House Un-American Actitivites Committee Hollywood Investigation Begins

Table Of Content

• Venezuela closes its embassy in Ecuador to protest raid on Mexico’s embassy there
• h Congress (
• Pacifica Vietnam 1960-1965
• HUAC became unpopular during Vietnam War investigation
• Column: President Biden’s big campaign promises come with a warning label
• ‘Mixed-ish’ Creators Prevail In Idea Theft Lawsuit
• Guilt by Anticipation

Recruiters for each union prowled the studio lots for membership and engaged in prolonged rhetorical warfare. “In the mobilization of the scriveners, I cannot agree that each Hollywood quill slinger is a genius,” wrote Gene Fowler, dubious about the whole idea of a screenwriters’ union, considering the raw material. “Indeed, there are more than a few who never could have made the grade on the Staten Island Zeitung.” The crossfire of memos, ads in the trade press and dueling editorials is so voluminous that one wonders how anyone ever finished a screenplay. Chambers then produced microfilmed documents which he said Hiss had provided to him years earlier.

Venezuela closes its embassy in Ecuador to protest raid on Mexico’s embassy there

The guild would protect story credits, assure standardized contracts and, to maximize its pull, mandate a closed shop. The House Committee on Un-American Activities became a standing (permanent) committee in 1945. The committee investigated and supported allegations of a fascist plot to seize the White House, known as the Business Plot.

h Congress (

The most important of these investigations involved Edward Condon, director of the National Bureau of Standards, and Alger Hiss, a former State Department official. When Chairman J. Parnell Thomas, a New Jersey Republican, asked to see Condon's loyalty file, President Truman declined—citing both privacy and constitutional grounds, namely the separation of powers. That refusal not only allowed HUAC to charge the administration with covering up a sham of a loyalty program; it also broadened the debate.

Pacifica Vietnam 1960-1965

SLATE has been the most controversial topic of conversation in recent ASUC[3] history. Since it has no program as yet, it is impossible to decide whether it would help or hinder the student body in power. The committee herewith submits a report of its investigation, findings, and recommendation.

All had a sound understanding of due process of law and of the other constitutional rights and immunities which are daily trampled upon by this committee. By then, however, a new and worrisome complication had been thrown into the calculus for liberals trying to stand on principle. Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which stipulated that if the membership of a union were communist, or could credibly be suspected of being communist, then the NLRB could decertify the union as the designated bargaining agent of the workers.

Thereafter, HUAC played a substantial role in establishing and policing the Hollywood blacklists. Any actor, writer, director, or other film industry employee named as a communist would find himself or herself without work, and the only way off the blacklist was to appear as a friendly witness before the committee and "name names"—that is, inform on friends and acquaintances. A witness who received a committee subpoena could remain silent only by citing the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination. Citing free speech or any other constitutional protection would result, as the Hollywood Ten discovered, in both the blacklist and a federal prison sentence for contempt of Congress. Prior to HUAC's founding, congressional investigations of subversion were episodic.

The Senator made his most prominent headlines as chairman of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) -- the chief investigative subcommittee of what was then the Senate Committee on Government Operations. In the 1960s, the committee kept at communist in-filtration while adding hearings on such new subjects as the Ku Klux Klan and Students for a Democratic Society. However, with the decline of McCarthyism and the gradual eroding of the Hollywood blacklist, HUAC's heyday had passed.

Guilt by Anticipation

His executive order enabled HUAC to institute wide-ranging investigations of all persons suspected of communist affiliations or sympathies. Although HUAC's mission was unquestionably anticommunist in nature, HUAC never clearly defined what constituted an "un-American activity." It was unusual for a democracy even to have such a body designed to repress political dissent. In May 1960, the committee held hearings in San Francisco that led to the infamous "riot" at City Hall on May 13, 1960, when San Francisco police officers fire-hosed students from Berkeley, Stanford, and other local colleges down the steps beneath the rotunda.

Alger Hiss — FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation

Alger Hiss — FBI.

Posted: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 21:25:11 GMT [source]

Early records include investigations into the activities of various trade union members, major figures in Hollywood (the Hollywood Blacklist), government employees (such as Alger Hiss), and others thought to be involved in the Communist Party. During the 1960s and 1970s the records include information on the Communist Party in the U.S., activities in the civil rights and antiwar movements, an investigation of the Ku Klux Klan, and subversive influence in riots. There are extensive investigative files on individuals and organizations, along with a set of index cards indexing the files. On this day — Oct. 20 — in 1947, members of the House Un-American Activities Committee began an investigation into alleged communist influences in the film industry as the post-World War II “Red Scare” ramped up towards its peak.

In the early 60s, during the Kennedy administration, there are repeated insurgent attempts to overthrow this US-backed South Vietnamese government by the newly formed, largely Communist National Liberation Front (NLF). In response, the Kennedy administration substantially expands military aid, increases the number of US military advisers, and authorizes them to take part in combat. Now, the canon of ethics of the American Bar Association, as I think Representative Moulder5 has referred to, states, and this is law for lawyers, that no lawyer shall, for reasons personal to himself, reject any cause because it is unpopular.

HUAC investigations became a means to suppress any dissent, often with the effect of undermining the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly. Liberals, intellectuals, artists, labor leaders, immigrants, Jews, and African Americans found themselves targets of HUAC investigations. House of Representatives established the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). With communist and fascist regimes posing threats to the security of European countries, Congress decided to investigate the potential of danger in the United States. HUAC had the responsibility of investigating un-American propaganda and activities that might threaten national security.

Lavery may have stolen the show in 1947, but 75 years later his cool and dignified performance before HUAC is mainly forgotten. He could not prevent the blacklist, but he did preserve the Screen Writers Guild. Hiss denied the accusations by Chambers during his own testimony before the committee. He also challenged Chambers to repeat the accusations outside of a congressional hearing (and beyond congressional immunity), so he could sue him for libel. People in the entertainment business accused of communist of "subversive" views began to be blacklisted.

Congressman Nixon made much of the microfilm, and it helped propel his political career. And some Americans essentially had their lives destroyed by the committee's actions. Most printed HUAC hearing transcripts are findable via HathiTrust, Google Books, and the Internet Archive. The best way to search for a hearing is by publication title, which you can learn using the indexes linked above. You can also find direct links to a large number of HUAC publications on the University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page.

Sheriff Deputies retaliated with double-0 buckshot, blinding one man (Alan Blanshard) and killing another (James Rector). That evening, California Governor Ronald Reagan calls in the National Guard and the California State Highway Patrol to restore order. Reagan is quoted on May 15, 1969 in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying "If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with." April-May 1969 On April 18, the underground paper The Berkeley Barb runs an announcement calling for interested individuals to bring building materials to a university-owned vacant lot near Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue in order to build a community park.