The Red Scare Beginning of the Red Scare Began in Sept 1945 Igor Gouzenko defected (gave up his allegiance) from the Soviet Union Documents he owned showed that the USSR was trying to infiltrate organizations and govt agencies in Canada and the US Proved that the USSR was trying to find information about the atomic bomb Also proved that there were spies within the American government Subversion: the effort to secretly weaken a society and overthrow its government Loyalty Review Program Created by Truman in 1947 Screened all federal employees to see if any were spying for the Soviet Union Between 1947 and 1951 over 6 million federal employees were screened for their loyalty Reading the wrong books, belonging to certain groups, traveling overseas, and watching certain foreign films would make them a suspect 14,000 were singled out for scrutiny from the FBI 2,000 quit their jobs during the check 212 were fired for questionable loyalty He May Be a Communist! HUAC Stands for the House Un-American Activities Committee Formed in 1938 by J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI Purpose was to investigate Communist and Fascist activities in the US Held public hearings on Communist subversion Would identify Communists and expose them to the public Also exposed Communist sympathizers FBI sent in to infiltrate groups and wiretapped thousands of telephones Alger Hiss Accused by Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist Party member, of being a Communist spy, in 1937 Chambers testified that Hiss gave him secret documents from the State Department Hiss denied being either a spy or a member of the Communist party Hiss sued Chambers for libel (defamation of his character) Chambers produced copies of secret documents and microfilm he had hidden called the pumpkin papers Proved he was telling the truth A jury convicted Hiss of perjury, or lying under oath The Rosenbergs Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were members of the Communist Party from NYC They were arrested in 1950 according to the testimony of Klaus Fuchs, a British scientist He admitted to sending information to the Soviets The Rosenbergs were charged with heading a Soviet spy ring They were condemned to death for espionage and executed in June 1953 Project Venona In 1946 American cryptographers cracked the Soviet spy code of the time Enabled them to read around 3,000 messages between Moscow and the US Confirmed extensive Soviet spying in the US The US decided to not make the intercepted messages public to keep the Soviets from learning how the US penetrated their codes Project Venona not revealed until 1995 Provided strong evidence that the Rosenbergs were guilty