HUAC

Jeanna Carlsson, Shalaka Damle, Silpa Gollapudi, Seema Patel

Dutton - 3

HUAC

HOW

THE COLLAPSE

WHAT

• McCarthy’s downfall in the 1950s lead to a decrease in the prestige of the HUAC
• Citizens became hesitant about the “Red baiting” tactic
• 1959: Former president Harry Truman denounced program, calling it "Un-American"
• Became the topic of many satirists throughout the 1960s

• Investigative committee of the U.S House of Representatives
• purpose was 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

• When they found a suspect, they sent him/her a subpoena to come before the committee, then interrogated the suspect about his political affiliations, views, activities, and other people who could possibly support Fascism or Communism (mostly the latter)
• Often, if the suspect refused to answer, he/she was sent to jail for contempt of Communism or was blacklisted and unable to find work
• Victims could plead the 5th, but that seemed as though they were guilty

HUAC Assembly - 1948

Protest Sign

Members

• McCarthy was not a part of it
• First Chairman: Martin Dies Jr.
• Subsequent Chairmen: Edward J. Hart, J. Parnell Thomas, John Stephens Wood , Harold Himmel Velde, Francis Walter, Edwin Edward Willis, Richard Howard Ichord Jr. (last chairman)
• Notable Members: Richard Nixon, Karl Earl Mundt, John Elliott Rankin, Jerry Voorhis

WHO DID THEY TARGET?

DURATION

• Lost relevance in later 1950s &60s after McCarthy was exposed and political activists began to heavily criticize it
• Renamed the Committee on Internal Security and stopped issuing subpoenas in 1969
• Stopped operations in 1975

Hollywood Blacklist:

Artists, composers, actors, directors, writers, and other entertainers were denied employment because they were suspected to have Communist sympathy

• Hollywood Ten-A group of 10 male screenwriters and directors who were charged for "contempt of Congress" in 1947. Because they refused to meet with HUAC, they were sent to jail and were then blacklisted & unable to find jobs
• Film industry executives did not refute any of these allegations because they didn’t want to be on Congress’s or the public’s bad side

Reactions to Bay Area Protests on Black Friday, 1960

Government Officials

• Most famous case in 1948 when former American Communist member, Whittaker Chambers, accused Alger Hiss (State-department official) of being a Soviet spy. Hiss spent 44 months in prison despite his repeated announcements of his own innocence
• Its earlier practices set the precedence for McCarthy’s unethical methods of revealing supposed “Reds” in the government later on

Mob Protest Headline, 1960

The Hollywood Ten in 1948 with their attorneys

Alger Hiss takes oath