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113-539: Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other McCarthyism , also known as the Second Red Scare , was the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in

226-477: A fascist plot to seize the White House , known as the " Business Plot ". Contemporary newspapers widely reported the plot as a hoax. While historians have questioned whether a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed. It has been reported that while Dickstein served on this committee and the subsequent Special investigation Committee, he

339-601: A political cartoon by Herblock in The Washington Post . The term has since taken on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts to crack down on alleged "subversive" elements. In the early 21st century, the term is used more generally to describe reckless and unsubstantiated accusations of treason and far-left extremism, along with demagogic personal attacks on the character and patriotism of political adversaries. The primary targets for persecution were government employees, prominent figures in

452-567: A Revolutionary War soldier and passed out copies of the United States Declaration of Independence to those in attendance. Rubin then "blew giant gum bubbles, while his co-witnesses taunted the committee with Nazi salutes ". Rubin attended another session dressed as Santa Claus . On another occasion, police stopped Hoffman at the building entrance and arrested him for wearing the United States flag. Hoffman quipped to

565-426: A decisive role in constructing an image of a radical threat to the United States during the first Red Scare. U.S. Representative Hamilton Fish III (R-NY), who was a fervent anti-communist, introduced, on May 5, 1930, House Resolution 180, which proposed to establish a committee to investigate communist activities in the United States. The resulting committee, Special Committee to Investigate Communist Activities in

678-416: A finding of "membership in, affiliation with or sympathetic association" with any organization determined by the attorney general to be "totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive" or advocating or approving the forceful denial of constitutional rights to other persons or seeking "to alter the form of Government of the United States by unconstitutional means". The historical period that came to be known as

791-457: A growing demand among certain industries to certify that their employees were above reproach. Companies that were concerned about the sensitivity of their business, or which, like the entertainment industry, felt particularly vulnerable to public opinion, made use of these private services. For a fee, these teams investigated employees and questioned them about their politics and affiliations. Political repression Where political repression

904-451: A number of false statements. Hiss challenged Chambers to repeat his charges outside a Congressional committee, which Chambers did. Hiss then sued for libel, leading Chambers to produce copies of State Department documents which he claimed Hiss had given him in 1938. Hiss denied this before a grand jury, was indicted for perjury, and subsequently convicted and imprisoned. The present-day House of Representatives website on HUAC states, "But in

1017-522: A number of his communist-hunting investigations. McCarthy first examined allegations of communist influence in the Voice of America , and then turned to the overseas library program of the State Department. Card catalogs of these libraries were searched for works by authors McCarthy deemed inappropriate. McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and

1130-427: A person lost a job due to an unfavorable loyalty review, finding other employment could be very difficult. "A man is ruined everywhere and forever," in the words of the chairman of President Truman's Loyalty Review Board. "No responsible employer would be likely to take a chance in giving him a job." The Department of Justice started keeping a list of organizations that it deemed subversive beginning in 1942. This list

1243-602: A piece of paper, which he claimed contained a list of known communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted as saying: "I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department." This speech resulted in a flood of press attention to McCarthy and helped establish his path to becoming one of

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1356-425: A political order that justifies and enables the dominance of citizens through the systemic "exploitation of [the] bodies, land, [and] resources [of noncitizens], and the denial of equal socioeconomic opportunities to them." In this way, the regime operationalizes the domination and subordination of certain groups to establish its political authority. These repressive states distinguish between citizens and subpersons on

1469-430: A power hierarchy between the leader and citizenry, contributing to the longevity of the regime. Repressive activities have also been found within democratic contexts as well. This can even include setting up situations where the death of the target of repression is the end result. If political repression is not carried out with the approval of the state, a section of government may still be responsible. Some examples are

1582-668: A program of loyalty reviews for federal employees in 1947. It called for dismissal if there were "reasonable grounds ... for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States." Truman, a Democrat , was probably reacting in part to the Republican sweep in the 1946 Congressional election and felt a need to counter growing criticism from conservatives and anti-communists. When President Dwight Eisenhower took office in 1953, he strengthened and extended Truman's loyalty review program, while decreasing

1695-572: A series of insults directed at a brigadier general , led to the Army–McCarthy hearings , with the Army and McCarthy trading charges and counter-charges for 36 days before a nationwide television audience. While the official outcome of the hearings was inconclusive, this exposure of McCarthy to the American public resulted in a sharp decline in his popularity. In less than a year, McCarthy was censured by

1808-582: A series of investigations into potential infiltration of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by communist agents and came up with a list of security risks that matched one previously compiled by the Agency itself. At the request of CIA director Allen Dulles , President Eisenhower demanded that McCarthy discontinue issuing subpoenas against the CIA. Documents made public in 2004 revealed that

