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The HUAC investigations delved into many areas of American life, but they paid special attention to the motion picture industry, which was believed to harbor a large number of Communists. Not wishing to get on the wrong side of Congress or the movie-going public, most film industry executives did not speak out against the investigations. In addition, many of the major studios imposed a strict blacklist policy against actors, directors, writers and other personnel implicated in Communist activity. Chambers named more than a half dozen government officials including White as well as Alger Hiss (and Hiss' brother Donald). Most of these former officials refused to answer committee questions, citing the Fifth Amendment. Hiss also denied all charges; doubts about his testimony though, especially those expressed by freshman Congressman Richard Nixon, led to further investigation that strongly suggested Hiss had made a number of false statements.
Communist Activities in California
Civil Liberties, monthly publication of the A.C.L.U., No. 176, January 1960, p. 3. It is our opinion that the Daily Californian has operated in conflict with the best interests of the student body. Fund drives were initiated in the various clubs to provide financial support for the attack. In other business SLATE members nominated Dave Armor and Howard Taylor for the office of vice-chairman.
Socialist Workers Party
While the committee was charged with finding subversive activities of radical groups on both the political left and right, it is best known for its investigations of the motion picture industry in the late 1940s and 1950s. It focused on the communist sympathies of many of the writers, actors and directors within the Hollywood film community, giving rise to the creation of a Hollywood blacklist of those who were prohibited from working in the film industry for more than a decade. First, beginning in 1947, the committee held hearings on President Harry S. Truman's Federal Employee Loyalty Program.
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This debate over "executive privilege" would continue—and eventually involved a freshman congressman sitting on the committee, Richard M. Nixon. With the dawning of the Cold War, anti-communist legislators grew concerned that the movie industry could serve as a source of subversive propaganda. Although popular Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s offered little evidence of an overriding Socialist agenda, the investigation proceeded. In October 1947, more than 40 people with connections to the movie industry received subpoenas to appear before HUAC on suspicion of holding communist loyalties or being involved in subversive activities. In October 1947, 10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business.
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During his testimony, Cogley was essentially accused of trying to help hide communists when he would not reveal confidential sources. A number of prominent show business personalities, including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, formed a committee to support the group, claiming their constitutional rights were being trampled. Despite public demonstrations of support, the hostile witnesses were ultimately charged with contempt of Congress. Often linked in the popular imagination with Senator Joseph McCarthy, HUAC existed long before and long after Senator McCarthy alleged Communist influence in the federal government in the early 1950s.
h Congress (1957–
The committee continued its work through the 1950s, though its importance seemed to fade. But after the committee's heyday of the 1950s, it did not attract much public attention. A 1968 article about the committee in the New York Times noted that while it was "once flushed with glory" HUAC had "created little stir in recent years..." The work of the House Un-American Activities Committee faded in significance during World War II.
Most of the committee’s investigations were usually connected to McCarthyism, which is the practice of accusing a person of treason or subversion, largely in connection to communism, socialism or anarchism. David Schultz is a professor in the Hamline University Departments of Political Science and Legal Studies, and a visiting professor of law at the University of Minnesota. He is a three-time Fulbright scholar and author/editor of more than 35 books and 200 articles, including several encyclopedias on the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court, and money, politics, and the First Amendment.
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As an investigative committee, HUAC had limited power to prosecute suspected criminal activities; however, its talent for circumventing constitutional guarantees of due process, presumption of innocence, and free speech gave it more power than any court of the day. In 1947, the committee held nine days of hearings into alleged communist propaganda and influence in the Hollywood motion picture industry. After conviction on contempt of Congress charges for refusal to answer some questions posed by committee members, the "Hollywood Ten" were blacklisted by the industry. Eventually, more than 300 artists—including directors, radio commentators, actors and particularly screenwriters—were boycotted by the studios. Charlie Chaplin, who openly supported the Soviet Union, returned to England to find work.
HUAC
HUAC also sounded an alarm about Communists infiltrating the federal government. The most infamous case began in August 1948, when a self-confessed former member of the American Communist Party named Whittaker Chambers ( ) appeared before the committee. During his dramatic testimony, Chambers accused Alger Hiss ( ), a former high-ranking State Department official, of serving as a spy for the Soviet Union. Based on allegations and evidence provided by Chambers, Hiss was found guilty of perjury and served 44 months in prison. He spent the rest of his life proclaiming his innocence and decrying his wrongful prosecution. Individuals who refused to answer the committee’s questions or to provide names could be indicted for contempt of Congress and sent to prison.
Helps create and champion programs that support the ULI mission and facilitate thought leadership. This was the most flagrant example of propaganda to destroy our internal security establishment I have ever witnessed. A. Oh, complaints of alumni, complaints of former members on the Bruin staff who had been squeezed out, complaints by the faculty, the administration, and students.
Nixon played a prominent role in the Alger Hiss spy hearings in 1948; 20 years later, he was elected the 37th president of the United States.
Growing liberalism in the late 1950s and 1960s encouraged public intolerance for such investigations. One of the most famous aspects of the HUAC investigations involved Hollywood. In 1947, the committee devoted nine days to questioning members of the movie industry. They included leading figures and famous actors like Walt Disney (1901–1966), Gary Cooper (1901–1961), and future U.S. president Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; served 1981–89).
The most notable occurred in 1919, 1930, and 1934, and the sponsor of the committee's founding resolution, Samuel Dickstein, a New York Democrat, had been involved in several of those efforts. Where Dickstein was primarily concerned with native fascism and all other forms of anti-Semitism, however, the committee came to focus on ostensible left-wing subversion. Its basic charge was that communists and their sympathizers had infiltrated nearly all of the New Deal's alphabet agencies. Similar investigations in the Senate under a committee led by U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy (1908–1957) of Wisconsin began to divert attention from HUAC activities.
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Concerns about radicalism within the labor unions continued, though critics charged HUAC with masking an attack on all organized labor in the name of anti-communism. In the end, HUAC investigated charges of "communistic infiltration" in the government; by the early 1950's it had investigated nearly a fifth of all government employees. The committee also investigated labor union members of the academic world, film industry figures, and members of the scientific community. The mere stigma of being called before the committee was usually sufficient to serve the committee's ends by causing witnesses to be blacklisted from their professions.
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