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.

Subversion

HUAC became a standing (permanent) committee in 1946. 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 "attacks the form of government guaranteed by our Constitution."

Related Topics:
1946 - 79th Congress - Constitution

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The committee came into its own when it acted on suspicions that some people with Communist sympathies and affiliations worked within the United States government. The background to this was the fact that radicals in the 1930s had often been attracted to Marxism, particularly to the "Popular Front". Several of these people had reached positions of influence during World War II and the late 1940s.

Related Topics:
1930s - Marxism - Popular Front - 1940s

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In 1947 HUAC investigated wartime shipment of uranium to the Soviet Union. The Committee found that in 1943, with high-level protection inside the government, the United States government issued export licenses for the delivery of millions of pounds of atomic bomb-making materials. Restrictive orders of the Manhattan Project were by-passed by an American firm called the Canadian Radium and Uranium Corporation. Security concerns at the National Laboratories also came under review.

Related Topics:
Uranium - Soviet Union - Atomic bomb - Manhattan Project - Canadian Radium and Uranium Corporation - National Laboratories

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There were also fears agents were still actively working to subvert American foreign policy, and needed to be removed from positions of influence. In particular, the committee, with the leadership of Congressmen such as Richard Nixon, brought about the trial and conviction of State Department employee Alger Hiss.

Related Topics:
Foreign policy - Richard Nixon - Alger Hiss

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The committee investigated so-called "Communist front" organizations, or Comintern affiliates, to determine if the group was effectively under the control of the Communist Party or party members. Individuals such as W. E. B. DuBois and I. F. Stone were found to have been affiliated with literally dozens of Comintern-sponsored groups although, in reality, many of the groups were nothing more than glorified petition drives and disappeared after a single publicity campaign on behalf of a particular cause. The Committee determined that some of the groups were petition drives involved in election fraud. A "front organization" acts like a "cutout": often by the sheer number of individuals involved, it helps to consume the limited resources of investigators and slow down counterintelligence operations.

Related Topics:
Communist front - Comintern - Communist Party - W. E. B. DuBois - I. F. Stone - Election fraud

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