Politics
Ford's politics were conventionally progressive; his favorite presidents were Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy and Republican Abraham Lincoln. But despite these leanings, many thought he was a Republican because of his long association with actors John Wayne, James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara and Ward Bond. Time magazine editor Whittaker Chambers wrote a harsh review of The Grapes of Wrath as left-wing propaganda, assuming Steinbeck, the author, and Ford to be of that political stripe.
Ford's attitude to McCarthyism in Hollywood is expressed by a story told by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. A faction of the Directors Guild of America led by Cecil B. DeMille had tried to make it mandatory for every member to sign a loyalty oath. A whispering campaign was being conducted against Mankiewicz, then President of the Guild, alleging he had communist sympathies. At a crucial meeting of the Guild, DeMille's faction spoke for four hours until Ford spoke against DeMille and proposed a vote of confidence in Mankiewicz, which was passed. His words were recorded by a court stenographer:
My name's John Ford. I make Westerns. I don't think there's anyone in this room who knows more about what the American public wants than Cecil B. DeMille—and he certainly knows how to give it to them.... But I don't like you, C.B. I don't like what you stand for and I don't like what you've been saying here tonight.
As time went on, however, Ford became more publicly allied with the Republican Party, declaring himself a 'Maine Republican' in 1947. He voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1968 and became a supporter of the Vietnam War. In 1973, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Nixon, whose campaign he had publicly supported.
Ford scholar Tag Gallagher asserts that Ford was "essentially apolitical", although he also notes that the director became an ardent supporter of the Irish Republican Army after his first visit to Ireland in the 1920s and that he channelled funds to the IRA for the rest of his career.
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