1921-591: A set of free dishes and a case of soap." A number of anti-communist committees, panels, and "loyalty review boards" in federal, state, and local governments, as well as many private agencies, carried out investigations for small and large companies concerned about possible Communists in their work forces. In Congress, the primary bodies that investigated Communist activities were the HUAC, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee , and

2034-414: A standing (permanent) committee on January 3, 1945. Democratic Representative Edward J. Hart of New Jersey became the committee's first chairman. Under the mandate of Public Law 601, passed by the 79th Congress , the committee of nine representatives investigated suspected threats of subversion or propaganda that attacked "the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution ". Under this mandate,

2147-515: A system to investigate applicants for leave clearance, and step up Americanization and assimilation efforts largely coincided with WRA goals. In 1946, the committee considered opening investigations into the Ku Klux Klan , but decided against doing so, prompting white supremacist committee member John E. Rankin (D-Miss.) to remark, "After all, the KKK is an old American institution." Instead of

2260-564: A variety of "activities", including those of German-American Nazis during World War II. The committee soon focused on communism, beginning with an investigation into communists in the Federal Theatre Project in 1938. A significant step for HUAC was its investigation of the charges of espionage brought against Alger Hiss in 1948. This investigation ultimately resulted in Hiss's trial and conviction for perjury, and convinced many of

2373-423: Is a typical feature of dictatorships , totalitarian states and similar regimes. In these regimes, acts of political repression can be carried out by the police and secret police , the army, paramilitary groups and death squads. Sometimes regimes considered democratic exercise political repression and state terrorism to other states as part of their security policy. Direct repression is a form of repression where

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2486-461: Is also judged to be not only not overwhelming but entirely circumstantial. As a result, and also given how many documents remain classified, it is unlikely that a truly conclusive answer will ever be reached. In the wake of the downfall of McCarthy (who never served in the House, nor on HUAC; he was a U.S. Senator), the prestige of HUAC began a gradual decline in the late 1950s. By 1959, the committee

2599-637: Is more appropriate. What became known as the McCarthy era began before McCarthy's rise to national fame. Following the breakdown of the wartime East-West alliance with the Soviet Union , and with many remembering the First Red Scare , President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order in 1947 to screen federal employees for possible association with organizations deemed "totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive", or advocating "to alter

2712-439: Is sanctioned and organised by the state, it may constitute state terrorism , genocide , politicide or crimes against humanity . Systemic and violent political repression is a typical feature of dictatorships , totalitarian states and similar regimes. While the use of political repression varies depending on the authoritarian regime, it is argued that repression is a defining feature and the foundation of autocracies by creating

2825-502: Is sometimes accompanied with intolerance . This intolerance is manifested through discriminatory policies, human rights violations , police brutality , imprisonment , extermination , exile , extortion , terrorism , extrajudicial killing , summary execution , torture , forced disappearance and other punishments against political activists, dissidents, and populations in general. Some regimes that govern societies experiencing sustained ethno-religious conflict may be consolidated on

2938-459: Is sometimes assumed to be synonymous with it, which is not the case in other languages. Political conflict strongly increases the likelihood of state repression. This is arguably the most robust finding in social science research on political repression. Civil wars are a strong predictor of repressive activity, as are other forms of challenges from non-government actors. States so often engage in repressive behaviors in times of civil conflict that

3051-597: Is successful in a state is evidence of preference falsification – where the preference expressed by an individual in public diverges from their private preference. In North Korea , accused of highly repressive activity in media and public culture, 100% of citizens vote in ‘no choice’ parliamentary elections so the state can identify defectors. Citizens are required to show complete devotion to North Korea's current leader and sacrifice their safety if they choose to speak out. Repressive measures including prison camps, torture, forced labor, and threats of execution are just some of

3164-585: The FBI COINTELPRO operations from 1956 to 1971 and the Palmer Raids from 1919–1920. In some states, "repression" can be an official term used in legislation or the names of government institutions. The Soviet Union had a legal policy of repression of political opposition defined in its penal code and Cuba under Fulgencio Batista had a secret police agency officially named the Bureau for

3277-603: The Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, not the House. The Overman Committee was a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by North Carolina Democratic Senator Lee Slater Overman that operated from September 1918 to June 1919. The subcommittee investigated German as well as " Bolshevik elements" in the United States. This subcommittee

3390-581: The House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC ), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives , created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having fascist and communist ties. It became a standing (permanent) committee in 1946, and from 1969 onwards it

