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Edgar was suddenly the hero of 1947. His face, framed by the Stars and Stripes, stared from the cover of Newsweek, telling the nation ‘How to Fight Communism.’ He was being taken seriously, and taking himself much too seriously.

In the midst of the wrangle with President Truman, Edgar learned that Love for Three Oranges, the theme tune for two films and a radio show about the FBI, had been written by the Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev. ‘We ought to be able to utilize music by someone other than a well-known Communist,’ Edgar scrawled on a memorandum. ‘Please get together on this, and quickly.’ Aides scrambled to oblige, solemnly probing Prokofiev’s background and holding highlevel conferences. There is not a glimmer of a sign that anyone realized how silly it all was.

Nationally, the purge began in Hollywood, when the House Un-American Activities Committee staged its assault on the film industry. Edgar, who thought Hollywood smelled of the ‘dank air of Communism,’ played a leading role from the start – in secret. ‘I want to extend every assistance to the Committee,’ he told aides months before the hearings began. His Los Angeles Agent in Charge, Richard Hood, passed on FBI file information on suspect members of the film community. The committee’s team of investigators was led by Allen Smith, a Bureau veteran with close links to Edgar, and heavily weighted with other former agents.

The hearings were a circus, with throngs of giggling women mobbing ‘friendly’ witnesses, such as Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor and Walt Disney, who testified that Communists at his studio were trying to use Mickey Mouse to spread Communist propaganda. A 1993 biography revealed that in secret Disney had previously provided the FBI with information on political activity in Hollywood.

Edgar’s former girlfriend, Lela Rogers, made a memorable appearance. In her opinion, None but the Lonely Heart, directed by Clifford Odets, was highly suspect – the more so because of a scene in which a son tells his mother: ‘You are not going to work here and squeeze pennies from people poorer than we are.’ The committee concluded Rogers was ‘one of the outstanding experts on Communism in the United States.’

‘Unfriendly’ witnesses and those who opposed the hearings, such as John Huston, Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, were vilified. The Hollywood Ten, a group of artists who refused on principle to say whether they had ever been members of the Communist Party, were jailed for contempt of Congress. They would emerge to find their careers ruined, because, to butter up the committee, Hollywood’s film bosses had declared them ‘blacklisted.’

The Un-American Activities Committee’s assault on Hollywood lasted until 1953, with Edgar playing a punitive role in the wings – as the actor Sterling Hayden discovered. Hayden had briefly been a member of the Communist Party, and, worried about his past, he wrote through his attorney asking Edgar for advice. ‘Get it on the record,’ Edgar advised, promising to help Hayden ‘if anything comes up.’ The actor promptly confessed his past folly in a formal statement to FBI agents.

For Edgar, this was an opportunity for fresh persecution. Far from protecting Hayden, he forwarded his confession to the Un-American Activities Committee. The actor was summoned to testify, panicked and named many friends and colleagues who had also joined the Party. He regretted having been ‘a stoolie for J. Edgar Hoover’ for the rest of his life.

FBI file 100-382196 contains the lowdown on a minor Hollywood actor – ‘6’1” tall, weight 175 lbs, blue eyes and brown hair’ – named Ronald Reagan. The future president, who was spending as much time on union activity as on acting, was on the board of HICCASP, the Citizens’ Committee of Arts, Sciences and Professions, which the FBI considered a Communist front. His brother Neil, however, was spying on HICCASP meetings for the Bureau, and warned Ronald it would be wise to resign. Instead, Ronald acted as an FBI informant