House Un-American Activities Committee

The House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC (or, rarely, HCUA) (1945-1975) was an investigating committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to the Committee on Internal Security. The House abolished the committee in 1975 and its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Dies Committee (1938-1944)

The House Committee on Un-American Activities grew from a special investigating committee established in May 1938 chaired by Martin Dies and co-chaired by Samuel Dickstein, himself named in the Venona project as a Soviet agent. In pre-war years and during World War II it was known as the Dies Committee. Its work was supposed to be aimed mostly at German-American involvement in Nazi and KKK activity. As to investigations into the activities of the "Klan," the Committee actually did little. When HUAC's chief counsel Ernest Adamson announced that: "The committee has decided that it lacks sufficient data on which to base a probe," committee member John E. Rankin added: "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.

Related Topics:
1938 - Martin Dies - Samuel Dickstein - Venona project - German-American - Nazi - KKK - John E. Rankin - American Communist Party - Works Progress Administration - Federal Theatre Project

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In 1938 Hallie Flanagan, the head of the Federal Theatre Project, was subpoenaed to appear before the committee to answer the charge that 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. This may have had something to do with the fact that one of the members of the committee embarrassed himself by asking whether the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe was a member of the Communist Party.

Related Topics:
Hallie Flanagan - Communists - Elizabethan - Christopher Marlowe - Communist Party

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And in 1939 the committee investigated leaders of the American Youth Congress, a Comintern affiliate organization.

Related Topics:
American Youth Congress - Comintern

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