3503-574: The Igor Gouzenko and Elizabeth Bentley affairs had raised the issue of Soviet espionage in 1945, events in 1949 and 1950 sharply increased the sense of threat in the United States related to communism. The Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb in 1949, earlier than many analysts had expected, raising the stakes in the Cold War. That same year, Mao Zedong 's communist army gained control of mainland China despite heavy American financial support of

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3616-470: The National Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC. In 1938, Hallie Flanagan , the head of the Federal Theatre Project , was subpoenaed to appear before the committee to answer the charge the project was overrun with communists. Flanagan was called to testify for only a part of one day, while an administrative clerk from the project was called in for two entire days. It

3729-515: The Republican Party ) to stand on a platform atop a teetering stack of ten tar buckets, the topmost of which is labeled "McCarthyism". Block later wrote: "Nothing [was] particularly ingenious about the term, which is simply used to represent a national affliction that can hardly be described in any other way. If anyone has a prior claim on it, he's welcome to the word and to the junior senator from Wisconsin along with it. I will also throw in

3842-612: The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations . Between 1949 and 1954, a total of 109 investigations were carried out by these and other committees of Congress. On December 2, 1954, the United States Senate voted 67 to 22 to condemn McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute". In the federal government, President Truman's Executive Order 9835 initiated

3955-471: The Social Credit System in mainland China. At the same time, many domestic Chinese technology companies are also involved in the country's large-scale surveillance programs. These primarily include companies such as Hikvision , Sensetime , Huawei , ZTE , and others. House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities ( HCUA ), popularly

4068-573: The UC Berkeley , Stanford , and other local colleges, and dragged them down the marble steps beneath the rotunda, leaving some seriously injured. Soviet affairs expert William Mandel , who had been subpoenaed to testify, angrily denounced the committee and the police in a blistering statement which was aired repeatedly for years thereafter on Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley . An anti-communist propaganda film, Operation Abolition ,

4181-621: The United States Army . This began at the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth . McCarthy garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the Army researchers, but ultimately nothing came of this investigation. McCarthy next turned his attention to the case of a U.S. Army dentist who had been promoted to the rank of major despite having refused to answer questions on an Army loyalty review form. McCarthy's handling of this investigation, including

4294-534: The War Relocation Authority (WRA) and news that some former inmates would be allowed to leave camp and Nisei soldiers to return to the West Coast, the committee investigated charges of fifth column activity in the camps. A number of anti-WRA arguments were presented in subsequent hearings, but Director Dillon Myer debunked the more inflammatory claims. The investigation was presented to

4407-639: The 1930s and the Great Depression when opposing the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt . Many conservatives equated the New Deal with socialism or Communism, and thought the policies were evidence of too much influence by allegedly communist policy makers in the Roosevelt administration. In general, the vaguely defined danger of "Communist influence" was a more common theme in

4520-453: The 1960s progressed, increasingly becoming the target of political satirists and the defiance of a new generation of political activists. HUAC subpoenaed Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman of the Yippies in 1967, and again in the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic National Convention . The Yippies used the media attention to make a mockery of the proceedings. Rubin came to one session dressed as

4633-532: The 1990s, Soviet archives conclusively revealed that Hiss had been a spy on the Kremlin's payroll." However, in the 1990s, senior Soviet intelligence officials, after consulting their archive, stated they found nothing to support that theory. In 1995, the National Security Agency 's Venona papers have been alleged to have provided overwhelming evidence that he was a spy, but the same evidence

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4746-569: The 77th Congress, and alleged that certain cultural traits – Japanese loyalty to the Emperor, the number of Japanese fishermen in the US, and the Buddhist faith – were evidence for Japanese espionage. With the exception of Rep. Herman Eberharter (D-Pa.), the members of the committee seemed to support internment, and its recommendations to expedite the impending segregation of "troublemakers", establish

4859-653: The CIA, under Dulles' orders, had broken into McCarthy's Senate office and fed disinformation to him in order to discredit him and stop his investigation from proceeding any further. The House Committee on Un-American Activities (commonly referred to as the HUAC) was the most prominent and active government committee involved in anti-communist investigations. Formed in 1938 and known as the Dies Committee, named for Rep. Martin Dies , who chaired it until 1944, HUAC investigated

4972-466: The Communist Party and then refuse to "name names" of colleagues with communist affiliations. Thus, many faced a choice between "crawl[ing] through the mud to be an informer," as actor Larry Parks put it, or becoming known as a "Fifth Amendment Communist"—an epithet often used by Senator McCarthy. In the Senate, the primary committee for investigating communists was the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), formed in 1950 and charged with ensuring

