ch 26 sec3

Blacklist

In response to the hearings, Hollywood executives instituted a blacklist, a list of people whom they condemned for having a Communist background. People who were blacklisted approximately 500 actors, writers, producers, and directors had their careers ruined because they could no longer work.

HUAC

Other agensies investigated possible Comnunist influence, both inside and outside the U. S. government. The mostfamous of these was the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). HUAC first made headlines in 1947, when it began to investigate Communist influence in the movie industry.

McCarthyism

Taking advantage of people's concerns about commu-nism, McCarthy made one unsupported accusation after another. These attacks on suspected Communists in the early 1950s became known as McCarthyism. Since that time, McCarthyism has referred to the unfair tactic of accusing people of dis-loyalty without providing evidence.

Hollywood Ten

Ten "unfriendly" wwitmnesse were called to testify but refused. These men, known as the Hollywood Ten, decided not to cooperate because they believed that the hearings were unconstitutional. Because the Hollywood Ten refused to answer questions, they were sent to prison.

Joseph McCarthey

The most famous anti-Communist activist was Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin. During his first three years in the Senate, he had acquired a reputation for being an ineffective legislator. By January 1950, he realized that he was going to need a winning issue in order to be reelected in 1952. Looking for such an issue, McCarthy charged that Communists were taking over the government.

Elthel and Julius Rosenberg

This second spy case seemed to confirm that suspicion. In 1950, the German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs admitted giving the Soviet Union information about America's atomic bomb. The information prob-ably enabled Soviet scientists to develop their own atomic bomb years earlier than they would have otherwise. Implicated in the Fuchs case were Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, minor activists in the American Communist Party.

Alger Hiss

To support his charges, Chambers produced microfilm of government documents that he claimed had been typed on Hiss's typewriter. Too many years had passed for government pros-ecutors to charge Hiss with espionage, but a jury convicted him of perjury for lying about passing the documents and sent him to jail.