In an unbelievable time.

The characters of FOOL THEM ONCE are born of a world which is at once both bizarrely unthinkable and eerily similar to one we presently find ourselves sliding towards, day by day.

It’s 1954. The United States finds itself in the grips of a pandemic of paranoia. It’s a sudden and dark turn from the age of optimism generated by the end of World War II. As the freshly crowned superpowers of America and the USSR now compete for global dominance, fears of a third World War are born, bringing forth a new kind of conflict. It’s one in which the front lines are not all drawn on battlefields, but within the very borders of the United States; in government, in communities, and in homes. A trusting American public turns to Washington for answers, and is fed dire warnings about the ubiquitous and treacherous evils of communism emanating all the way from Russia, lurking around every corner, hiding in plain sight. Just a decade earlier, the American communist party thrived peacefully; now the public is sold this new ideology through firebrand speeches and advertising campaigns alike. For the first time, the American government actively encourages its citizens to spy on each other.

It’s a world in which the air drips with suspicion, opponents are demonized, televised hearings are national sport, truth is abandoned in favor of sensationalism, and innuendo is weaponized as a form of mass manipulation. The setting could not be more ripe for political opportunists looking to leverage public fear while they jockey for power by stoking xenophobia, antisemitism, and homophobia. As the country turns on itself and neighbors turn on each other, everyday Americans are forced from their jobs, brought up on charges, and even pushed to suicide. The Red Scare is in full swing.

All battles breed opposing armies. In the age of FOOL THEM ONCE, the lines of political opposition harden into the lines of survival as the public fractures. Each character in this story is wholly convinced of his or her own righteousness, standing in counterpoint to evil as they perceive it. This is what drives them toward the fight day after day, despite the odds or outcome. FOOL THEM ONCE is about what happens when those opposing true believers collide.

42, father, writer, activist, public intellectual, co-owner of the small, struggling publishing firm Cameron & Kahn.  Principled, passionate, idealistic, competitive, and uncompromising.

When his old friend, Clint Jencks, asks him to track down Harvey Matusow and publish Harvey’s tell-all memoir, Albert reluctantly agrees, setting himself and his family on a collision course not just with the brash and unpredictable Matusow, but also with intractable forces of government and history.

What does Albert believe? That fascism has come for America. The enemy which he helped to conquer during World War II has now suddenly resurfaced on his doorstep. It’s almost too much for Albert to watch as the country turns sour with demagoguery and as countless lives are ruined through political innuendo and personal invective. Defeating this evil is his life’s work. And now that its darkness is all around him, the stakes are higher than ever.

Yet when Clint Jencks comes calling with a plea to find Harvey in order to save himself from prison, Albert is at his least ready to join the fight. He’s been blacklisted from writing and speaking around the country. His publishing business is folding. His heart is weak from family history and a lifetime of self imposed stress. For a moment, he balks.

Maybe he has some idea that saying yes to Clint means he’ll have to wrestle with more at once than he’s ever had to before: With seeing humanity in his political enemy, Harvey Matusow. With stepping into a rabbit hole of government conspiracy and unseen dangers. With explaining to his children why they’ve been abandoned by friends and why ominous figures are lurking outside. With facing the very real possibility that he’ll end up in prison. With risking it all by placing his faith in a con man who’s more interested in showing off than he is in coming clean about his public lies and national treachery.

But before too long, and as always, Albert takes up the cause.

28, shape-shifting fabulist, glutton for attention, self-styled seeker of “truth.” Eccentric, charming, grandstanding, boisterous, emotionally naive, wholly unpredictable.

In the short span of five years, Harvey has amazingly been a soldier, failed magician, communist, FBI informer, Congressional star witness, spokesman for Joseph McCarthy, Washington, DC socialite, womanizer, husband, outcast, religious convert, poet, drifter, and pariah. Now he plans a tell-all memoir purportedly exposing the lies he and others told on behalf of the government. Or maybe it’s all just another lie. Only Harvey knows, and he isn’t telling.

What does Harvey believe? Anything he tells himself. He’s a man enthralled by the mythology of his own unique abilities and accomplishments. Every transformation he goes through serves to enhance this romantic sense of himself and his conviction that the twists and turns of his journey are of some divine origin, rather than the product of whim, convenience, and selfishness.

Harvey is brash, boorish and full of bravado. He’s never met a room he didn’t want to monopolize or a woman he didn’t want to seduce. He’s charming until he’s not, and lord knows he loves the sound of his own voice. Yet beneath the bluster is the heart of a little boy, one who just wants to play act within his own fanciful dreams, and painfully yearns to be liked and accepted.