5085-497: The FBI operated a secret " Responsibilities Program " that distributed anonymous documents with evidence from FBI files of communist affiliations on the part of teachers, lawyers, and others. Many people accused in these "blind memoranda" were fired without any further process. The FBI engaged in a number of illegal practices in its pursuit of information on communists, including burglaries, opening mail, and illegal wiretaps. The members of

5198-597: The Fish Committee and the McCormack–Dickstein Committee, to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist or fascist ties; however, it concentrated its efforts on communists. It was chaired by Martin Dies Jr. (D-Tex.), and therefore known as the Dies Committee. Its records are held by

5311-565: The House investigations, most studios produced a number of anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda films such as The Red Menace (August 1949), The Red Danube (October 1949), The Woman on Pier 13 (October 1949), Guilty of Treason (May 1950, about the ordeal and trial of Cardinal József Mindszenty ), I Was a Communist for the FBI (May 1951, Academy Award nominated for best documentary 1951, also serialized for radio), Red Planet Mars (May 1952), and John Wayne 's Big Jim McLain (August 1952). Universal-International Pictures

5424-753: The Klan, HUAC concentrated on investigating the possibility that the American Communist Party had infiltrated the Works Progress Administration , including the Federal Theatre Project and the Federal Writers' Project . Twenty years later, in 1965–1966, however, the committee did conduct an investigation into Klan activities under chairman Edwin Willis (D-La.). The House Committee on Un-American Activities became

5537-669: The Ku Klux Klan. The resulting investigation resulted in numerous Klansmen remaining silent and giving evasive answers. The House of Representatives voted to cite seven Klan leaders, including Robert Shelton , for contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over Klan records. Shelton was found guilty, and was sentenced to one year in prison, plus a $ 1,000 fine. Following his conviction, three other Klan leaders, Robert Scoggin, Bob Jones , and Calvin Craig, also pleaded guilty. Scoggin and Jones were each sentenced to one year in prison, while Craig

5650-472: The McCarthy era began well before Joseph McCarthy's own involvement in it. Many factors contributed to McCarthyism, some of them with roots in the First Red Scare (1917–20), inspired by communism's emergence as a recognized political force and widespread social disruption in the United States related to unionizing and anarchist activities. Owing in part to its success in organizing labor unions and its early opposition to fascism , and offering an alternative to

5763-594: The Repression of Communist Activities . According to Soviet and communist studies scholar Stephen Wheatcroft , in the case of the Soviet Union terms such as " the terror ", " the purges " and "repression" are used to refer to the same events. He believes the most neutral terms are repression and mass killings , although in Russian the broad concept of repression is commonly held to include mass killings and

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5876-466: The Second Red Scare. Historians have suggested since the 1980s that as McCarthy's involvement was less central than that of others, a different and more accurate term should be used instead that more accurately conveys the breadth of the phenomenon, and that the term McCarthyism is, in the modern day, outdated. Ellen Schrecker has suggested that Hooverism , after FBI Head J. Edgar Hoover ,

5989-643: The Senate, and his position as a prominent force in anti-communism was essentially ended. On November 25, 1947, the day after the House of Representatives approved citations of contempt for the Hollywood Ten, Eric Johnston , president of the Motion Picture Association of America , issued a press release on behalf of the heads of the major studios that came to be referred to as the Waldorf Statement . This statement announced

6102-619: The Soviet Union installed communist puppet régimes in areas it had occupied across Central and Eastern Europe. In a March 1947 address to Congress, Truman enunciated a new foreign policy doctrine that committed the United States to opposing Soviet geopolitical expansion. This doctrine came to be known as the Truman Doctrine , and it guided United States support for anti-communist forces in Greece and later in China and elsewhere. Although

6215-458: The United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s. After the mid-1950s, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy , who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false. The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to

6328-699: The United States commonly known as the Fish Committee, undertook extensive investigations of people and organizations suspected of being involved with or supporting communist activities in the United States. Among the committee's targets were the American Civil Liberties Union and communist presidential candidate William Z. Foster . The committee recommended granting the United States Department of Justice more authority to investigate communists, and strengthening of immigration and deportation laws to keep communists out of

6441-472: The United States on charges of stealing atomic-bomb secrets for the Soviets, and were executed in 1953. Other forces encouraged the rise of McCarthyism. The more conservative politicians in the United States had historically referred to progressive reforms, such as child labor laws and women's suffrage , as "communist" or "Red plots", trying to raise fears against such changes. They used similar terms during

6554-655: The United States. From 1934 to 1937, the committee, now named the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities, chaired by John William McCormack ( D - Mass. ) and Samuel Dickstein (D-NY), held public and private hearings and collected testimony filling 4,300 pages. The Special Committee was widely known as the McCormack–Dickstein committee. Its mandate

