Misplaced Pages

G. David Schine: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 10:59, 29 June 2007 editWikipikiliki (talk | contribs)134 edits →Anti-communism and Army-McCarthy: Add information about results of Europe tour.← Previous edit Revision as of 11:05, 29 June 2007 edit undoWikipikiliki (talk | contribs)134 edits →Anti-communism and Army-McCarthy: Remove information about Cohn's death more than 30 years later, which is irrelevant to Schine.Next edit →
Line 96: Line 96:
|publisher = Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen |publisher = Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen
|date = |date =
}}</ref>
}}</ref> Roy Cohn's homosexuality would later become known and he died of ] in 1986.


The findings of the Army-McCarthy hearings cleared Senator McCarthy of any direct wrongdoing, placing the blame on Cohn alone. But the exposure of McCarthy and his methods before a television audience is considered by many as being key to his downfall from his former position of power and influence. Roy Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff shortly after the hearings. The findings of the Army-McCarthy hearings cleared Senator McCarthy of any direct wrongdoing, placing the blame on Cohn alone. But the exposure of McCarthy and his methods before a television audience is considered by many as being key to his downfall from his former position of power and influence. Roy Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff shortly after the hearings.

Revision as of 11:05, 29 June 2007

File:DavidShine2.jpg
G. David Schine at the Army-McCarthy hearings, 1954

Gerard David Schine, better known as G. David Schine (September 11, 1927 - June 19, 1996), received national attention when he became a central figure in the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954.

Anti-communism and Army-McCarthy

Born in Gloversville, New York, Schine came from a wealthy family in the movie theater, hotel and real estate industries. At age 24, Schine published an anti-communism pamphlet called Definition of Communism in 1952, and it was placed in every room of his family's chain of hotels. This got the attention of Roy Cohn, who at that time was Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel. Schine soon joined McCarthy's staff as an unpaid consultant. Among other anti-communist activities, Schine and Cohn made a highly publicized and widely ridiculed tour of Europe in 1953, examining libraries of the United States Information Agency, which resulted in the removal of 30,000 books by 418 authors, who McCarthy's researchers had determined were Communists or "unwitting promoters of the Soviet cause."

In November 1953, Schine was drafted into the U. S. Army. Cohn immediately began a campaign to get special privileges for Schine. Cohn met with and made repeated phone calls to military officials from the Secretary of the Army down to Schine's company commander. He asked that Schine be given a commission, which the Army refused due to Schine's lack of qualifications, and that Schine be given light duties, extra leave and not be assigned overseas. At one point, Cohn is reported to have threatened to "wreck the Army" if his demands were not met. In the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954, the Army charged Cohn and McCarthy with using improper pressure to influence the Army, while McCarthy and Cohn counter-charged that the Army was holding Schine "hostage" in an attempt to squelch McCarthy's investigations into Communists in the Army. The hearings were broadcast live using the relatively new medium of television and were viewed by an estimated 20 million people. In anticipation of the hearings, Schine and Cohn appeared on the cover of TIME on March 22, 1954.

Schine and Cohn were rumored to have a sexual relationship, although there has never been any proof of this. More recently, some historians have concluded it was a friendship and that Schine was heterosexual. Schine was known to have a fondness for attractive women and during this period was romantically linked with some starlets, including Rhonda Fleming and Piper Laurie.

The findings of the Army-McCarthy hearings cleared Senator McCarthy of any direct wrongdoing, placing the blame on Cohn alone. But the exposure of McCarthy and his methods before a television audience is considered by many as being key to his downfall from his former position of power and influence. Roy Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff shortly after the hearings.

After Army-McCarthy

After the hearings, Schine left politics and declined to comment on the episode for the rest of his life. He remained active in the private sector as a businessman and entrepreneur, working in the hotel, music, and film industries, and was a founding member of the Young Presidents' Organization. In 1957 he married the Miss Universe of 1955, Hillevi Rombin of Sweden. They had six children and were married for nearly 40 years until their deaths in 1996.

Schine made a cameo appearance as himself on a 1968 episode of Batman. Schine was executive producer of the 1971 film The French Connection, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture. Shortly afterwards, Schine was involved with chart topping music that achieved Billboard gold and platinum and Cash Box #1, by The DeFranco Family. Schine's company Schine Music would also provide songs to Lou Rawls and Bobby Sherman, among others. A musician himself, Schine had music he had written published and at one point guest conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra for Arthur Fiedler. Schine's post production video house in Hollywood, Studio Television Services, handled clients such as HBO, Disney, Orion, and MGM/UA. His publicly traded research and development company High Resolution Sciences for years endeavored to bring high definition to broadcast television.

Schine was killed in 1996 at the age of 68 in a private airplane accident in Los Angeles, California. His wife and one son were with him on the plane and all three perished.

In fiction

Following Schine's death, Tony Kushner wrote a one act comedy play, G. David Schine in Hell. The play takes place on June 19, 1996 (the day Schine died), and portrays Schine as he arrives in hell, where he is reunited with Roy Cohn, Richard Nixon, Whittaker Chambers, and J. Edgar Hoover.

Notes

  1. Schine, G. David (1952). "Definition of Communism".
  2. Cook, Fred J. (1971). The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy. Random House. pp. pp. 411-413. ISBN 0-394-46270-X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  3. Ward, Geoffrey C. (1988). "Roy Cohn". American Heritage Magazine.
  4. "The Self-Inflated Target". TIME Magazine. Mar. 22, 1954. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. "TIME cover of March 22, 1954". TIME Magazine.
  6. See for example: Miller, Neil (1995). "Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present". New York: Vintage Books.;
    Wolfe, Tom (April 3, 1988). "Dangerous Obsessions". The New York Times.;
    Baxter, Randolph (November 13, 2006). "An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture". glbtq, Inc.
    On the other hand, author Tom Wicker refers to Schine as "Cohn's boyfriend": Wicker, Tom (1995). Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy. Harcourt. pp. pp. 127, 138 & 166. ISBN 015101082X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  7. "Piper Laurie". Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen.
  8. McNees, Pat. "YPO: The First 50 Years".
  9. "The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra". TV.com. March 7, 1968.

See also

External links

Categories: