House Un-American Activities Committee

Committee House one Un-American Activities ( HCUA ) (1938 - 1975), is a committee of enquiry of the Chambre of the representatives of the United States. Also called House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC ), its name means " literally; Commission of the Room on the non-américaines" activities;. Into 1969, the Room changes the name of the commission into Committee one Internal Security (" Commission on safety intérieure"). When the Room removes the commission in 1975, its functions are transferred to the House Judiciary Committee (" Legal committee of Chambre").

The investigations anticommunists of the commission are often confused with those of the Senator Joseph McCarthy. This last, as a senator, did not have a direct link with this commission of the Room.

McCormack-Dickstein commission: the first sessions (1934 - 1937)

The McCormack-Dickstein commission, resulting from the Room of the Representatives, draws his name from that of its president John W. McCormack and of that of its vice-president Samuel Dickstein. It was called Special Committee one Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities, that is to say in French the " Special subcommittee on the not-American activities authorized to inquire into propaganda Nazi and some other activities of propagande".

In 1934, the commission holds of the sessions in public or behind closed doors in six cities, during which she questions hundreds of witnesses. The document gathering the whole of testimonys represents 4.300 pages then. Its mandate gave him like objective to collect " information on how foreign subversive propaganda penetrates with the the United States and on the organizations which it propage".

The commission investigation supports the assumption of a fascistic plot of which the goal would be to take the control of the White House, machination known under the name of " Business Stud ".

It is replaced by a similar commission which concentrates on hunting for the Communists.

Dies commission: birth of the HUAC (1938 - 1944)

House Committee one Un-American Activities is the official name of the commission created in May 1938. This one carries the statute of board of inquiry, which is an innovation compared to the McCormack-Dickstein commission. It is chaired by Martin Dies and Co-chaired by Samuel Dickstein. Dickstein is being itself quoted in documents of NKVD like Soviet agent .

In the years preceding the Second world war and lasting this one, the commission is known under the name of Dies commission. Its work is supposed to aim mainly the implication of the German American in activities having milked to the Nazisme or the Ku Klux Klan. In the facts, the commission is far from interested in the KKK. When the adviser as a chief of the HUAC announced that " commission decided that it missed data on which to make recherches" , the Member of the Commission John E. Rankin added that " after all, the KKK is an old institution américaine". In the place of the KKK, the HUAC thus concentrated its efforts on an investigation carrying into a possible infiltration by the American Communist party of the Work Projects Administration, including the Federal Theater Project.

The Dies commission also carries out a short survey into the internments of war of the Nippo-American S alive on the west coast of the United States, during the Second world war. The investigations first of all relate to safety in the camps (by the way in particular of the supposed groups of youth there to have prevailed), the questions of provisioning of food, and the release of the internees. Except for Republican Hermann Eberharter, the Members of the Commission seem to give their support for the system of the camps.

In 1938, Hallie Flanagan, director of the Federal Project Theater, is assigned to appear before the commission to answer the charge according to which the project is controlled in writing pad by the Communists. Flanagan is retained to testify during only part of the day, whereas a simple employee of the project is heard during two days whole. It is during this investigation which one of the Members of the Commission poses in Flanagan celebrates it question of knowing if the English playwright of the era élisabéthaine Christopher Marlowe were member of the Communist party.

In 1939, the commission is interested in the leaders of the American Youth Congress, organization affiliated to the Comintern.

1946: the HUAC standing committee

The HUAC obtains in 1946 of the Congress the statute of standing committee (" standing committee "). The new mandate of the commission specifies that it is made up of nine representatives who inquire into supposed cases of subversion or of propaganda who attack " the shape of government guaranteed by our Constitution ".

It is under this mandate that the commission fixes its attention on the real or supposed Communists occupying of the important stations, or then on the influence which Communism is supposed to have in the american company. The first of these investigations had taken place into 1938 within the Federal Project Theater. The survey carried out by the HUAC in 1948 into Algiers Hiss, shown in to be a Soviet Spy, represents for the commission a big step. Indeed, this investigation leads to the lawsuit of Hiss which is condemned for Parjure (the culpability of Hiss remains discussed today). The commission proves then for much thus the utility of the commissions of the Congress in the fight against communist subversion.

Ten of Hollywood

See also: Ten of Hollywood

In 1947, the commission holds nine days of audiences on the presence of one supposed influence and propaganda Communists in the cinema industry of Hollywood. " Ten of Hollywood" are the ten producers, authors and/or realizers who were condemned to have refused to answer the questions of the commission and were registered on a Black list in industry. With final, it is more than 300 artists who are boycotted by the studios. Those are realizers, radio operator commentators, actors and particularly of the scenario writers. Some, with the image of Charlie Chaplin leave the United States to find work. Others write under pseudonyms or under the name of colleagues. Only one on approximately ten will succeed in being rebuilt a career in the industry of the entertainment.

In 1947, the leaders of the studios tell the commission to recognize that certain films left on the screens during the Second world war, like Mission to Moscow , The North Star and Song off Russia can in fact being considered as propaganda pro-Soviet but that these films were invaluable in the context of the combined effort of war, and were made, in certain cases, at the request of official representatives of the White House. In answer to the carried out investigations, the majority of the studios then produce a certain number of propaganda films anticommunists and anti-Soviet, like Big Jim McLain with John Wayne, Guilty off Treason in connection with the lawsuit of the Hungarian bishop József Mindszenty, The Red Menace , The Red the Danube , I Married has Communist , Red Planet Mars or I Has Communist for the FBI which is nominated with the Oscars in the category better documentary film in 1951 and also adapted to the radio in the form of series. Universal-International Pictures is only principal studios not to produce this type of films.

Decline

The HUAC loses a considerable part of its prestige after the assignment to appear of Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, members of the Yippies in 1967 and also after the democratic convention of 1968. With the difference of the preceding people questioned by the commission, Yippies do not respect indeed more the members of the HUAC that they do not fear them, and they use the media attention then to make fun of the commission.

Rubin thus goes to the one sessions equipped as a soldier with the war of independence, and distributes to the people present of the copies of the Déclaration of independence. Then it " made immense bubbles of chewing-gum while its witnesses scoff the commission by making with its members safeties Nazi s".

Hoffman is presented as for him to a session disguised in Father Christmas. Another occasion, the police force stops Hoffman at the entry of the building and stops it to be equipped with an American flag. This last then has this witty remark for the press: " I regret having only one shirt to give to my pays" , diversion of the sentence allotted to the patriotic revolutionist Nathan Hauls. During this time, Rubin, which as for him covered the flag " assorti" , the flag Vietcong, protests and exclaims that the police force is communist not to also stop it.

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