Westbrook Pegler

By the end of 1942, conservative columnists were beginning to treat Chaplin's support for the Soviet war effort as evidence of something more troubling.

Westbrook Pegler, whose column appeared in newspapers across the country, attacked Chaplin as pro-communist and called for his deportation.

J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, always on the lookout for possible communist influence, were paying closer attention, too.

It was around this time that Chaplin met his future fourth wife.

The attacks may have been coming from different places, gossip columns, trade papers, veteran groups, Congress, the FBI, but they all seemed to be converging on the same question.

Why was Charlie Chaplin still in the United States? Billy Wilkerson, the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, asked why Washington had not already removed a man who had made millions in America while criticizing its government.

Popular columnist Westbrook Pegler continued his open call for Chaplin to be deported.

Bit by bit, Charlie Chaplin was being remade in the public imagination, not as the little man in the bowler hat, as a dangerous outsider who had been allowed to stay too long.

Even the great John Wayne gave up on this sport in frustration.

Columnist Westbrook Pegler dubbed it the most useless game ever devised to waste the time and try the spirit of man.

Never has there been a game so beloved and hated, sometimes by the same person, in the space of 30 seconds.

I have seen grown men cry playing this irritating, wonderful little game.