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House of Un-American Activities Committee HUAC party with, the Republican-controlled Congress established the House of Un- American Activities Committee with the goal to prove that the

The Use of American Propaganda During

the Cold War

Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua NY

Essential Question

How did propaganda reflect on American fears and support during

the Cold War?

The Red Scare : Hysteria

 In the 1950’s, communism was not an imagined enemy, it had

concrete shape in the form of the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin

 Many hindrances were encountered in America’s fight against

communism:

 The Korean deadlock

 The defeat of China

 The development of the Atomic bomb by the Soviets

 People were searching for somebody to blame, and many were drawn

to the suggestion of a communist conspiracy among the American

Joseph McCarthy

 National spotlight shone

first on McCarthy in

1950, when he made a speech in Wheeling, W.Va He declared he had a list of 205

Communists working in the State Department.

 In the 1950’s, he became

the most visible public face during a period of extreme anti-

communism tensions.

Republican US Senator

from Wisconsin

McCarthy’s Manner

 Along with his immoral assistants, Roy Cohn and

David Schine, McCarthy moseyed his way through

federal offices and American embassies seeking

evidence of communist influence.

 One after another were harassed by McCarthy’s

subcommittee and their public careers were soon

destroyed due to feeble proof produced by McCarthy

 His accusations were without confirmation yet a rising

community in the US grew to adore his policies and the assaults he was making on those subversives, real

or phony.

unproven accusations, as well as public

attacks on the character or patriotism of

political opponents

McCarthy without the

risk of being called a

In the summer of 1954, a branch of the American Legion denounced the Girl Scouts, calling the "one world" ideas advocated in their publications "un-

American."

House of Un-American Activities

Committee (HUAC)

party with, the Republican-controlled Congress established the House of Un- American Activities Committee with the goal

to prove that the government under Democratic rule, had tolerated communist sedition.

House of Representatives, was created to investigate treachery and subversive

associations (1938–75)

“Hollywood Ten”

 The movie industry was the first to be

attacked by HUAC, claiming that communists had broke into

Hollywood and polluted America with propaganda.

 Writers and producers were called to

testify and when some refused to answer questions about their own political views, they were jailed for their disdain

 Not only were these ten fined and

sentenced to years in jail for contempt of Congress, they were also blacklisted from working in the film industry in Hollywood until the

1960's when the ban was lifted.

Herbert Biberman, Martin

Popper, Robert W Kenny,

Albert Maltz, Lester Cole,

Dalton Trumbo, John Howard

Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Samuel

Ornitz, Ring Lardner Jr.,

Edward Dmytryk, Adrian Scott

 There were many grounds by which

HUAC investigators arrested those

in the entertainment business

 sympathy toward the American Communist Party

 involvement in liberal or humanitarian political causes that enforcers associated with

communism

 refusal to assist federal investigations into Communist Party activities

 Some were blacklisted merely

because their names came up at the

wrong place and time

“We have exposed their lies when we came across them,

we have opposed their

propaganda ”

“I have turned down quite a few scripts because I thought they

were tinged with communistic ideas.”

“They looked at

a lot of our pictures, and I think they ran a lot of them in Russia, but then turned them back

to us They didn't suit their purposes.”

“Nobody has stated just what they mean by propaganda I use the term to mean anything which gives a good

impression of communism as

Alger Hiss Trial - Background

 Alger Hiss was a tall, handsome Harvard-trained lawyer with an impeccable family background Whittaker Chambers was a short, stocky, and rumpled Columbia drop-out and confessed former

Communist from a poor and troubled Philadelphia family

 According to Chambers, Hiss was a devoted Communist engaged

in espionage, even while working at the highest levels of the

United States government. Hiss’ story was very different,

claiming unwavering loyalty and denying even membership in the Communist Party.

 Chambers did not wish to testify before the House un-American Activities Committee in August 1948 but he believed that "the

danger to the nation from Communism had now grown acute,"

threatening his country's very existence

Alger Hiss Trial - Background

 Chambers did not wish to testify before the House un-American

Activities Committee in August 1948 but he believed that "the danger

to the nation from Communism had now grown acute," threatening his country's very existence

 Questioned about his association with Alger Hiss, Chambers

described a close friendship that included time in the Hiss home with Alger and his wife, Priscilla.

 In response to Chambers's claims, which were given large play in the media, Hiss sent a telegram to HUAC's chairman, firmly denying the charges.  Hiss's telegram said:

I DO NOT KNOW MR CHAMBERS AND, SO FAR AS I AM

AWARE, HAVE NEVER LAID EYES ON HIM.THERE IS NO BASIS FOR THE STATEMENTS ABOUT ME MADE TO YOUR

COMMITTEE.I WOULD FURTHER APPRECIATE THE

OPPORTUNITY OF APPEARING BEFORE YOUR COMMITTEE

Alger Hiss’ Word Vs

Who Was Lying?