6667-675: The avenues of appeal available to dismissed employees. Hiram Bingham , chairman of the Civil Service Commission Loyalty Review Board , referred to the new rules he was obliged to enforce as "just not the American way of doing things." The following year, J. Robert Oppenheimer , scientific director of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb, then working as a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission ,

6780-430: The basis of exclusionary notions of nationhood. In such discriminatory states, political right is generated through a distinction between citizens, who are afforded the rights and moral standing of "full persons," and outsiders, or the "subpersons" of society. The privileges enjoyed by citizens are given meaning because they are denied to subpersons, on account of their perceived inferiority. The government thereby creates

6893-646: The basis of socially agreed-upon conceptions of identity. Governments acquire legitimacy by expounding exclusionary notions of national identity, which sanctify the division between the citizenry and outsiders. Because the fabrication of nationhood often requires a reorientation of existing group identities, regimes will construe their national identity by taking advantage of soft power variables. Muhammad Pervez defines soft power variables as attractive and intangible power resources like religion, cultural norms, and institutions, that appeal to people and encourage their compliance. Soft power variables are constructed through

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7006-485: The capacity of challengers to organize, yet it is also feasible that challengers can leverage state repressive behavior to spur mobilization among sympathizers by framing repression as a new grievance against the state. Political repression is often accompanied by violence, which might be legal or illegal according to domestic law. Violence can both eliminate political opposition directly by killing opposition members, or indirectly by instilling fear. Political repression

7119-475: The committee focused its investigations on real and suspected communists in positions of actual or supposed influence in the United States society. A significant step for HUAC was its investigation of the charges of espionage brought against Alger Hiss in 1948. This investigation ultimately resulted in Hiss's trial and conviction for perjury, and convinced many of the usefulness of congressional committees for uncovering communist subversion. The chief investigator

7232-537: The committee for five hours about a "Jewish Communist conspiracy" to take control of the US government. Moseley was supported by Donald Shea of the American Gentile League , whose statement was deleted from the public record as the committee found it so objectionable. The committee also put together an argument for the internment of Japanese Americans known as the "Yellow Report". Organized in response to rumors of Japanese Americans being coddled by

7345-418: The committee's questions. This tactic failed, and the ten were sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress . Two of them were sentenced to six months, the rest to a year. In the future, witnesses (in the entertainment industries and otherwise) who were determined not to cooperate with the committee would claim their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. William Grooper and Rockwell Kent ,

7458-486: The costs of defection. The Chinese Communist Party implements extensive surveillance measures in the People's Republic of China , including Internet censorship , camera monitoring , and other forms of mass surveillance . These practices involve the use of technologies such as AI , facial recognition , fingerprint identification , voice and iris recognition , big data analysis, DNA testing , and are closely linked to

7571-506: The crackdowns on suspected communists, and some were outright imprisoned. Most of these reprisals were initiated by trial verdicts that were later overturned, laws that were later struck down as unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable , and extra-judiciary procedures, such as informal blacklists by employers and public institutions, that would come into general disrepute, though by then many lives had been ruined. The most notable examples of McCarthyism include

7684-422: The domination of the citizenry, deliberately vilify the subpersons of the political order and ensure a continued environment of securitized subjectivity. By manufacturing an enduring security dilemma between dominant and subordinated groups, oppressive regimes convey to dominant groups that the protection provided by the state is necessary for the dominant identity group’s/nation state’s survival, which legitimizes

7797-631: The enforcement of laws relating to "espionage, sabotage, and the protection of the internal security of the United States". The SISS was headed by Democrat Pat McCarran and gained a reputation for careful and extensive investigations. This committee spent a year investigating Owen Lattimore and other members of the Institute of Pacific Relations . As had been done numerous times before, the collection of scholars and diplomats associated with Lattimore (the so-called China Hands ) were accused of "losing China", and while some evidence of pro-communist attitudes

7910-399: The entertainment industry, academics, left-wing politicians, and labor union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive and questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations and beliefs were often exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and the destruction of their careers and livelihoods as a result of

8023-466: The entertainment industry. In 1947, studio executives told the committee that wartime films—such as Mission to Moscow , The North Star , and Song of Russia —could be considered pro-Soviet propaganda , but claimed that the films were valuable in the context of the Allied war effort, and that they were made (in the case of Mission to Moscow ) at the request of White House officials. In response to

8136-559: The firing of the Hollywood Ten and stated: "We will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States..." This marked the beginning of the Hollywood blacklist . In spite of the fact that hundreds were denied employment, the studios, producers, and other employers did not publicly admit that a blacklist existed. At this time, private loyalty review boards and anti-communist investigators began to appear to fill

