Fear on Trial [*SIGNED*]

New York: Simon and Schuster. Near Fine in Very Good dj. 1964. First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [minimal shelfwear to book, very slight dust-soiling to top of text block; the jacket has a few small tears at a couple of corners, some visible wear at the spine ends, and a tiny chip at the top edge of the rear panel]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "For Max Youngstein, / who went the whole / way with me -- and / then some -- / with much gratitude / and great affection, / John H. Faulk / 19 Oct 1964." The author, a folksy Texan who by the mid-1950s had become "one of the most successful personalities in radio and television," suddenly found himself the target of an organization called AWARE, Inc., which basically leveled accusations of Communist affiliation at people in the entertainment industry and then extorted them to "clear their names" and thereby avoid being blacklisted. "Only one man -- John Henry Faulk -- chose to fight back, to oppose in open court the lies, half-truths, and innuendos which were AWARE's method of attack," a legal battle that took six years, culminating in "the dramatic history-making trial that exposed the true nature of the blacklisters and helped break their grip on American life." The book was adapted as a made-for-TV movie in 1975, starring William Devane as Faulk and George C. Scott as his attorney, Louis Nizer. This copy's inscribee, Max Youngstein, was a motion picture executive, one of the group that purchased United Artists from its remaining founders in 1951; he retired from UA in 1962 to become an independent film producer. Neither the nature of his relationship with Faulk nor the type of support he may have offered Faulk during his legal ordeal are known to me (and the book, unfortunately, is not indexed, so I don't know if he's mentioned within). Signed by Author . (Inventory #: 30064)