When FOOL THEM ONCE opens, Harvey is a mysterious, oddball figure, sought by many, truly known by few, his existence evidenced only by a trail of destruction and bizarre episodes crossing the country. Not more than two years ago, he was a traveling celebrity, capitalizing on the sudden hero-worshiping of ex-communists and paid informants. Now on a vision quest across Texas and New Mexico, Harvey’s picking cotton, performing puppet shows for the children of traveling revivalist tent churches, getting busted with prostitutes, and claiming to be a priest.

Harvey doesn’t realize it yet, but Albert will challenge him to transform into the one shape he’s never taken — a sober, accountable adult. And when the time comes, Harvey will do what he has always done, distract, deflect and resist growing up. Until then, he’ll keep the truth about his motives close to his chest. The jester with the kingdom’s secrets.

27, aggressive, unprincipled, secretly gay former federal prosecutor whose crusade against communists as Joe McCarthy's chief counsel and closest advisor serves his unquenchable desire for power and domination. 

Roy has fallen from grace. He gambled with his threats to “wreck” the U.S. Army if generals did not bend to his will and he lost in front of the entire nation during the highly publicized Army-McCarthy hearings. Cohn now sees Harvey Matusow as his way back into the limelight. But getting there will require a deft and unscrupulous touch that tests even Cohn’s notorious talent for manipulation.

What does Roy believe? That they’ll all get what’s coming to them. Every one of his enemies has asked for it; whether they intended to or not is immaterial. In a zero-sum world, those that see opportunity take it. Those who take it, win. Those who win, rule. Those who don’t allow themselves to be added to the heap of discarded humanity life leaves behind. For most of his life, Roy has stood victorious over his opponents. But now, a misplaced love has caused him to make a rare but monumental misstep. Roy stews on the sidelines, gathering his strength and setting his sights on Harvey Matusow.

Perhaps one of the most paradoxical characters in twentieth century American history, Roy Cohn is a gay, Jewish man who makes it his mission to attack politically liberal Jews and undermine gay rights. He can be heartless, known for saying "I bring out the worst in my enemies and that's how I get them to defeat themselves." He’s equally relentless. Roy’s lasting legacy is a combative dogma: “Never admit wrongdoing; never back down; if they hit you, hit them back a thousand times harder and never, ever let up.” One can almost forgive his dark worldview when considering that his tragic origin tale is that of a real-life super villain.

Almost. Roy’s anti-communist crusade has been directly behind the destruction of countless lives, including death by execution and suicide. It’s a crusade he takes most seriously; communism is a very real threat to his zero-sum world view. Any ethos which attempts to level the playing field for all is an abhorrent aberration of the natural order. And he needs the order in place so that he might climb atop it.

46, wry, reserved, pragmatic book publisher, avid fly fisher and outdoorsman, and co-owner (with Albert E. Kahn) of the small, struggling publishing firm Cameron and Kahn. 

Having been hounded from his job with Little, Brown and Company after being blacklisted, Angus knows firsthand some of the risks he and Albert face in linking arms with the boisterous, mercurial Harvey Matusow.  Yet even Angus cannot foresee the maelstrom Harvey’s book and their stand behind it will unleash.

What does Angus believe? That injustice — and fools — shall not be tolerated. With a political will to match Albert’s, Angus also sees himself as manning the front lines against this new cultural tyranny. But in some ways, he is a more principled advocate than his publishing partner. Angus is a man formed from reason, the yin to Albert’s hyper-emotional yang.

Angus has a deep affection for knowledgeable people and a keen nose for bullshitters. Which is why he doesn’t really trust or like Harvey. While Albert navigates the convoluted pathways of Harvey’s heart and mind, it’s Angus who gets to the practical work of setting up the war room, hiring staff, and keeping the lights on and the machine running while parrying every attempt made by government operators and a vitriolic public to shut them down.

There will come a time when Angus must decide if he’s going to let Harvey take them all down the rabbit hole, or if he should cut bait for the sake of saving them from disaster, even at the cost of his professional relationship and personal friendship with Albert.

42, clear-eyed, centered, patient, nurturing mother, wife, activist and artist. 

