HIST 1311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: House Un-American Activities Committee, Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers
Document Summary
Second red scare- hollywood and labor movement were targeted. People were questioned about communist movements and people. People who refused to cooperate with huac were blacklisted- names placed on a list that was circulated throughout industries. These people would then have lots of trouble finding work: circulated until the 1960"s, not until 1997 hollywood finally apologized to people affected by it. Spy cases also got a lot of attention. Alger hiss 1948: former communist spy whittaker chambers claimed that a man named alger hiss, alger hiss spoke and denied the charges and sued for slander. But whittaker provided proof of microfilmed documents that he said alger hiss gave to him in the 1930. The statute of limitations had run out so he was instead convicted of perjury and served two years of his five year sentence: at this time nixon was in charge of huac.
