Harold Buchman was a 20th-Century American Communist attorney, "the most important communist member" of the Progressive Citizens of America (founded by former vice president Henry A. Wallace, president of the Roosevelt Democratic Party Club, and treasurer for the Screen Writers Guild.[1] [2]
His name appeared in the earliest Hollywood blacklist: a list of Communist sympathizers along with Dalton Trumbo, Maurice Rapf, Lester Cole, Howard Koch, John Wexley, Ring Lardner Jr., Harold Salemson, Henry Meyers, Theodore Strauss, and John Howard Lawson.[3]
On April 17, 1947, Buchman, actress Anne Revere, and writer Sam Moore pled the Fifth Amendment regarding questions about Communist affiliation.[4]
In January 1948, Buchman announced the Wallace for President Committee. In February 1948, he became new executive secretary and Maryland state director of the Progressive Party. In Summer 1948, when the Maryland attorney general rejected all filings by Progressive candidates for failure to sign loyalty oaths, Buchman announced he would file a suit.