National Committee for the Protection of Rights Guaranteed by the First Amendment

The National Committee for the Protection of Rights Guaranteed by the First Amendment is presented as a civil-liberties organization circulating a petition in Hollywood against the treatment of artists caught in anti-communist investigations. The book gives no account of its founding or internal organization. Instead, it defines the Committee through a document, the names printed on it, and a brief, charged encounter in which a prospective signature becomes a point of conflict between political conviction and professional caution.

Identity and purpose

At a Hollywood reception, an unfamiliar middle-aged screenwriter approaches Norma Jeane Baker with a petition from the National Committee. Its opening states that the signers protest the cruel and un-American treatment of artists; beneath it are two columns of printed names, beginning with Charlie Chaplin and Paul Robeson. Only a handful of signatures have been added in the spaces below. The petition thus makes its case through a contrast: prominent artists are named as examples of those being targeted, while the sparse signatures suggest how few people have publicly attached themselves to the protest.

The screenwriter says that he wrote several films and that he was blacklisted in 1949, after which he could no longer work. The account is his own introduction to Norma Jeane Baker, not an independently detailed history of the Committee. Even so, his presence gives the petition a personal urgency: the political issue is brought before her by someone who says that blacklisting has already cost him his livelihood.

Hollywood and the anti-communist climate

The petition appears against a wider history of political scrutiny in Hollywood. In 1947, an actor who later faced the House Un-American Activities Committee had protested the federal loyalty initiative alongside other actors, gathering signatures and making statements in defense of constitutional freedoms, especially speech and assembly. The investigation also drew on the actor’s participation in Screen Actors Guild contract negotiations, which had sought health care, improved working conditions, a higher minimum wage, and payments when films were reissued. The union was accused of communist influence, and anonymous anti-communist informants reportedly identified the actor as a longstanding associate of Communist Party members.

The prospect of a summons and public questioning carried consequences beyond the hearing itself. The narrative connects such scrutiny with damaging publicity, threatened boycotts by patriotic organizations, and the possibility of a blacklist, even as studios denied that such a list existed. Against this background, the Committee’s petition offers a public language of protest, but signing it is not represented as a consequence-free gesture. I. E. Shinn has already advised Norma Jeane Baker not to sign petitions circulating in Hollywood.

The petition at the reception

Norma Jeane Baker initially agrees to sign without hesitation. Seeing Charlie Chaplin and Paul Robeson named on the document, she expresses indignation at the treatment of artists and says that their possible political affiliations do not alter her view of their artistic importance. Her reaction changes the scene: she had been cordial and tipsy, but now blinks back angry tears and prepares to sign while V urges her not to.

The act becomes confused and public. Norma Jeane Baker carries the large petition to a nearby table, where the cutlery makes it difficult to keep the paper in place. She signs first as Marilyn Monroe and then again as Mona Monroe, laughing while still angry. She starts to use the name Norma Jeane Glazer as well, but I. E. Shinn takes the pen from her and hurriedly crosses out the two signatures already made. The scene ends not with a completed endorsement but with the Committee’s petition returned to the reception bearing marks that Shinn tries to erase.

Significance and limits

The episode presents the Committee as a vehicle for dissent at a moment when petitions, investigations, and blacklisting intersect with the careers of Hollywood artists. Its document links the names of Chaplin and Robeson to a protest against their treatment, while the screenwriter’s account makes the threatened loss of work immediate. Yet the incident also shows how political expression can be constrained within the same industry: Norma Jeane Baker’s spontaneous support is checked by an adviser focused on the risks attached to her public identity.

The Committee does not receive a sustained organizational history, and the book does not establish who drafted the petition or what became of it. Its narrative significance lies in the single act of circulation and the struggle over whether a famous performer will sign. The canceled signatures leave the organization’s appeal visible but precarious: protest reaches the room, finds a willing supporter, and is then suppressed before it can stand as her public act.