Good question.

But there's one question that still haunts her from that era [when she worked with Ronald Reagan to defeat the communists in the Hollywood Chapter of the Independent Citizens' Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions]: why so many brilliant people were seduced by communism in the first place. "That," says Ms. [Olivia] de Havilland pensively, "is a mystery."

Despite mountains of evidence of monstrous evil, countless smart people could not ever conclude that communism inevitably brought economic ruin, arbitrary government, class warfare, hypocrisy raised to the level of a sacrament, judicial murder, assassination, terror, destruction of liberal values, academic and press toadyism, and the elevation of psychopaths to positions of power. (Did we leave anything out?)

No. These educated, privileged, and free people could not bring themselves to make that jump. It was enough that communists stroked their egos by enveloping them in exciting clandestine activities. Or, that they uttered some soothing lie about the betterment of the working class, punishing the rich, or working for world peace. In either event, these bright people swooned with delight and couldn't lap up the hogwash fast enough.

There must be an utterly irresistible urge mentally to go to some Shangri-La where one can come to rest and be safe at last from the harsh realities of daily life, simple misfortune, and the less happy aspects of human nature.

Rudyard Kipling was of the opinion that a woman who never had had children could, if she took up politics, be as fiercely protective of her ideas as she would have been of any child.

Is a similar process at work here? That life in the dream world must be fiercely defended against people who argue that the Hun is at the gate and that the presence of all citizens is needed at the barricade? The antiwar movement in the 1960s only really caught fire when the draft started to reach into the ranks of privileged college students. Then the Vietnam War became a manifestation of unadulterated evil.

Strictly on the principle of the matter, do you see?

"Olivia de Havilland Recalls Her Role -- in the Cold War." By John Meroney, Wall Street Journal Online, 9/7/06 (subscription).