 One member of the Committee, however, wanted to continue with

the investigation.  Congressmen Richard Nixon found Hiss

"patronizing" and "insulting in the extreme."  Hiss's Eastern Ivy League pedigree and style offended Nixon, a Whittier College

graduate and the product of working-class parents.  With some

reluctance, the Committee voted to make Nixon chair of a

subcommittee that would seek to determine who was lying, Hiss or Chambers, at least on the question of whether they knew each

other.

 Through intense questioning on both ends, and the release of the

Pumpkin Papers, it was soon uncovered that Hiss and Chambers had in fact been in close relations.

 Pumpkin Papers were a series of documents turned into the Hiss

case committee by Chambers that consisted of various evidences that placed Hiss in serious danger of criminal charge

 Hiss could not be tried for espionage because of the statute of

limitations, a law that protects individuals from prosecution for

most crimes after seven years had passed.

 He was charged with two counts of perjury and several years in

prison

 Heightened American’s fears

 Cast the suspicion that communism had

in fact crept into the US government.

 Projected an unknown California

congressman named Richard Nixon to national fame

 Set the stage for Senator Joseph

McCarthy's infamous hunting

Communist- Marked the creation of a conservative

intellectual and political movement that would put Ronald Reagan in the White House

Federal Loyalty Program

Republican attacks, the Truman

administration began a widely publicized

program to review the loyalty of federal

employees

people believed to have no more than “bad security risks”

resigned under pressure and 212 were

discharged

McCarran Act

 Congress passed the Internal

Security Act of 1950 that

required all communist

associations to register with

the Attorney General and to

make public all records.

 Subversive Activities Control

Board (SACB) - tightened

alien exclusion and

deportation laws, allowing

for the arrest of dangerous,

disloyal, or subversive

persons in times of war or

"internal security emergency"

J Edgar Hoover – director of Federal Bureau of

Investigations (FBI)

 Investigated and harassed

 June 1950 – 3 former FBI agents and a right-wing television

producer, Vincent Harnett, published Red Channels

 A pamphlet listing the names of 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed had been members of

subversive organizations before the World War II but had not yet been blacklisted

 The blacklist had been compiled from FBI files and a

detailed analysis of the Daily Worker, a newspaper published

by the American Communist Party

 A free copy of Red Channels was sent to those involved in

employing people in the entertainment industry and hundreds were blacklisted until they appeared in front of the House of Un-

American Activities Committee and swore to its members that they had abandoned their radical past

 McCarthy also began receiving information from his friend, J

Edgar Hoover William Sullivan, one of Hoover's agents, later

admitted, "We were the ones who made the McCarthy hearings

possible We fed McCarthy all the material he was using."

The FBI, under J Edgar Hoover, helped provide the committee with material from its aptly named ‘raw files' Some producers, directors and screen writers refused to testify or to play the ‘name game' in which the committee demanded the names of associates, who could then be called on

to name others thus

providing an

ever-expanding list of suspects to

be summoned.

 In June, 1945, the FBI raided the

offices of Amerasia, a magazine concerned with the Far East, and discovered a large number of

classified State Department documents

 The 1946 Atomic Energy Act gave

the FBI “responsibility for determining the loyalty of individuals having access to restricted Atomic Energy data.”

 Any public or private agency or

individual with information about subversive activities was urged to report it to the FBI and posters were distributed to police departments throughout the country

Julius and Ethel

Rosenberg

 Paranoia was increasing among the American nation because:

 The explosion of an atom bomb by Russia

 The invasion of South Korea by the Communist North

Koreans and Chinese

 The numerous revelations and confessions of former

communists and professed spies

 The intensity of the McCarthy mentality of the times

 Klaus Fuchs validated these fears when he confessed to have

given the Russians information on the construction of the bomb.

 From the beginning, the trial attracted a high amount of media

attention, but unlike the trial of Alger Hiss, there was no single public expression of doubt as to their guilt in any media before and during the trial because of the immense fear in the heart of every American.

 The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and

sentenced to death under Section 2 of the Espionage Act

people There had to be a hysteria and a fear sent

through America in order to get increased war

budgets And there had to be a dagger thrust in the heart of the left to tell them that you are no longer

gonna give five years for a Smith Act prosecution or one year for Contempt of Court, but we're gonna kill ya!” Julius Rosenberg, as quoted by his attorney,

Emanuel Bloch, September 22, 1953

 In imposing the death sentence, Judge Irving

Kaufman held the Rosenbergs responsible not only for stealing atomic secrets but also for more than

50,000 deaths in the Korean War

 Klaus Fuchs, who spied for many more years than

the Rosenbergs, provided far more sensitive nuclear information to the Soviet Union, and was caught, confessed, tried, convicted, and sentenced in the

United Kingdom, received 14 years in jail, which was the maximum penalty in that nation for passing military secrets to friendly nations

The End

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