I don't think there was a cover-up, Genie, I think it was so widely known in the U.S. that it was never a big deal. And at the time of Ronnie's death, evidently the press had some modicum of restraint and left the wife and the ex-wife alone in their respective grief. Their daughter Maureen Reagan died a number of years earlier and it received quite a lot of press, as did Maureen's pro-Ronnie leanings. There are plenty of things in life that, if they don't matter to us, we don't pay attention to. Perhaps for you this was one of those things.

I was pretty disappointed when I read about the HUAAC hearings. I'm not having any luck finding information here--it has been a while since I read it, and the gist of the story was that they were friendly and cooperative with the committee. All of the stories I'm finding focus on Reagan alone, so to be fair, I would have to say that her fingerprints are all over the story, but I can't show you my source right at the moment.

There's a bit from a book in a Google search that says "On October 20, 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee, in Congress, held hearings into alleged communist influences in Hollywood. In his testimony on October 25, Reagan testified publicly as president of SAG and refused to label any members of the union as Communists. In private, however, he had already given the FBI the names of possible Communists in the industry. Increasingly, Reagan found himself in demand as an anticommunist speaker."

This is a piece of juvenile fiction excerpted online, but it conveys what several other sources said as well. Wyman apparently engineered his activity with SAG--a CNN report says that Jane Wyman is the one who "initiated Reagan's involvement with the [SAG] labor group" (from Jack Dales, former SAG exec. director). One can't conclude from that that she influenced or shared in his testimony, but like I said, I came across it somewhere that when I read it seemed authoritative and I haven't found any reason not to believe it still.

I'll poke around a little more, though. She did have the good sense to divorce the guy, so there was some hope of redemption!

SRS