citizen named Bernard Gordon. Given the lavish use of resources, one might assume this man was a threat to national security or perhaps a kingpin of organized crime—not a Hollywood screenwriter whose most subversive act was joining the Communist Party during the 1940s when we were allied with the USSR in a war against Germany. For this honest act of political dissent, Gordon came to be investigated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952, blacklisted by the Hollywood film industry, and tailed by the FBI for over two decades.

In The Gordon File, Bernard Gordon tells the compelling, cautionary story of his life under Bureau surveillance. Drawing on his FBI file of over 300 pages, which he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, he traces how the Bureau followed him from Hollywood to Mexico, Paris, London, Rome, and even aboard a Dutch freighter as he created an unusually successful, albeit uncredited, career as a screenwriter and producer during the blacklist years. Comparing his actual activities during that time to records in the file, he pointedly and often humorously underscores how often the FBI got it wrong, from the smallest details of his life to the main fact of his not being a threat to national security.

Most important, Gordon links his personal experience to the headlines of today, when the FBI is again assuming broad powers to monitor political dissidents it deems a threat to the nation. "Is it possible," he asks, "that books like this will help to move our investigative agencies from the job of blackmailing those who are critical of our imperfect democracy to arresting those who are truly out to destroy us?"

About this title

About the Author

Bernard Gordon wrote or produced more than twenty motion pictures, including Battle of the Bulge, 55 Days at Peking, The Thin Red Line, Krakatoa East of Java, Day of the Triffids, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and Horror Express. Still active in struggles for democratic values, he helped lead the fight against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award to Elia Kazan, who cooperated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the blacklist era. Bernard Gordon lives in Los Angeles.

Review

"Most Americans imagine, I think, that the government agencies charged with national security are at least well intentioned and reasonably competent, but this book will shatter their illusions on both counts. It might also cause them to think twice about some of the programs for collecting 'intelligence' and 'information' that have been proposed for the current 'war against terrorism.' Although The Gordon File tells a story that comes to an end around 1970, the lesson could hardly be more timely than it is today." (Fred Haines, a filmmaker whose credits include Ulysses and Steppenwolf)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0292728433
• ISBN 13: 9780292728431
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 366