Mr. HAMMETT: I refuse to answer, given that my answer could potentially incriminate me, exercising my rights derived from the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
THE CHAIR: I order you to answer the question.
Mr. HAMMETT: Your Honor, I refuse to answer the question, for the same reasons.

THE CHAIR: By refusing to answer, you not only violate the terms of the guarantee you undertook, which you voluntarily accepted when you acted as the administrator of this fund, but you also hinder the work of this Court. It is the intention of the Court, if you persist in your refusal to answer these questions that have been posed to you, to treat you in the strictest manner prescribed by law. I hope that such action will not become necessary. [...]

THE CHAIR: Mr. Hammett, I find you guilty of contempt of court, for your failure and refusal to comply with the instructions of the Court and provide answers to the questions that have been posed to you and the requests made to you by the Court.

THE CHAIR: Tell us, Mr. Hammett, when did you write your first published book?
Mr. HAMMETT: My first book was "Red Harvest". It was published in 1929. I believe I wrote it in 1927, or in 1927 or 1928.
Mr. COHN: When you were writing this book, were you a member of the Communist Party?
Mr. HAMMETT: I refuse to answer, invoking my rights derived from the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, given that any answer I might give could potentially incriminate me.

With five novels and over fifty short stories to his credit, the author of "The Maltese Falcon" forever changed the landscape of detective fiction with the invention of what is now known as the noir novel. Hammett was not just a great writer; he was also an active fighter on the side of the American Left. From the mid-1930s, he participated in every iconic struggle of the era, from the granting of political rights to African Americans to the fight against Francoism and Nazism. However, starting in 1947, the Cold War created an atmosphere of generalized suspicion towards communists or those considered communists. Thus began the "witch hunt," with the House Un-American Activities Committee launching an attack, as we know, on intellectual circles and especially on the film industry.

As president of the Civil Rights Congress in New York, a highly active leftist organization, Hammett was inevitably exposed. He was called to testify twice, first in July 1951, when he was sentenced to six months in prison, and then in 1953, in the investigation led by an overly zealous senator, Joseph McCarthy, whose name will forever be associated with that dark period.

By presenting the transcripts of the three testimonies, one of which was held behind closed doors and had not been made public until relatively recently, the "Testimonies"... shed light on Hammett's moral stance, that of a free man who refused to become an informer.

Dashiell Hammett, with his persistent refusal to answer the questions of his judges (judges, interrogators, Republicans and Democratic senators), ridicules the interrogative process imposed during the McCarthy era. In his own way, he reminds us of Bartleby, the well-known literary hero of H. Melville, with his repeated refusal of "I would prefer not to." It is the ultimate dignity of man in the face of political hysteria.

Hammett paid for this stance with imprisonment, withdrawal of his books from public libraries and commerce for several years, the cessation of his relationships with Hollywood, tax punishment, and isolation until his death.