HUAC often pressured witnesses to surrender names and other information that could lead to the apprehension of Communists and Communist sympathizers. HUAC was created in to investigate alleged disloyalty and rebel activities on the part of private citizens, public employees and organizations suspected of having Communist ties.
Citizens suspected of having ties to the communist party would be tried in a court of law. Government employees could be blacklisted viewed as untrustworthy or someone to avoid and could lose their jobs.
The threat of Communism was a driving force that created a wedge between society and the United States government. They lost their jobs and were effectively prevented from working in their chosen industry. These critics argued that most people who were called before the committee had broken no laws, but instead were targeted for their political beliefs or for exercising their right to free speech.
Supporters of the committee, on the other hand, believed that its efforts were justified given the grave threat to U. 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. The film industry investigations reached their peak with the events surrounding the Hollywood Ten , a group of writers and directors who were called to testify in October All were cited for contempt of Congress and sentenced to prison terms, in addition to being blacklisted from working in Hollywood.
HUAC also sounded an alarm about Communists infiltrating the federal government. The most infamous case began in August , 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. The suggestion that Communist agents had infiltrated senior levels of the U. Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early s. McCarthy led an aggressive anticommunist campaign of his own that made him a powerful and feared figure in American politics.
His reign of terror came to an end in , when the news media revealed his unethical tactics and he was censured by his colleagues in Congress. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U. This common sense of social justice inspired many philosophical discussions among graduate students at Berkeley, including physics students. Oppenheimer himself hosted some of these informal events. Hawkins remembered them as profound Socratic discussions featuring world-renowned intellectuals.
Berkeley was a remarkable place in terms of the number of people, the number of graduate students, who were very powerful.
Troubled by the rise of European fascism and the inhumanities of the Depression, many of the young scientists at Berkeley admired the Soviet Union for its opposition to the Nazis. An exceptionally bright physicist who came to Berkeley from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Weinberg had become a fixture in local Communist circles. By , he was meeting regularly with Communist Party official Steve Nelson. Since the FBI had wiretapped Steve Nelson illegally, it was impossible to bring any charges against Weinberg based on the recording alone.
Even without knowing that Weinberg was the primary suspect, the media had become aware of the search for a Soviet agent at Berkeley. Proving Weinberg was Scientist X became the stated objective of many HUAC investigations, which were fueled by sensationalist media coverage.
In , the Milwaukee Journal published an article that went as far as to say that Scientist X had delivered a sample of uranium to the Soviet Union. By this time, Weinberg had become a physics professor at the University of Minnesota.
HUAC subpoenaed him for a hearing in April His hearing coincided with the committee releasing an official statement identifying Weinberg as Scientist X. Ultimately, HUAC was unable to produce a confession from Weinberg during his hearing, nor was the committee able to assemble enough credible evidence to build a legal case against him.
As a result, many of his peers from his time at Berkeley were also called for hearings. None gave significant information to the investigation. Peters unflinchingly denied any previous involvement with the Communist Party. David Bohm refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment rights. Bohm and Lomanitz were indicted for contempt of Congress in
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