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'''Dalton Trumbo''' (1905-1976) was an screenwriter, [[Communist]], and member of the [[Hollywood Ten]].

'''Dalton Trumbo''' (1905-1976) was an screenwriter, [[Communist]], and member of the [[Hollywood Ten]].

His most famous work is perhaps ''Johnny Got His Gun'', a bitterly anti-war novel that won him the National Book Sellers Award in 1939.  The book follows the thoughts of a young [[World War I]] American infantryman who becomes a quadruple [[amputee]], as well as deaf, mute, and blind. Having no way to communicate with the outside world, he spends most of the book reminiscing about his life and meditating on the futility of [[war]] and medical ethics. The book was published in 1939, during the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], when the Party line was to keep the U.S. from interfering in Hitler and Stalin's division of Europe. After the collapse of the pact, Trumbo, like the Party line, reversed course, becoming fanatically pro-war. When fans wrote to Trumbo requesting copies of the book, he turned them in to the FBI, writing, "I share with the men of your organization a sincere desire to see an end to all such seditious propaganda as criminal slander of the Commander in Chief, defeatism, pacifism," etc.<ref>Dalton Trumbo (Helen Manfull, Ed.), ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=uJpbAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 Additional Dialogue; Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 1942-1962]'' (M. Evans/Lippincott, 1970), p. 30. Cf. Trumbo, Dalton. ''Johnny Got his Gun.'' 1939, introduction.</ref>

His most famous work is perhaps ''Johnny Got His Gun'', a bitterly anti-war novel that won him the National Book Sellers Award in 1939.  The book follows the thoughts of a young [[World War I]] American infantryman who becomes a quadruple [[amputee]], as well as deaf, mute, and blind. Having no way to communicate with the outside world, he spends most of the book reminiscing about his life and meditating on the futility of [[war]] and medical ethics.

 

The book was published in 1939, during the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], when the Party line was to keep the U.S. from interfering in Hitler and Stalin's division of Europe. After the collapse of the pact, Trumbo, like the Party line, reversed course, becoming fanatically pro-war. When fans wrote to Trumbo requesting copies of the book, he turned them in to the FBI, writing, "I share with the men of your organization a sincere desire to see an end to all such seditious propaganda as criminal slander of the Commander in Chief, defeatism, pacifism," etc.<ref>Dalton Trumbo (Helen Manfull, Ed.), ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=uJpbAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 Additional Dialogue; Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 1942-1962]'' (M. Evans/Lippincott, 1970), p. 30. Cf. Trumbo, Dalton. ''Johnny Got his Gun.'' 1939, introduction.</ref>

Trumbo was a member of the [[Communist Party of the USA]] (CPUSA) from 1943 to 1948. In ''The Worker'', he openly boasted that the comrades had prevented the production of Hollywood films based on books banned by Stalin, including classics such as Arthur Koestler's ''Darkness at Noon'' and Victor Kravchenko's ''I Chose Freedom''.<ref>Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, "[http://reason.com/archives/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/singlepage Hollywood's Missing Movies]," ''Reason'', June 2000</ref> When Hollywood screenwriter Richard MacCauley submitted a piece to ''Screenwriter'' magazine opposing left-wing censorship, Trumbo, who was then the magazine's editor, rejected the piece, denouncing the "inalienable right" to free speech, which he claimed had "directly resulted" in the [[Holocaust]]:

Trumbo was a member of the [[Communist Party of the USA]] (CPUSA) from 1943 to 1948. In ''The Worker'', he openly boasted that the comrades had prevented the production of Hollywood films based on books banned by Stalin, including classics such as Arthur Koestler's ''Darkness at Noon'' and Victor Kravchenko's ''I Chose Freedom''.<ref>Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, "[http://reason.com/archives/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/singlepage Hollywood's Missing Movies]," ''Reason'', June 2000</ref> When Hollywood screenwriter Richard MacCauley submitted a piece to ''Screenwriter'' magazine opposing left-wing censorship, Trumbo, who was then the magazine's editor, rejected the piece, denouncing the "inalienable right" to free speech, which he claimed had "directly resulted" in the [[Holocaust]]: