The Investigator
Encyclopedia
The Investigator was a radio play written by Reuben Ship
and first broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(CBC) on May 30 of that year. The play lampooned the actions of the US House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy
.
, but who shares McCarthy’s nasally whine and who uses such McCarthy-esque sayings as "Your uncooperative attitude can only cast the gravest doubts on your own loyalty." This senator dies in an airplane crash and finds himself at the gates of Heaven
, where a tribunal must decide whether he is worthy of heaven or hell. There, he meets Cotton Mather
of the Salem Witch Trials
, Tomas de Torquemada
of the Spanish Inquisition
, and other famous inquisitors from history, who, despite their reputations as shrewd and conniving characters, call themselves "mere untutored novices" compared to the Senator. As it turns out, they’ve been looking for someone to commandeer the tribunal and bring "the latest inquisitorial techniques" to it, and they see that the Senator is the perfect man for the job.
The Senator easily takes control of the committee, and soon realizes that a great many individuals in heaven could potentially be subversives from "down there
." He soon calls numerous historical figures to the stand, including Thomas Jefferson
, Socrates
, John Milton
, and Martin Luther
. When they testify, they all give oddly relevant quotations of theirs, such as when Voltaire
states that "liberty of thought is the life of the soul." Completely disregarding their statements regarding freedom and rights, the Senator sends them all to Hell, claiming that "security is the paramount issue." When trying to call Karl Marx
to the stand, the Senator accidentally calls other individuals named "Karl Marx" instead of the Karl Marx; as a result, the Senator orders that all those in Heaven with the name Karl Marx be banished to Hell. The Senator's actions soon create a panic of suspicion in Heaven where everyone is a potential subversive: Beethoven, Bach
, and Wagner agree to drop Chopin from their quartet because of suspicion derived from his "Revolutionary Étude." Chopin's replacement, a "non-controversial" cipher named Otto Schmenk, eventually replaces other famous "subversives" in literary and musical pursuits, eventually joining them in banishment as well.
Finally, after sending dozens of "subversives" to hell, the Senator has run out of ideas. "Can’t we jazz the hearing up with a few names?" he asks an assistant; "I don’t want them to think we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel." Then Satan pays a call on the Senator, demanding that his investigations cease, because the influence of those he's sent to his domain are changing it too much; (the real) Karl Marx, for example, is distributing pamphlets declaring, "Workers of the Underworld, unite!
You have nowhere to go but up!" Satan claims the Senator is "bungling" his job, insisting there are more subtle ways to handle his committee and the deportations. But the Senator has become a demagogue, valuing his position (and absolute power) above all else. Finally, claiming that "there is no one so high as to be immune from investigation," he’s found the name he’s looking for—God Himself, whom the characters in the show refer to as "The Chief." Even Mather and Torquemada try to discourage him now, but the Senator refuses to listen. He soon rises to an insane scream, crying "I AM THE CHIEF!" as God suddenly appears before him, furiously banishing him to Hell (with the proper balance between Heaven and Hell eventually restored). However, the Senator is so vile and abhorrent that Satan will not even let him enter, so he is returned to earth, still stammering, "I am the chief...I am the chief..."
In a brief epilogue, a doctor explains to one of the Senator's acquaintances, Mr. Garson, that despite having lived through the plane crash (discovered at the crash site as the only survivor), it somehow affected his mind—hence his strange mutterings—and wonders if he'll ever regain his sanity. Mr. Garson declares, at the doctor's disbelief of the Senator emerging virtually unscathed after being found at the foot of the mountain where the plane crashed, "It was an act of God!"
, within a few weeks bootleg tapes of the broadcast were in circulation in the US. Attempts to schedule it for broadcast in the US however met with great opposition from, amongst other groups, the American Legion
.
Approximately 100,000 copies of a phonograph recording of the play were pressed and circulated, mostly in the US, in at least 2 printings, by an otherwise-unknown record label called Discuriosities. One edition has the number 'LP 6834' on the front and a blank white back; the other edition is listed only as '6834' and has significant liner notes on the back. The LP label claims a 1954 copyright by "Radio Rarities Inc.," while the '6834' jacket says 1955.
The play was denounced as communist propaganda
by none other than Ed Sullivan
, and the recording gained a certain status as an underground classic during one of the high points of the Great Red Scare of the McCarthy Era.
At least 5 copies of the LP are known to exist in private record collections. Playwright/musician Lawrence Bullock, who lives in Mendocino, California recently (2/27/11) found a copy of the LP in Very Good condition at a local thrift shop, bringing the total of known copies to exist in private record collections to three.
One original copy is owned by television and film writer (Twilight Zone) Jeremy Bertrand Finch who adapted it to a b&w videotape production while attending a northern California college in 1972. He can be contacted at jfinch@sundancenet.com.
