The Ad Hoc Committee for Naming Facts endorses the awarding of an honorary Oscar to Elia Kazan at this year's Academy Awards ceremony.

During the HUAC hearings in 1952, it was Mr. Kazan who was the supporter of the principle of individual rights, and his communist opponents who were its enemies. Mr. Kazan showed great moral courage in testifying about the influence, in the American film and theatre industry, of those who wished to replace freedom with totalitarianism.

To defend and honor Mr. Kazan -- and to oppose those who condemn him for "naming names" -- the Ayn Rand Institute has formed the ad hoc Committee for Naming Facts. The Committee will hold a demonstration in support of the Academy and Mr. Kazan outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on March 21.

The Committee will name facts about the Hollywood communists that have been widely evaded for decades. These facts include:

The people identified by Mr. Kazan were members of the Communist Party -- a fact they have not denied.

The mission of the Party, financed and directed by the Soviet Union, was the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and the imposition of a Soviet-style dictatorship in America.

The Hollywood communists were ideological enemies of individual rights -- including the right to free speech that they brazenly claim was being denied to them. 

The U.S. government has the right to investigate an organization that declares its intent to overthrow a free society on behalf of a foreign dictatorship. It was not the communists' ideas, but their threatened actions, which were the legitimate targets of inquiry.

Private film studios have every right to "blacklist" -- i.e., to refuse to hire and give platforms to -- people whose views they find repugnant. 
Americans deserve the truth. The Hollywood communists were the villains, not the victims. The real defenders of rights were not the Hollywood Reds, but the brave men who acted to oppose them.

For a bibliography of books about communism in Hollywood and America, click here.