Calm on the surface, roiled inside by her intuitive sense of the coming storm, Harriet “Riette” Kahn readies and commands the barricades against all-out assaults on her family’s privacy, safety, and unity. Riette has come to love and fear her husband Albert’s streaky, principled obsessiveness, and she recognizes the particular danger Harvey Matusow - with his insatiable vanity - poses when paired with Albert’s messianic drive to find and expose “the truth.”

What does Riette believe? That love conquers all. Through her eyes, the age of McCarthy has leeched compassion and understanding out of the American spirit; it’s this deficit which now allows the country to tear itself apart. To meet such a destructive force — and to mend the debris — with your heart outstretched is no easy task. And though Riette is a master of love in its many forms, she will be tested to discover new ones if she hopes to escape these trials with her heart intact, along with those of her husband, sons, and the people she cares for.

The love required for a husband like Albert is the most complex of all. There’s always been a quiet harmony in their shared humanism, and a rising thrill in standing shoulder to shoulder with him in the trenches of battle. But Riette also fears the point at which Albert’s fight for the love humanity is overtaken by his love for the fight. She must balance raising her sons in a cause-driven life and protecting them from fallout when the cause demands full sacrifice. And when Albert pushes the family past this line, she pushes back, with the toughest of love. Keeping the family together is a most delicate and difficult charge, and though she must often make it up as she goes, Riette knows that she alone can ensure their survival.

Riette soon realizes that she also has her own role to play in cracking the con man and helping to secure the confession Albert so desperately seeks. She has the clear eyes of a mother and sees Harvey for what he really is: a lost boy playing the dangerous games of men. She is quickly wary of his fickle nature and weary of his buffoonery, but instinctively, Riette knows the importance of greeting Harvey with the kind of acceptance, understanding, and tolerance that only a mother can provide. It is with the help of this love that Riette hopes the day will be won.

13, 10, and 7, struggling to understand the magnitude of the events around them and survive attacks by the government and public alike.

Perhaps the most innocent of causalities, the Kahn boys must grapple with why the country has seemingly turned against them, why their parents have invited Harvey — a known enemy — into their home. Over the course of this trial, each of them will have to endure fear of government intimidation, threats from strangers, abandonment by friends, and the specter of imprisonment for their father. At the same time, they will learn the lessons of persevering in the face of adversity and the strength that comes from a community which is founded around a dedication to the greater good.

What do the boys believe? That their family is fighting the good fight. Though the boys are a unit unto themselves, each of the Kahn children embodies one primary characteristic of their parents’ personalities, and therefore their individual experiences are markedly different.

Steven, 13, is the storyteller, enraptured by the power of a tale well told and connects with his father’s fight over the national narrative. But being a budding teenager is tough enough, let alone one under pressure of the national spotlight. He acts out through school fights and railing at the FBI agents tracking his family at every turn. At times he can feel like a puppet in Albert’s stage show and is resentful over Albert’s occasional absence as a father and a protector of the home. Steven does his best to step up and fill that role.

Tim, 10, is the lover of the three, sharing his parents’ deep affection for people everywhere. His gentle nature leads him to gravitate to Riette, though he takes great pride in the work Albert is doing. Tim yearns for equilibrium within his own chaotic family and when that balance is threatened either by disagreements between his parents, FBI agents following him to school every day, or the fear that he will lose his father to prison, it hits Tim the hardest.

Brian, 8, is the fighter, a ready soldier in his father’s army. Already brash and impatient, when Harvey arrives at the Kahn household for the first time, Brian stands, arms crossed, uttering “I hope that bastard drops dead.” But Brian is a still just a boy, one who would happily leave the fight behind to spend all day exploring his devotion to animals and the natural world. And when Harvey engages him at this level, it’s not long before they’re in the back yard together, throwing the baseball around.

45, crusading, hard drinking, blustery junior senator from Wisconsin whose political overreach made his name synonymous with fear mongering and demagoguery. 

McCarthy has built the foundation for his political house on alliances with unscrupulous and unreliable partners. And it's coming back to haunt him. At the Army-McCarthy hearings, he’s paid the price for allowing his chief counsel Roy Cohn, to drag them both down in Roy’s personal fight with the Army. Soon, Joe’s world will start closing in on him. And only time will tell what McCarthy’s reaction will be when backed into a corner.

What does Joe believe? That there are bastards everywhere. Political challengers. Grandstanding press hacks. Supposed colleagues. Liberals. Communists. Bastards, all of them and you’d better believe there are more — in our government, in our churches, in our schools, in our neighborhoods. Remember who’s been fighting to root them out. Don’t let Joe go, lest you be overrun.