It is not known how many other copies of the original pressing have survived. The BBC is reputed to have a copy of the LP, but this needs to be confirmed.
Broadside Records released an edition of it in 1966 (BR 451), and Smithsonian Folkways
records has it available as part of their press-on-demand program, along with a full transcript for free download.
, who was a key writer for producer Irving Brecher
's radio series The Life of Riley
during the mid and late 1940s, was involved in political struggles between two unions vying for control of the burgeoning television industry in the early 1950s, and he was promptly labeled a communist in HUAC hearings. Much to the dismay of the Committee, it was determined that while much of his work could be considered treasonous if written by a US citizen, Reuben Ship was Canadian. The Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS) arrested Ship in July 1953 and, after a prolonged ordeal, threw him out of the US at the Detroit/Windsor
border crossing. Ship's comment upon being expelled from the "Land of Liberty" was that he "...felt liberated." It was this experience which gave him the material which he incorporated into The Investigator.
has opened certain of their archives, including the recording of The Investigator. The CBC rebroadcast the play as part of its radio network's archival series Rewind
on March 25, 2010. It may be downloaded by contacting the CBC at the website listed below, or it may be listened to in streaming audio by accessing the Journal for MultiMedia History, link given below.
, a member station of the Pacifica Foundation and located in the Los Angeles area, broadcast the play. Although KPFK enjoyed a reputation as an underground radio station, the uproar in the community subsequent to the broadcast nearly cost the station its license.
Reuben Ship
Reuben Ship was a Canadian playwright and screenwriter best known for his 1954 radio satire The Investigator, which lampooned the Army-McCarthy Hearings and the anticommunist paranoia of the Second Red Scare.-Biography:...
and first broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
(CBC) on May 30 of that year. The play lampooned the actions of the US House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
.
Plot
The Investigator concerns a United States Senator, who is never explicitly identified as Joseph McCarthyJoseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
, but who shares McCarthy’s nasally whine and who uses such McCarthy-esque sayings as "Your uncooperative attitude can only cast the gravest doubts on your own loyalty." This senator dies in an airplane crash and finds himself at the gates of Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
, where a tribunal must decide whether he is worthy of heaven or hell. There, he meets Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials...
of the Salem Witch Trials
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
, Tomas de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada, O.P. was a fifteenth century Spanish Dominican friar, first Inquisitor General of Spain, and confessor to Isabella I of Castile. He was described by the Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo as "The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the...
of the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
, and other famous inquisitors from history, who, despite their reputations as shrewd and conniving characters, call themselves "mere untutored novices" compared to the Senator. As it turns out, they’ve been looking for someone to commandeer the tribunal and bring "the latest inquisitorial techniques" to it, and they see that the Senator is the perfect man for the job.
The Senator easily takes control of the committee, and soon realizes that a great many individuals in heaven could potentially be subversives from "down there
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
." He soon calls numerous historical figures to the stand, including Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, and Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
. When they testify, they all give oddly relevant quotations of theirs, such as when Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
states that "liberty of thought is the life of the soul." Completely disregarding their statements regarding freedom and rights, the Senator sends them all to Hell, claiming that "security is the paramount issue." When trying to call Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
to the stand, the Senator accidentally calls other individuals named "Karl Marx" instead of the Karl Marx; as a result, the Senator orders that all those in Heaven with the name Karl Marx be banished to Hell. The Senator's actions soon create a panic of suspicion in Heaven where everyone is a potential subversive: Beethoven, Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
, and Wagner agree to drop Chopin from their quartet because of suspicion derived from his "Revolutionary Étude." Chopin's replacement, a "non-controversial" cipher named Otto Schmenk, eventually replaces other famous "subversives" in literary and musical pursuits, eventually joining them in banishment as well.
Finally, after sending dozens of "subversives" to hell, the Senator has run out of ideas. "Can’t we jazz the hearing up with a few names?" he asks an assistant; "I don’t want them to think we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel." Then Satan pays a call on the Senator, demanding that his investigations cease, because the influence of those he's sent to his domain are changing it too much; (the real) Karl Marx, for example, is distributing pamphlets declaring, "Workers of the Underworld, unite!
Workers of the world, unite!
The political slogan Workers of the world, unite! is one of the most famous rallying cries of communism, found in The Communist Manifesto , by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
You have nowhere to go but up!" Satan claims the Senator is "bungling" his job, insisting there are more subtle ways to handle his committee and the deportations. But the Senator has become a demagogue, valuing his position (and absolute power) above all else. Finally, claiming that "there is no one so high as to be immune from investigation," he’s found the name he’s looking for—God Himself, whom the characters in the show refer to as "The Chief." Even Mather and Torquemada try to discourage him now, but the Senator refuses to listen. He soon rises to an insane scream, crying "I AM THE CHIEF!" as God suddenly appears before him, furiously banishing him to Hell (with the proper balance between Heaven and Hell eventually restored). However, the Senator is so vile and abhorrent that Satan will not even let him enter, so he is returned to earth, still stammering, "I am the chief...I am the chief..."
