United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities (1934-1975)

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The Special Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as the Dies Committee, was created on May 26, 1938, with the approval of House Resolution 282, which authorized the Speaker of the House to appoint a special committee of seven members to investigate un-American activities in the United States, domestic diffusion of propaganda, and all other questions relating thereto.<p>

The special committee was continued under the following resolutions:<p>

H. Res. 26 on Feb. 3, 1939; H. Res. 321 on Jan. 23, 1940; H. Res. 90 on Feb. 11, 1941; H. Res. 420 on Mar. 11, 1942; and, H. Res. 65 on Feb. 10, 1943. Under an amendment to House Rules contained in H. Res. 5 of Jan. 3, 1945, the standing Committee on Un-American Activities was created to replace the special committee.<p>

Democrat Martin Dies of Texas served as the chairman of the special committee throughout its existence. The committee had no direct predecessor. However, two earlier special committees of the House had similar jurisdiction: the Special Committee to Investigate Communist Activities, created in 1930 with Hamilton Fish as chairman; and, the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, created in 1934 under the chairmanship of John McCormack and Samuel Dickstein.<p>

The special committee was terminated on December 19, 1944. The standing Committee on Un-American Activities, created in 1945, was the successor to the Dies Committee.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and from 1969 onwards known as the House Committee on Internal Security, was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Fascist or Communist ties. When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.<p>

The committee's anti-communist investigations are often compared to (and confused with) those of Joseph McCarthy who, as a U.S. Senator, had no direct involvement with the House committee. McCarthy was the chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, not the House.<p>

McCormack–Dickstein Committee (1934–1937):<p>
From 1934 to 1937, the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities, chaired by John William McCormack (D-Mass.) and Samuel Dickstein (D-NY), held public and private hearings and collected testimony filling 4,300 pages. The committee was widely known as the McCormack–Dickstein committee. Its mandate was to get "information on how foreign subversive propaganda entered the U.S. and the organizations that were spreading it". Its records are held by the National Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC.<p>

In 1934, the Special Committee subpoenaed most of the leaders of the fascist movement in the United States. Beginning in November 1934, the committee investigated allegations of a fascist plot to seize the White House, known as the "Business Plot". Contemporary newspapers widely reported the plot as a hoax. However contemporary sources and some of those involved, such as Gen. Smedley Butler, confirmed the validity of such a plot.<p>

It has been reported that while Dickstein served on this committee and the subsequent Special investigation Committee, he was paid $1,250 a month by the Soviet NKVD, which hoped to get secret congressional information on anti-communists and pro-fascists. It is unclear whether he actually passed on any information.<p>

Dies Committee (1938–1944):<p>
On May 26, 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established as a special investigating committee, reorganized from its previous incarnations as the Fish Committee and the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist or fascist ties; however, it concentrated its efforts on communists. It was chaired by Martin Dies Jr. (D-Tex.), and therefore known as the Dies Committee. Its records are held by the National Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC.<p>

In 1938, Hallie Flanagan, the head of the Federal Theatre Project, was subpoenaed to appear before the committee to answer the charge the project was overrun with communists. Flanagan was called to testify for only a part of one day, while a clerk from the project was called in for two entire days. It was during this investigation that one of the committee members, Joe Starnes (D-Ala.), famously asked Flanagan whether the Elizabethan era playwright Christopher Marlowe was a member of the Communist Party, and mused "Mr. Euripides" preached class warfare.<p>

In 1939, the committee investigated people involved with pro-Nazi organizations such as Oscar C. Pfaus and George Van Horn Moseley. Moseley testified before the committee for five hours about a "Jewish Communist conspiracy" to take control of the US government. Moseley was supported by Donald Shea of the American Gentile League, whose statement was deleted from the public record as the committee found it so objectionable.<p>

The committee also put together an argument for the internment of Japanese Americans known as the "Yellow Report". Organized in response to rumors of Japanese Americans being coddled by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) and news that some former inmates would be allowed to leave camp and Nisei soldiers to return to the West Coast, the committee investigated charges of fifth column activity in the camps. A number of anti-WRA arguments were presented in subsequent hearings, but Director Dillon Myer debunked the more inflammatory claims. The investigation was presented to the 77th Congress, and alleged that certain cultural traits – Japanese loyalty to the Emperor, the number of Japanese fishermen in the US, and the Buddhist faith – were evidence for Japanese espionage. With the exception of Rep. Herman Eberharter (D-Pa.), the members of the committee seemed to support internment, and its recommendations to expedite the impending segregation of "troublemakers", establish a system to investigate applicants for leave clearance, and step up Americanization and assimilation efforts largely coincided with WRA goals.<p>

In 1946, the committee considered opening investigations into the Ku Klux Klan, but decided against doing so, prompting white supremacist committee member John E. Rankin (D-Miss.) to remark, "After all, the KKK is an old American institution." Instead of the Klan, HUAC concentrated on investigating the possibility that the American Communist Party had infiltrated the Works Progress Administration, including the Federal Theatre Project and the Federal Writers' Project. Twenty years later, in 1965–1966, however, the committee did conduct an investigation into Klan activities under chairman Edwin Willis (D-La.).<p>

Standing Committee (1945–1975):<p>
The House Committee on Un-American Activities became a standing (permanent) committee in 1945. Democratic Representative Edward J. Hart of New Jersey became the committee's first chairman. Under the mandate of Public Law 601, passed by the 79th Congress, the committee of nine representatives investigated suspected threats of subversion or propaganda that attacked "the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution".<p>

Under this mandate, the committee focused its investigations on real and suspected communists in positions of actual or supposed influence in the United States society. A significant step for HUAC was its investigation of the charges of espionage brought against Alger Hiss in 1948. This investigation ultimately resulted in Hiss's trial and conviction for perjury, and convinced many of the usefulness of congressional committees for uncovering communist subversion.