This is John Batchel, my conversation with Scott Eymann, the author of Charlie Chaplin versus America,

when art, sex, and politics collided. Charlie Chaplin, the genius, the little tramp,

dominating motion pictures, all his life. However, it is astonishing to learn that the FBI opened a file on Charlie Chaplin in 1922 and continued it all the way through his life.

It was revived again in the 1930s.

Scott Eamond explains the trigger is the word socialism.

The trigger is the great dictator.

It doesn't add up, but there it is.

Charlie Chaplin, suspect, agent, operative, influencer, of communism?

The Red Menace.

Did you add Gouver's idea of a possible spy?

More of this tonight.

Scott Amon, Charlie Chaplin v. America.

Well, the FBI had opened a file on him, the predecessor of the FBI, had opened a file

on Chaplain in 1922 because he'd been attending some socialist meetings in Los Angeles with

a friend of his name, Rob Wagner, who was a socialist.

And they'd opened a file on them, which went nowhere.

They, it, it, they just opened the file and mentioned that he was attending these meetings.

And he was not a fan of Will Hayes, uh, who had been a, uh, a cabinet member in the

Harding administration and had somehow gotten, uh, lucky and was hired to run the Motion Picture Association of America,

thereby avoiding the astonishing range of scandals of the Harding administration.

And this was noted in the FBI file.

And then basically the FBI file goes blank for a number of years, but picks up again in the late 1930s

...