Joe McCarthy isn’t as much a stalwart anti-communist as he is a true believer in schoolyard bully grievances and thuggish politics. Communists just happen to be his latest foil, and in recent years decrying their infiltration has suddenly become the most expedient way to amass political power.

But seemingly overnight, Joe finds himself on the reverse side of government inquiry as he faces official censure by his Senate colleagues. He’s fired his closest political confidant, Roy Cohn, for picking an unwinnable fight with the Army in McCarthy's name. Friends and confidants are suddenly scarce as the booze and his own brand of brooding paranoia have gotten the better of him. And now Harvey Matusow, Joe's former drinking buddy and campaign spokesman, threatens to accelerate Joe's precipitous fall by exposing the unseemly inner workings of McCarthy's world. If Joe is going to rescue his political career, he must find a way to fight back, bastards be damned.

59, dominating, imperious Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

Hoover sees Harvey Matusow as a threat to his beloved Bureau’s reputation and scrambles his agents in response. When Harvey goes rogue, Hoover declares that "there is nothing of more importance now than to locate Matusow," and that "every resource should be devoted to it." His anger over or foreseeing the Matusow debacle is pales in comparison to his disdain for how the Justice Department and Congress haphazardly cultivated Harvey as a trial witness and poster child for anti-communism…a crusade in which Hoover, more than most, is a true believer.

What does J. Edgar believe? We shall defend ourselves from all evils. Hoover sees Communism is as real a threat to the American way of life as anything it’s encountered before and he has good reason to believe it. The USSR and the United States are locked in a ratcheting arms race. Conflict is boiling from continent to continent. Spies from both sides are actively infiltrating national borders and important institutions.

To Hoover, his Federal Bureau of Investigation is the nation’s last best hope. No other organization is as well funded, has the operational directive to spy within the United States, and is as unfettered by the petty skirmishes of the political world. The rooting out of communism is a task of war and Hoover will bring every resource available to bear to it. He believes that the Bureau will always defend America, so long as he can defend the Bureau.

Maintaining the Bureau’s stellar reputation is Hoover’s sole obsession. And like all obsessions, it’s blinding — Hoover can't admit it, but his cherished agency bears its share of the blame for Harvey's notoriety. After all, Harvey was a short-lived FBI agent before becoming a household name for his career as a public figure.

To preserve the Bureau's integrity, Hoover deflects blame to the Justice Department, along with McCarthy and Congress, engineers a paper trail cover-up, and assigns a potential scapegoat to handle the Matusow case: the unsuspecting FBI Inspector Spengler.

Inspector Fritz "Fred" Spengler - 40, intelligent, honest, hard-working, devout Lutheran, conservative true-believer, family man, straight arrow. 

Fred Spengler is a by-the-book, career FBI man who has run afoul of Hoover in years past, due in part to clashes with then-Assistant United States Attorney Roy Cohn over questionable practices during the Rosenberg case. Now he’s been assigned to lead the FBI’s Matusow task force, and sees a chance to resurrect his career.  But is he doing the right thing?  And is there something behind the fact that he's been handed this case?

What does Spengler believe? That God will provide. By the power of His grace, Spengler has been given the gifts of a beautiful family to cherish, a law to follow, a government to serve, and an enemy to vanquish. It is divine will that he play his humble part in the fight against the godless scourge which threatens them all — communism. And he doesn’t know it yet, but God’s greatest test for him lies ahead, when he will find that the commands of his government come into conflict with God’s law.

Fritz first throws himself into searching for the ex-informant and later into trying to derail Harvey’s book and the Kahn family. But as the case spirals out of control, Hoover's cover up deepens, and Spengler comes up against a new class of less scrupulous agents, he struggles to reconcile his idealism with his sense of right and wrong. Soon, he begins to question whether his selection for the job was God's handiwork, or that of something, or someone, far more clandestine. While he and his agents keep watch over their surveillance targets, he has uneasy sense that he, too, is being watched.

* * *

Special Agent Bill Ward - 25, eager, apolitical, unmarried, recently graduated Field Agent, commended for his surveillance and tactical skills while in training. 

He was raised to admire the heroism of FBI agents depicted in film and on the radio, and joined the Bureau believing in its storied ideals.  Assigned to the Matusow task force, he soon falls in with a “black bag squad” that carries out surreptitious, warrantless break-ins against FBI investigative targets.  Will these activities challenge his beliefs in the clarity and purity of the mission, or will his path lead him further away from his values?

