I WAS drifting. So I decided to consult some friends who I was certain were “on the side of the angels” and would want to talk me out of wrongdoing.

I wrote down what follows early in the spring of 1952, before I’d testified “cooperatively.” It is from a diary.

A conversation with Art Miller, in the woods back of my home. I mentioned that Skouras had implied I couldn’t work in pictures anymore if I didn’t name the other lefties in the Group, then told Art I’d prepared myself for a period of no movie work or money, that I was prepared to face this if it was worthwhile. But that I didn’t feel altogether good about such a decision. That I’d say (to myself) what the hell am I giving all this up for? To defend a secrecy I didn’t think right and to defend people who’d already been named or soon would be by someone else? I said I’d hated the Communists for many years and didn’t feel right about giving up my career to defend them. That I would give up my film career if it was in the interests of defending something I believed in but not this.

Art said that it would be a personal disaster for him if I was “run out of pictures.” He hoped that would not happen. He could see that it would concern me deeply. After all, he could write in jail, whereas I couldn’t make movies except with financing and an organization of some kind. I said I wasn’t contemplating doing it to save my job. But since this was going to happen, I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t. I only had to consider this: was I sacrificing for something I believed in? I didn’t believe in the secret membership of the Communists, had fought it when I was a member. I then told Art how I’d been pushed to resign from the Party.

Art and I had never been frank about the Communist business. This was as much my fault as his and as much his as mine. But mainly it was that no one asked if his friend was a Communist in these days. Art never offered to tell me. He knew I was anti-Communist, but I’d always refrained from what I considered to be “red-baiting.” Art went on about the political situation. He was against the Marshall Plan [which I was for; it rescued Greece] and against what we were doing in Korea. He said I was naive. We talked for three-quarters of an hour. He looked terribly worried. Walking back to the house, just before we came into the view of the other people, he stopped and put his arm around me in his awkward way—the side of his body against mine—and said, “Don’t worry about what I’ll think. Whatever you do will be okay with me. Because I know your heart is in the right place.” I was surprised by the phrase and, as soon as I could, wrote it down. “Your heart is in the right place.” It was like the truth in a pop song title. There was no doubt that Art meant it and that he was anxious to say this to me before we separated. We parted on affectionate terms.