8249-609: The form of Government of the United States by unconstitutional means." The following year, the Czechoslovak coup by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia heightened concern in the West about Communist parties seizing power and the possibility of subversion. In 1949, a high-level State Department official was convicted of perjury in a case of espionage, and the Soviet Union tested a nuclear bomb . The Korean War started

8362-504: The graduating class of Dartmouth College President in 1953: "Don't join the book burners! … Don't be afraid to go to the library and read every book so long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency—that should be the only censorship." The president then settled for a compromise by retaining the ban on Communist books written by Communists, while also allowing the libraries to keep books on Communism written by anti-Communists. McCarthy's committee then began an investigation into

8475-415: The identities of those who accused them. In many cases, they were not even told of what they were accused. Hoover's influence extended beyond federal government employees and beyond the loyalty-security programs. The records of loyalty review hearings and investigations were supposed to be confidential, but Hoover routinely gave evidence from them to congressional committees such as HUAC. From 1951 to 1955,

8588-520: The ills of capitalism during the Great Depression , the Communist Party of the United States increased its membership through the 1930s, reaching a peak of about 75,000 members in 1940–41. While the United States was engaged in World War II and allied with the Soviet Union , the issue of anti-communism was largely muted. With the end of World War II, the Cold War began almost immediately, as

8701-447: The industry. Eventually, more than 300 artists – including directors, radio commentators, actors, and particularly screenwriters – were boycotted by the studios. Some, like Charlie Chaplin , Orson Welles , Alan Lomax , Paul Robeson , and Yip Harburg , left the U.S or went underground to find work. Others like Dalton Trumbo wrote under pseudonyms or the names of colleagues. Only about ten percent succeeded in rebuilding careers within

8814-579: The investigations of alleged communists that were conducted by Senator McCarthy, and the hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Following the end of the Cold War , unearthed documents revealed substantial Soviet spy activity in the United States, though many of the agents were never properly identified by Senator McCarthy. President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9835 of March 21, 1947, required that all federal civil-service employees be screened for "loyalty". The order said that one basis for determining disloyalty would be

8927-611: The left-wing National Lawyers Guild (NLG) were among the few attorneys who were willing to defend clients in communist-related cases, and this made the NLG a particular target of Hoover's; the office of the NLG was burgled by the FBI at least 14 times between 1947 and 1951. Among other purposes, the FBI used its illegally obtained information to alert prosecuting attorneys about the planned legal strategies of NLG defense lawyers. The FBI also used illegal undercover operations to disrupt communist and other dissident political groups. In 1956, Hoover

9040-692: The most recognized politicians in the United States. The first recorded use of the term "McCarthyism" was in the Christian Science Monitor on March 28, 1950 ("Their little spree with McCarthyism is no aid to consultation"). The paper became one of the earliest and most consistent critics of the Senator. The next recorded use happened on the following day, in a political cartoon by Washington Post editorial cartoonist Herbert Block (Herblock) . The cartoon depicts four leading Republicans trying to push an elephant (the traditional symbol of

9153-634: The next year, significantly raising tensions and fears of impending communist upheavals in the United States. In a speech in February 1950, McCarthy claimed to have a list of members of the Communist Party USA working in the State Department, which attracted substantial press attention, and the term McCarthyism was published for the first time in late March of that year in The Christian Science Monitor , along with

9266-438: The only two visual artists to be questioned by McCarthy, both took this approach, and emerged relatively unscathed by the experience. However, while this usually protected witnesses from a contempt-of-Congress citation, it was considered grounds for dismissal by many government and private-industry employers. The legal requirements for Fifth Amendment protection were such that a person could not testify about his own association with

9379-545: The opposing Kuomintang . In 1950, the Korean War began, pitting U.S., U.N., and South Korean forces against communists from North Korea and China. During the following year, evidence of increased sophistication in Soviet Cold War espionage activities was found in the West. In January 1950, Alger Hiss , a high-level State Department official, was convicted of perjury. Hiss was in effect found guilty of espionage;

9492-409: The press, "I regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country", paraphrasing the last words of revolutionary patriot Nathan Hale ; Rubin, who was wearing a matching Viet Cong flag, shouted that the police were communists for not arresting him as well. In 1965, Klan violence prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson and Georgia congressman Charles L. Weltner to call for a congressional probe of

9605-620: The press, calling for IRS audits, and the like. The COINTELPRO program remained in operation until 1971. Historian Ellen Schrecker calls the FBI "the single most important component of the anti-communist crusade" and writes: "Had observers known in the 1950s what they have learned since the 1970s, when the Freedom of Information Act opened the Bureau's files, 'McCarthyism' would probably be called 'Hooverism'." In March 1950, McCarthy had initiated