What does Bill believe? Duty above all else. All the spoils of life - wealth, family, security, power, happiness are best derived from an unwavering dedication to a singular, superseding purpose. As a younger man, Bill craved structure; at the FBI academy, he found it. He has emerged a new disciple in the church of Hoover.

Arriving in New York City from his home in rural Ohio, Ward’s ability to avoid detection while a new member of black bag squad earns him the nickname "Ghost" and lands him on Spengler's Matusow task force. But he chafes at Spengler's textbook approach to intelligence gathering. When Hoover's wrath forces Spengler to begin bending the rules, Ward takes full advantage by leading risky, unsupervised surveillance missions and cooking up brazen intimidation tactics, even against the young Kahn family. His aggression may lead to his own glory, or Spengler's undoing.

28, sardonic, perceptive, capable office manager for Cameron & Kahn. 

Ruth struggles to manage the turbulence that Harvey Matusow inflicts on the tiny publishing firm, while fending off Harvey’s advances and the sexist perceptions of her life as a single woman in 1950s New York.  After Albert breaks through Harvey’s glib exterior, it is Ruth — with her dry wit and unflagging work ethic — who extracts much of Harvey’s tale from him, one steno-typed page at a time.

What does Ruth believe? That the world is too much fun to be ruined by lunacy. She’s a complex person who ascribes to a ethos of beautiful simplicity. Citizens should just take care of each other. Peace should just be the national priority. Women should just be more in charge. Children should just not have to grow up on fear. People should just love who they love. Men should just get over themselves — especially men like Harvey. But when Angus comes calling, asking Ruth to put herself in harm’s way to give Harvey Matusow yet another national platform from which to grandstand, she doesn’t blink.

Instead, Ruth accepts the challenge. When the whirlwind that is Harvey descends on Cameron & Kahn, she proves to be the perfect woman to control the chaos. With a poet's heart, a progressive fashion sense, and a taste for cracking wise, if anyone is close to living on Harvey's wavelength, it's Ruth. Yet in the context of these high stakes, Ruth's very strengths may be a liability. Her independence makes her a target for government forces like Bill Ward’s goon squad, and her reaction to this intimidation — to commit herself to pulling a recantation out of Harvey — turns her even further into harm's way.

36, affable, charismatic, plain spoken, labor union organizer, activist for social justice, and family man.

Clint faces five years in prison because of lies Harvey Matusow told as a witness against him at trial.  Embellishing their meeting at a New Mexico guest ranch in 1950, Harvey falsely testified that Clint had admitted to being a communist and to planning a mine strike to sabotage Korean War production.  Convicted of perjury on the strength of that testimony, Clint seeks out his old friend Albert Kahn and asks him to track Harvey down and publish Harvey’s memoir.  Clint's only hope is that Albert will succeed and set the record straight.

What does Clint believe? That the truth will set you free. He stood by this guiding principle while staging one of the most famous mine strikes in American history. And while on trial for supposed communist subversion and sabotage. And when he approached Albert to pluck Harvey and his manuscript of confessions out of the wilderness. And now, as he awaits exoneration or imprisonment.

All he can do is watch the events unfold in real time as the clock for submitting his appeal ticks down. That, and practice forgiveness and grace. When Harvey agrees to come clean about his lies on the stand in the Jencks case, Clint greets him with compassion and outstretched arms. “Welcome back to the human race,” Clint pens Harvey in a memorable letter. But will Harvey’s return be enough to save Clint from prison?

52, tense, clever, quick-tempered, lean and handsome lawyer for International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers.

A dedicated advocate for his client the Mine Mill union, Nat Witt hatches the idea for Clint Jencks to ask his friend Albert Kahn to track down the elusive Harvey Matusow, setting our story in motion.  Like Roy Cohn, Witt knows how to navigate the halls of power, and instinctively senses that Harvey’s recantation could be a boon to the union and its members. Though seemingly an ally of Albert, Harvey, and the effort to bring Harvey’s lies to light, Witt plays his hand with a clever strategy in mind.

What does Nat believe? That there are no friends in war. He wholeheartedly believes in the progressive social tenants which are the foundation of the union he serves and which unite him and Mine Mill with activists like Albert and Angus. But he is ultimately loyal to the survival of his clients above all others. Is there a chance that Natt’s maneuvering on behalf of Clint’s interests may act in opposition to Harvey, the release of the book, and do the unimaginable — give Roy Cohn an opening for revenge?