Max Boot
speaker
527 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 28 Jul
Max Boot’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And as you mentioned, he became an informer for the FBI in Hollywood.
And in those days, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, they were pretty paranoid.
They kind of saw red under every bed.
And so –
They would see the most innocuous movies as evidence of communist influence in Hollywood, and they convinced Reagan, like a lot of other people, that there was this made-in-the-Kremlin plot to take over Hollywood.
So when Reagan became president of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 40s, he kind of had a front-row seat to the McCarthy era.
He actually testified before the House Un-American Affairs Committee.
Again, he was an FBI informant.
So he was, you know, he became convinced that it was his actions and those of a few other hardliners who were preventing this communist takeover.
Now, again, I think in hindsight, a lot of these concerns were really exaggerated.
I mean, I looked at
the the russian files i looked at a lot of other stuff i don't think that there was this actual communist plot to take over hollywood a lot of it was uh you know just kind of normal labor disputes where the studios would claim that the labor unions who were trying to get a better shake for the studio technicians that they were part of a red conspiracy and they were gonna you know uh take over hollywood and all this other kind of stuff which was just not true but reagan genuinely believed it and so he gained his first prominence
Well, you know, representing the movie actors and negotiations of the studios, but also as somebody whose profile was that he was, you know, this anti-communist fighter in Hollywood, which obviously positioned them well for a future transition into politics.
Right.
No, it's absolutely right.
In fact, I quote David Niven in the movie, who was this British actor, decorated British officer from World War II and actually pretty conservative.
But, you know, he pointed out how ludicrous it was to imagine the communists could take over Hollywood when the entire industry was under the control of about 12 men.
And they were all Republicans, the studio moguls.
I mean, how could somebody imagine that the communists would tell these very rich Republican studio moguls what the hell they were supposed to put on in the movie theaters?
And even if they did start suddenly putting on communist propaganda, why would anybody show up and pay money to watch it?
Showing 141–160 of 527 · page 8 of 27
← Previous
Next →