9718-402: The press. Yielding to the pressure, the State Department ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travelers , etc." Some libraries actually burned the newly forbidden books. Though he did not block the State Department from carrying out this order, President Eisenhower publicly criticized the initiative as well, telling

9831-464: The relationship between these two phenomena has been termed the "Law of Coercive Responsiveness". When their authority or legitimacy is threatened, regimes respond by overtly or covertly suppressing dissidents to eliminate the behavioral threat. State repression subsequently affects dissident mobilization, though the direction of this effect is still an open question. Some strong evidence suggests that repression suppresses dissident mobilization by reducing

9944-601: The rhetoric of anti-communist politicians than was espionage or any other specific activity. An example of this was Leland Olds , an economist who was Chairman of the Federal Power Commission but failed renomination due to earlier suspected Communist sympathies. McCarthy's involvement in these issues began publicly with a speech he made on Lincoln Day , February 9, 1950, to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia . He brandished

10057-475: The social imagination, meaning they are arbitrary and malleable. For this reason, when the citizenry utilizes soft power variables to contrive its national identity, it induces "securitized subjectivity," whereby "subjects in a state desire securitization when they are afraid or feel a threat to the existence of their identity. In this situation, every self-identity requires a threat from others." State leaders, to further consolidate their political power and solidify

10170-501: The state targets an opposing political actor by obvious violent action. The target is clearly aware of the harm that is caused to their life and livelihood. Direct repression does not exclusively occur within the boundaries of a state, but also across borders. In personalist dictatorships, initiating conflicts with other states and people outside their own borders is more common because of lack of accountability via extremely limited or no competitive elections. Indirect repression relies on

10283-409: The state. In this way, through the manipulation of soft power variables, oppressive regimes manufacture a nationalism that is dependent on the demarcation between dominant and subordinate identity groups. When political repression is sanctioned and organized by the state, situations of state terrorism , genocide and crimes against humanity can be reached. Systematic and violent political repression

10396-453: The statute of limitations had run out for that crime, but he was convicted of having perjured himself when he denied that charge in earlier testimony before the HUAC. In Britain, Klaus Fuchs confessed to committing espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union while working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the War. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested in 1950 in

10509-571: The threat of violence which constitutes harassment, intimidation, and administrative blockages. These tactics tend to be non-violent, yet still are built to control citizenry. Individuals indirectly exposed to repression self-report higher trust in the leader and ruling party. This phenomenon was observed in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe , where the effects of repression increased approaching elections, even with deteriorating social and economic conditions. A large signifier of whether or not repression

10622-472: The usefulness of congressional committees for uncovering communist subversion. HUAC achieved its greatest fame and notoriety with its investigation into the Hollywood film industry . In October 1947 , the committee began to subpoena screenwriters, directors, and other movie-industry professionals to testify about their known or suspected membership in the Communist Party, association with its members, or support of its beliefs. At these testimonies, this question

10735-623: Was Robert E. Stripling , senior investigator Louis J. Russell , and investigators Alvin Williams Stokes , Courtney E. Owens , and Donald T. Appell. The director of research was Benjamin Mandel . 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

10848-639: Was a former Soviet spy, by then a senior editor of Time magazine. 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 . White denied the allegations, and died of a heart attack a few days later. 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

10961-438: Was a major assignment that led to the number of agents in the bureau being increased from 3,559 in 1946 to 7,029 in 1952. Hoover's sense of the communist threat and the standards of evidence applied by his bureau resulted in thousands of government workers losing their jobs. Due to Hoover's insistence upon keeping the identity of his informers secret, most subjects of loyalty-security reviews were not allowed to cross-examine or know

11074-472: Was asked: "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?" Among the first film industry witnesses subpoenaed by the committee were ten who decided not to cooperate. These men, who became known as the " Hollywood Ten ", cited the First Amendment 's guarantee of free speech and free assembly, which they believed legally protected them from being required to answer

11187-478: Was becoming increasingly frustrated by Supreme Court decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute communists. At this time, he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name COINTELPRO . COINTELPRO actions included planting forged documents to create the suspicion that a key person was an FBI informer, spreading rumors through anonymous letters, leaking information to

11300-581: Was being denounced by former President Harry S. Truman as the "most un-American thing in the country today". Women Strike for Peace played a crucial role in bringing down the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In May 1960, the committee held hearings in San Francisco City Hall which led to the infamous riot on May 13, when city police officers fire-hosed protesting students from

