The+HUAC+-+p5

=The House Un-American Activities Committee= toc

//An HUAC hearing//

Background
The **HUAC** (**H**ouse **U**n-American **A**ctivities **C**ommittee), also known as the House Committee on Un-American Activities or HCUA, was an ad-hoc committee of the US House of Representatives created in 1938 (it later became a **standing**, or permanent committee in either 1945 or 1946, depending on who you talk to) that investigated the activities of individuals and groups who would have reasons to overthrow the American democratic government, namely Communists. Its name was changed to the Committee on Internal Security in in 1969, and was abolished by the House in 1975, whereupon its function was taken up by the House Judiciary Committee. It was not the only committee of its kind, and there were several other committees in the Senate and a few state governments that basically served the same function. The HUAC focused its efforts on uncovering Communists working both inside and outside of the government. Many people in the United States were terrified of Communism in the post-WWII era, and they viewed the Committee as a part of the struggle to prevent Communism from spreading. The HUAC's activities are often confused with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy never had any direct involvement with it, being a Senator.

History
Before the HUAC there existed another House committee headed by John W. McCormack and Samuel Dickinson (who was, ironically, named in NKVD documents as a Soviet agent). It was called the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities (that's a mouthful), or SCUAAAINPCOPA. Created to gather "information on how foreign subversive propaganda entered the U.S. and the organizations that were spreading it", it was active in 1934, when it held hearings across six cities and questioned hundreds of witnesses, gathering enough information to fill 4,300 pages. The committee also investigated what was believed to be a fascist plot to take over the White House, known as the Business Plot. The committee was later replaced by the HUAC.

The HUAC, first headed by Congressman Martin Dies, was known as the Dies Committee just before and during World War II. Its mandate was to investigate the involvement of German Americans in Nazi and Ku Klux Klan activities, although the committee never actually did anything about the Klan, saying that "after all, the KKK is an old American institution." The committee instead channeled its effort into looking into the possibility that the American Communist Party had infiltrated the Works Progress Administration.

Activities
The HUAC claimed that labor unions, the government, and the movie industry (which Dies thought put out Communist propaganda disguised as entertainment) had all been infiltrated by Communists. Although it had long been known that many labor union leaders were open Communists, the bit about the government and the movie industry caused considerably much more consternation. They held a series of hearings in 1947 in order to expose what they claimed to be several Communists in the movie industry. These "Hollywood Hearings" drew a lot of public attention to the Committee's actions. Approximately 300 actors and writers were **blacklisted**, or denied employment, from several major corporations. The HUAC blacklisted suspected Communists in public lists such as //Red Channels// as a sort of punishment in order to humiliate them and to destroy their careers as a sort of scare tactic against would-be Communists. Only about twenty percent of those blacklisted ever rebuilt their careers.

The HUAC's most famous hearings were those held in 1948 to root out suspected Communists working in the State Department. This resulted in the trial and conviction of Alger Hiss, a high-ranking State official. Richard Nixon, who was a Committee member at the time, played a large part in Hiss' conviction. The accusation against Hiss was interesting; because it was apparently impossible to convict him of espionage due to technical reasons, the prosecution simply gathered enough evidence to accuse him of **perjury**, or lying while under oath in court. Around this time, Congress passed the Hatch Act, which made it illegal for the federal government to hire Communists. The HUAC subsequently began looking for Communists anywhere and everywhere. Employees in several public enterprises were required to take loyalty oaths swearing that they were not Communists. Those who were believed to be sympathetic to Communist causes were blacklisted, resulting in the destruction of many innocent Americans' careers.

Criticism
Many people who were against the HUAC accused it of often abusing its power and violating the Constitutional rights of witnesses in its court hearings. Other opposers believed that finding Communists was a job best left to the police, the FBI, and the courts. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court made several rulings that limited the power that the HUAC held. One such ruling stated that a witness may refuse to answer any questions that are unnecessary to the purposes of the investigation.

Importance
The HUAC and its activities are important because they show us what can happen when an entire country becomes caught up in senseless hysteria concerning a single perceived threat. Thousands of people lost their jobs, just because they were suspected of being Communists. The fear of Communism and subsequent efforts to stymie its spread in our own country went against one of the basic human rights that this nation was founded on: freedom of speech and free thinking. Communists were persecuted for what they said and what they believed in. The HUAC violated the Constitutional rights of Americans and emphasized the danger of excessive fear and paranoia.