HUAC

=Anticommunism in Postwar America, 1945-1954: Witch Hunt or Red Menace?= Americans emerged from World War II with a renewed sense of confidence. They had, after all, been part of a global alliance that destroyed the military power of Germany and Japan. Moreover, as the only major combatant to avoid having its homeland ravaged by war, the U.S. economy was clearly the strongest in the world. And, of course, the United States was the only country in the world to possess that awesome new weapon, the atomic bomb. Surely, they believed, they were witnessing the dawn of a new golden age.

It was not long before these glorious expectations were dashed. Over the next five years relations between the United States and the Soviet Union went from alliance to Cold War. To make matters worse it seemed like the Soviets might be winning. In 1948 a communist government seized power in China, the world's most populous country. The following year Moscow successfully tested an atomic device of its own, and in 1950 troops from the Soviet satellite state of North Korea launched a war of aggression against South Korea. To many, it seemed as though a new and infinitely more destructive world war was on the horizon—and this time the United States might actually lose.

How could these setbacks be explained? The arrest and prosecution of a number of Soviet spies in the United States seemed to provide at least a partial answer. Perhaps it was the activity of disloyal Americans—in the Federal Government, in Hollywood, in the schools, etc.—that allowed China to "go communist," that handed Russia the bomb, and invited Stalin's puppets in North Korea to attack their neighbors to the South. But what constituted disloyalty? Was it only to be defined as outright spying or sabotage? Might someone who belonged to the Communist Party be considered disloyal, whether or not he had committed any overt act against the United States? And what about a screenwriter who interjected pro-Soviet themes into a Hollywood movie, or a songwriter who criticized some aspect of American society in one of his songs?

These were the sorts of questions that were on the minds of plenty of Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s, an age in which Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, the House Un-American Activities Committee, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and of course Joseph McCarthy become household words.

=The House Un-American Activities Committee=

Worry about infiltration of the United States by subversive elements first emerged in the 1930s, when it was believed that German agents were spreading Nazi propaganda through the country. Congress responded in 1934 by forming a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, which held hearings, issued a report, and quietly disbanded in 1935. In 1938 it was reconstituted as the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), chaired by Texas Democrat Martin Dies. While this committee was charged with investigating pro-fascist groups, as well as hate organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, Dies chose to focus instead on suspicions that, thanks to the New Deal, members of the Communist Party had managed to infiltrate a number of federal agencies.

Because the United States and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II, HUAC remained fairly quiet during the war years, but in 1946 it became a permanent standing committee, charged with investigating any individual or group that challenged "the form of government guaranteed by our Constitution." Then, after Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress in the 1946 elections, the committee began to examine federal employees who were allegedly attracted to communism, and who had promoted policies favorable to the Soviet Union.

One of the most famous episodes in HUAC's history was its investigation of Hollywood. In this case the committee looked into the production of certain films during World War II that had created an overly-positive image of life in the Soviet Union. A number of prominent Hollywood figures, including studio executives, movie stars, and screenwriters, were called to testify in 1947. When some of these refused to answer questions about their communist affiliations, or refused to identify others who were suspected of being communists, ten of them—soon dubbed the "Hollywood Ten"—were charged and convicted of contempt of Congress. Eventually as a result of these hearings some 300 directors, actors, and screenwriters found that they had been "blacklisted" by the motion picture industry; that is, the studios agreed not to hire them. Some, like Charlie Chaplin, left the country; some screenwriters continued to work under false names.

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