11413-540: Was during this investigation that one of the committee members, Joe Starnes (D-Ala.), famously asked Flanagan whether the English Elizabethan era playwright Christopher Marlowe was a member of the Communist Party, and mused that ancient Greek tragedian " Mr. Euripides " preached class warfare . In 1939, the committee investigated people involved with pro-Nazi organizations such as Oscar C. Pfaus and George Van Horn Moseley . Moseley testified before

11526-544: Was fined $ 1,000. The charges against Marshall Kornegay, Robert Hudgins, and George Dorsett, were later dropped. Hearings in August 1966 called to investigate anti-Vietnam War activities were disrupted by hundreds of protesters, many from the Progressive Labor Party . The committee faced witnesses who were openly defiant. According to The Harvard Crimson : In the fifties, the most effective sanction

11639-766: Was first made public in 1948, when it included 78 groups. At its longest, it comprised 154 organizations, 110 of them identified as Communist. In the context of a loyalty review, membership in a listed organization was meant to raise a question, but not to be considered proof of disloyalty. One of the most common causes of suspicion was membership in the Washington Bookshop Association , a left-leaning organization that offered lectures on literature, classical music concerts, and discounts on books. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover designed President Truman's loyalty-security program, and its background investigations of employees were carried out by FBI agents. This

11752-569: Was found, nothing supported McCarran's accusation that Lattimore was "a conscious and articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy". Lattimore was charged with perjuring himself before the SISS in 1952. After many of the charges were rejected by a federal judge and one of the witnesses confessed to perjury, the case was dropped in 1955. McCarthy headed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953 and 1954, and during that time, used it for

11865-543: Was known as the House Committee on Internal Security . When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee . The committee's anti-communist investigations are often associated with McCarthyism , although Joseph McCarthy himself (as a U.S. Senator ) had no direct involvement with the House committee. McCarthy was the chairman of

11978-525: Was not appointed to HUAC to "carry out measures planned by us together with him." Dickstein unsuccessfully attempted to expedite the deportation of Soviet defector Walter Krivitsky , while the Dies Committee kept him in the country. Dickstein stopped receiving NKVD payments in February 1940. On May 26, 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established as a special investigating committee, reorganized from its previous incarnations as

12091-599: Was originally concerned with investigating pro-German sentiments in the American liquor industry. After World War I ended in November 1918, and the German threat lessened, the subcommittee began investigating Bolshevism, which had appeared as a threat during the First Red Scare after the Russian Revolution in 1917. The subcommittee's hearing into Bolshevik propaganda, conducted February 11 to March 10, 1919, had

12204-535: Was paid $ 1,250 a month by the Soviet NKVD , which hoped to get secret congressional information on anti-communists and pro-fascists. A 1939 NKVD report stated Dickstein handed over "materials on the war budget for 1940, records of conferences of the budget subcommission, reports of the war minister, chief of staff and etc." However the NKVD was dissatisfied with the amount of information provided by Dickstein, after he

12317-642: Was produced by the committee from subpoenaed local news reports, and shown around the country during 1960 and 1961. In response, the Northern California ACLU produced a film called Operation Correction , which discussed falsehoods in the first film. Scenes from the hearings and protest were later featured in the Academy Award-nominated 1990 documentary Berkeley in the Sixties . The committee lost considerable prestige as

12430-440: Was stripped of his security clearance after a four-week hearing . Oppenheimer had received a top-secret clearance in 1947, but was denied clearance in the harsher climate of 1954. Similar loyalty reviews were established in many state and local government offices and some private industries across the nation. In 1958, an estimated one of every five employees in the United States was required to pass some sort of loyalty review. Once

12543-476: Was terror. Almost any publicity from HUAC meant the 'blacklist'. Without a chance to clear his name, a witness would suddenly find himself without friends and without a job. But it is not easy to see how in 1969, a HUAC blacklist could terrorize an SDS activist. Witnesses like Jerry Rubin have openly boasted of their contempt for American institutions. A subpoena from HUAC would be unlikely to scandalize Abbie Hoffman or his friends. In an attempt to reinvent itself,

12656-460: Was the only major studio that did not purposefully produce such a film. On July 31, 1948, the committee heard testimony from Elizabeth Bentley , an American who had been working as a Soviet agent in New York . Among those whom she named as communists was Harry Dexter White , a senior U.S. Treasury department official. The committee subpoenaed Whittaker Chambers on August 3, 1948. Chambers, too,

12769-409: Was to get "information on how foreign subversive propaganda entered the U.S. and the organizations that were spreading it." Its records are held by the National Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC. In 1934, the Special Committee subpoenaed most of the leaders of the fascist movement in the United States. Beginning in November 1934, the committee investigated allegations of

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