Sold – Reagan Seeks Resources to Educate Against Communism

By the late 1950’s, as Reagan became increasingly happy with his move into television as host for General Electric Theater, he took on a different role – producer and equity stake owner in the TV show itself. He also appeared in many live television plays, so quite naturally the wide reach of the new medium of TV became of ever greater interest and importance to him.

Reagan’s opposition to Communism was deep and long-standing, going back to the 1940s. He hated its tyranny and oppression and was struck by the fact that it ruled by fear. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s these two aspects of Reagan’s life, anti-Communism and television, flowed together as he sought a way to use TV to deliver his anti-Communist message. Finding vehicles for this was by no means easy, as this letter manifests.

Autograph Letter Signed on his personal letterhead, Pacific Palisades, September 9, 1961, to Virginia Kobs. “I wish I could help you but one act anti-communist plays are in truth unknown to me. It’s so strange that modern literature and TV & screen plays number in the hundreds anti-Nazi material but no anti-communist. There must be some but I don’t know them. We are doing a couple of anti-communist shows on G.E. Theater this coming season and we are having an impossible time finding material. We managed one by re-writing De Maupassant’s story of Germany and France in 1870 – Madamoiselle Fiffi”. We made it Russia & Hungary modern day and call it ÔThe Iron Silence.’ Maybe I should say – if you find some let us know.”

This letter provides an interesting insight into the difficulties Reagan had to surmount in the early years to educate the American people about the danger and reality of Communism. It was obtained from the recipient’s family and has never before been offered for sale; the envelope in Reagan’s hand is included.