After being fired from the "New York Journal-American" in 1954, Howard Rushmore became the chief editor of a New York scandal magazine, "Confidential". For Rushmore, it was a return to his days as film critic of the communist "Daily Worker", but on the opposing side. He had been fired from the "Worker" in 1939 for giving an ambivalent review of "Gone with the Wind" (1939). The firing made the front page of all the major New York City newspapers. Rushmore became a professional anticommunist. Among Rushmore's heroes was Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Rushmore was briefly director of research for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations under McCarthy. In early 1955, several months after the Army–McCarthy hearings and the premiere of "Silver Lode", Rushmore wrote an exposé on Lizabeth Scott, a second-generation Republican and Catholic host of "Family Theater". The publisher, Robert Harrison, was initially intrigued, but skeptical. To verify some aspects of the story, he hired an out-of-work actress, Veronica "Ronnie" Quillan, to have luncheon with Scott, giving Quillan an opportunity to make a pass at Scott. Quillan was to be bugged with a wristwatch microphone supplied by the Hollywood Detective Agency, but the agency's owner, H. L. Von Wittenburg, backed out and the plan was never implemented. Despite the lack of evidence, "Confidential" sent a copy of the story to Scott herself.