House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
• Was made in 1938
• Investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist ties.
• http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/huac.htm
• was a committee of the us house of representatives.
• First chairman was Martin Dies.
• The methods were pressure on witnesses to name former associates, vague and sweeping accusations aginist individuals guilt because of assoiction with a supect originiseation.
• Witnesses that refused to answer were cited for contempt of congress
• A highly publicized 1947 investagition of the entertainment industry led to prison sentences for contempt for a group of recalcitrant witnesses who became known as the Hollywood Ten.
• In 1948, Whittaker chambers made sensational accusations of Soviet espionage against former State Dept. official Alger hiss; those hearings kept the committee in the headlines and provided the first national exposure for committee member Richard nixion .
• Critics of the committee contended that it disregarded the civil liberties of its witnesses and that it consistently failed to fulfill its primary purpose of recommending new legislation.
• After 1950, Sen. Joseph McCarthy borrowed many of the committee's tactics for his own Senate investigations.
• The committee (renamed the House Internal Security Committee in 1969) was abolished in 1975.
• http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0824313.html
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