House Un-American Activities Committee

No, there was not. It was a right-wing witch hunt which sought to punish people by destroying their reputations. As late as the early 1970s, people such as those in the armed forces, or certain sensitive civil service jobs, were required to take a loyalty oath, which included a denial of being a member of the Communist Party. That oath was finally revised when someone took it to Federal court. This only recollection, but I don't believe the Supremes heard the case, which is a tacit approval of the lower court's decision.

Look again at HUAC's name--"un-American?" Who is to decide what is American and what is un-American? It ruined a lot of careers in Hollywood, and ruined the lives of many others in other places and professions. Ironically, one of those was Ronald Reagan. He had been a Democrat, and at one point, President of the Screen Actors' Guild. But he ratted out a lot of people, and no one in Hollywood would hire him any longer, just as they would no longer hire people implicated as communists. The irony is deeper in that Ronnie found work as a motivational speaker, touring California and the southwest speaking to corporate employees. In that manner, he made the contacts which he later used to become Governor of California, and in his 1980 run for the presidency.

My aunt, who had attended university in the 1930s, once told me that at that time, young college boys and girls joined the Socialist Party or the Communist Party for social reasons--one of those "everybody's doing it" kind of things. She said that in the 1950s, with Tail Gunner Joe and HUAC, there was really an atmosphere of mistrust and fear in the country. Joe McCarthy got in over his head in the Army-McCarthy hearings, when the general counsel for the Army. Joseph Welch, said him: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness . . ." and "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator (referring to a young man in his law office). You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When Mc Carthy attempted to pursue the matter, Welch told the chairman to call his next witness--and the spectators in the hearing room burst into applause.

Even before that, Edward Murrow, the most respected journalist in the country at that time, had gone after McCarthy during his television program. McCarthy died less than three years later, and modern historians and biographers give the cause as the affect of acute alcoholism. Richard Nixon made his name on HUAC, and that was how he ended up Eisenhower's running mate in 1952. When reporters once tried to ask Truman about Nixon, he told them to "never mention that little **** to me again." After the fall of McCarthy, Eisenhower told a cabinet that "McCarthyism" had become "McCarthywasm." It was a very ugly passage in our nation's history.

To be fair, we had to protect ourselves from the liberals, who, just as always, were ever-eager to betray America to our mortal enemies.


OmSigDAVID is no longer with us, but he had much wisdom to share on this matter:


http://able2know.org/topic/143458-6#post-3953909

It's an ill wind, a lot of those on the blacklist came over here. This extremely popular kid's show had loads of blacklisted workers behind it.

oralloy-

I think you are conflating a belief in communism with support for the Soviet Union.

Setanta-

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Setanta got it right.

Well, I wasn't really. I was conflating liberalism with an eagerness to betray America to our mortal enemies.

But both of these conflations are proper and reasonable, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Let's not forget Roy Cohn was a part of the witch hunt.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a46616/dont-mess-with-roy-cohn/

In his autobiography, Edward G Robinson, one of those blackballed, mentioned "certain cowboy actors." He didn't name any, but I thought of some who would be avid for McCarthyism.

That was a truly bizarre side-show . . . Cohn and his boy toys was the sort of thing for which others would have started a witch hunt, but he was too much feared. Cohn was evil in my never humble opinion