Fair Deals and Dirty Tricks: Truman, McCarthy, and the Politics of Paranoia

Reform Revolt and ReactionLecture Five: Term 1 Week 7

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

• First established in 1938 to investigate “subversive and un-American propaganda”

• From 1947 targeted Hollywood and universities

• The “Hollywood Ten”

Alger Hiss

• Accused of being a spy by Whittaker Chambers (1948)

• Convicted of perjury Jan 1950

• Prosecution led by Richard Nixon

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

• Arrested 1950 for conspiracy to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union

• Trial 1951• Executed 1953 for

treason• VENONA project

Senator Joseph McCarthy

• Republican from Wisconsin

• 9 Feb 1950 Wheeling, West Virginia Speech

• Created atmosphere of fear and paranoia

• Army-McCarthy hearings (1954)

Anti-Communism and Hollywood

• The Red Menace (1949)• I Married a Communist

(1950)• On the Waterfront

(1954)• Invasion of the Body-

Snatchers (1956)