Laurence A. Johnson was an American businessman and political activist who owned four supermarkets in Syracuse, New York.
[1] He embarked on a one-man "Syracuse Crusade" in the 1950s to force television advertisers to cancel sponsorship of programs in which "suspect" actors appeared.
Their tactics cost untold numbers of television and film their jobs and even their entire careers.
Johnson died shortly after he lost a major court case filed by John Henry Faulk, who lost his radio career because of machinations by Johnson and AWARE, Inc.. See the January 13, 1991 New York Times article 'If I Stood Up Earlier...' by television producer Mark Goodman.
https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DB1339F930A25752C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3 The Book "Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture" By Thomas Patrick Doherty is available online: The book "A History of Broadcasting in the United States" by Erik Barnouw The book "Deadly Farce: Harvey Matusow and the Informer System in the McCarthy Era" by Robert M. Lichtman and Ronald D. Cohen The Book "Programming for TV, Radio, and Cable" by Edwin T. Vane and Lynne S. Gross The paper "How the Film and Television Blacklists Worked" by Richard A. Schwartz The newspaper column "Standing Tall Against McCarthy" By Molly Ivins, Texas Observer.