“Then the meeting got savage. Jack Ford was there, for a change, and he said, ‘My closest friend is Merian Cooper’—remember Merian Cooper: he made the original King Kong?—‘and he happens to be a brigadier general in the United States Army, and last night, as we were having dinner, Coop said he wouldn’t sign any goddamn loyalty oath and he said what we were making was a blacklist, and if a brigadier general in the army tells me it’s a blacklist, then it’s a goddamn blacklist!’ And George Stevens came down to De Mille’s chair and he said, ‘By the way, C.B., when I was up to my ass in mud at Bastogne, how were the capital gains doing back home?’ It went on in that spirit, and after a while I’d made up my mind, and I went ahead and ordered Herbert Leeds, our secretary, to call a general meeting of our members for the very next Sunday night. Whereupon De Mille walked out of the place, slamming the door behind him.