In a brief epilogue, a doctor explains to one of the Senator's acquaintances, Mr. Garson, that despite having lived through the plane crash (discovered at the crash site as the only survivor), it somehow affected his mind—hence his strange mutterings—and wonders if he'll ever regain his sanity. Mr. Garson declares, at the doctor's disbelief of the Senator emerging virtually unscathed after being found at the foot of the mountain where the plane crashed, "It was an act of God!"
History
The Investigator, which was well received by the left-wing press at the time of its airing, was considered by the right-wing faction in American politics to be anti-American propaganda. While not broadcast in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, within a few weeks bootleg tapes of the broadcast were in circulation in the US. Attempts to schedule it for broadcast in the US however met with great opposition from, amongst other groups, the American Legion
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
.
Approximately 100,000 copies of a phonograph recording of the play were pressed and circulated, mostly in the US, in at least 2 printings, by an otherwise-unknown record label called Discuriosities. One edition has the number 'LP 6834' on the front and a blank white back; the other edition is listed only as '6834' and has significant liner notes on the back. The LP label claims a 1954 copyright by "Radio Rarities Inc.," while the '6834' jacket says 1955.
The play was denounced as communist propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
by none other than Ed Sullivan
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...
, and the recording gained a certain status as an underground classic during one of the high points of the Great Red Scare of the McCarthy Era.
At least 5 copies of the LP are known to exist in private record collections. Playwright/musician Lawrence Bullock, who lives in Mendocino, California recently (2/27/11) found a copy of the LP in Very Good condition at a local thrift shop, bringing the total of known copies to exist in private record collections to three.
One original copy is owned by television and film writer (Twilight Zone) Jeremy Bertrand Finch who adapted it to a b&w videotape production while attending a northern California college in 1972. He can be contacted at jfinch@sundancenet.com.
It is not known how many other copies of the original pressing have survived. The BBC is reputed to have a copy of the LP, but this needs to be confirmed.
Broadside Records released an edition of it in 1966 (BR 451), and Smithsonian Folkways
Smithsonian Folkways
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways...
records has it available as part of their press-on-demand program, along with a full transcript for free download.
Author
Reuben ShipReuben Ship
Reuben Ship was a Canadian playwright and screenwriter best known for his 1954 radio satire The Investigator, which lampooned the Army-McCarthy Hearings and the anticommunist paranoia of the Second Red Scare.-Biography:...
, who was a key writer for producer Irving Brecher
Irving Brecher
Irving Brecher enjoyed early success as a screenwriter for the Marx Brothers; he was the only writer to get sole credit on a Marx Brothers film including At the Circus in 1939 and Go West in 1940...
's radio series The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role, is a popular American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, a long-run 1950s television series , and a 1958 Dell comic book...
during the mid and late 1940s, was involved in political struggles between two unions vying for control of the burgeoning television industry in the early 1950s, and he was promptly labeled a communist in HUAC hearings. Much to the dismay of the Committee, it was determined that while much of his work could be considered treasonous if written by a US citizen, Reuben Ship was Canadian. The Immigration and Naturalization Service
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service , now referred to as Legacy INS, ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred from the Department of Justice to three new components within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as...
(INS) arrested Ship in July 1953 and, after a prolonged ordeal, threw him out of the US at the Detroit/Windsor
Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...
border crossing. Ship's comment upon being expelled from the "Land of Liberty" was that he "...felt liberated." It was this experience which gave him the material which he incorporated into The Investigator.
Rebroadcast
The Canadian Broadcasting CorporationCanadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
has opened certain of their archives, including the recording of The Investigator. The CBC rebroadcast the play as part of its radio network's archival series Rewind
Rewind (radio program)
Rewind is a Canadian radio program broadcast by CBC Radio One.Hosted by Michael Enright, the series presents archived recordings of CBC Radio's history.-External links:*...
on March 25, 2010. It may be downloaded by contacting the CBC at the website listed below, or it may be listened to in streaming audio by accessing the Journal for MultiMedia History, link given below.
Fallout from US broadcast
In 1962, radio station KPFKKPFK
KPFK is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, United States, which serves the Greater Los Angeles Area, and also streams 24 hours a day via the Internet...
, a member station of the Pacifica Foundation and located in the Los Angeles area, broadcast the play. Although KPFK enjoyed a reputation as an underground radio station, the uproar in the community subsequent to the broadcast nearly cost the station its license.