Bathe in the hypocrisy

On the University of Colorado campus, part of the plaque reads;

Dalton Trumbo 1905-1976

CU Student

Distinguished Film Writer

Lifelong advocate of the first amendment [bold by HSIB]

Which appears to be how the people producing the latest salute to Trumbo think too. We guess they didn't read Trumbo's own introduction to the 1959 edition of Johnny Got His Gun--his 1939 anti-war novel, that was also serialized in The Daily Worker.

During the period from the Hitler-Stalin pact in August 1939 to Hitler's turnabout being unfair play in June 1941, Trumbo was happy to enjoy the financial and critical success of his book. Then, with his favorite country--USSR--under attack, he had it pulled from circulation. Bookstores with unsold copies on the shelves were ordered to return them to the publisher.

And when fans of the book wrote letters to him urging him to re-issue it, or even asked if he knew where they could buy a used copy of it, Trumbo reported them to the FBI as possible subversives. Because, their pacific enthusiasm was dangerous;

Nothing could have convinced me so quickly that Johnny was exactly the sort of book that shouldn't be reprinted until the war was at an end. The publishers agreed.

So, he agreed in principle that some ideas were not protected by freedom of speech and press. However, when (1950) America was fighting against Communism, rather than being allied with it, he went the extra mile to preserve the book;

It was out of print again during the Korean war, at which time I purchased the plates rather than have them sold to the government for conversion to munitions.

That is, ammunition American soldiers could have used to defend themselves from North Korean and Chinese Communist soldiers. That's the time for being a pacifist.