MARINA DEL REY, CA -- Edward Dmytryk, director of The Caine Mutiny and other Hollywood classics, has given his support to the Ad Hoc Committee for Naming Facts and its defense of Elia Kazan. Joining Dmytryk in support of the Committee are former International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) President Roy Brewer and the Congress of Russian-Americans.
     "I congratulate you and your Committee for Naming Facts for your strong defense of Elia Kazan and the Academy's decision to award him the much deserved special achievement Oscar," wrote Dmytryk to the Committee in a statement of support.
     What makes Dmytryk's support striking and doubly important, according to Committee Chairman Peter Schwartz, is that the Hollywood director was a member of the "Hollywood Ten," and the only one of its members to turn against the Party and testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1951.
     Roy Brewer, the former head of IATSE, testified to HUAC as friendly witness in 1947.
     "I encouraged and supported Mr. Kazan to testify against the Communist Party," Brewer wrote in his statement. "I thought he made the right decision then and I have not changed my mind. He was right to testify before HUAC because the Communist Party wanted to destroy the rights of American citizens and replace our free system with a dictatorship."
     George B. Avisov, president of the Anti-Communist Congress of Russian-Americans, which defends human rights, said about Kazan that "indeed, to have had the moral strength, outside pressures notwithstanding, and to have spoken up against what he, Mr. Kazan, perceived to be evil, dishonorable and treacherous was more than a lot of other individuals did."
     The Ad Hoc Committee for Naming Facts, launched by the Ayn Rand Institute, was formed to support the Motion Picture Academy's decision to give Elia Kazan a lifetime achievement Oscar. The Committee is holding a pro-Kazan demonstration at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on March 21, and is also asking Oscar ceremony attendees to wear an American flag lapel pin as a symbol of support for Kazan and his opposition to Communism.