Red-Scare

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Reaches 2.5 Million Members Through Anti-Communist Mobilization

1960-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

At the dawn of the 1960s, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce membership has grown to over 2.5 million dues-paying members, unified behind the organization’s aggressive support of capitalism and anti-communist mobilization in the face of what it characterizes as domestic and foreign threats. The …

U.S. Chamber of Commerce American Legion chamber-of-commerce anti-communist anti-union red-scare corporate-lobbying +1 more

Yates v. United States Limits Smith Act Prosecutions, Supreme Court Begins Retreat from McCarthyism

1957-06-17 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

On June 17, 1957, the Supreme Court issued three decisions that significantly limited McCarthyist overreach: Yates v. United States, Watkins v. United States, and Service v. Dulles. Known as “Red Monday” to conservative critics, these rulings began the judicial rollback of the security …

Earl Warren U.S. Supreme Court Oleta O'Connor Yates Communist Party USA Department of Justice civil-liberties judicial first-amendment mccarthyism red-scare +1 more

Senate Votes 67-22 to Censure Joseph McCarthy Ending Four Years of Terror

1954-12-02 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted 67-22 to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had led the fight in Congress to root out suspected Communists from the Federal Government. The Democrats voted solidly for McCarthy’s rebuke, but Republicans split straight down the middle with 22 voting for …

Joseph McCarthy Ralph Flanders Arthur Watkins Margaret Chase Smith red-scare institutional-resistance political-accountability senate-procedures

Communist Control Act Bans Party Members from Union Leadership, Weaponizing Anti-Communism Against Labor

1954-09-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

Congress passes the Communist Control Act of 1954, preventing members of the Communist Party from holding office in labor unions and other labor organizations. The legislation represents the culmination of systematic efforts to weaponize anti-communism against labor organizing, following the …

U.S. Congress Dwight Eisenhower House Un-American Activities Committee American Federation of Labor Congress of Industrial Organizations labor-suppression mccarthyism anti-communism red-scare union-busting +1 more

Joseph Welch Confronts McCarthy with Have You No Sense of Decency in Army Hearings

1954-06-09 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On the 30th day of the Army-McCarthy hearings, Boston lawyer Joseph Welch—hired by the Army to make its case—delivered one of the most famous rebukes in American political history. The hearings, which ran from April to June 1954, investigated conflicting accusations between the U.S. Army and Senator …

Joseph Welch Joseph McCarthy Roy Cohn G. David Schine red-scare political-persecution institutional-resistance media

AEC Security Hearing Against Oppenheimer Begins Targeting Manhattan Project Director

1954-04-12 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On April 12, 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission’s Personnel Security Board commenced hearings against J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist who had directed the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. The hearing resulted …

J. Robert Oppenheimer Lewis Strauss Gordon Gray J. Edgar Hoover William L. Borden red-scare political-persecution surveillance-state scientific-community institutional-corruption

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed at Sing Sing, Cold War's Most Controversial Death Penalty Case

1953-06-19 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison, becoming the first American civilians executed for espionage during peacetime and the only Americans executed for Cold War spy activities. Their case remains the most controversial capital punishment in …

Julius Rosenberg Ethel Rosenberg Roy Cohn Irving Saypol Irving Kaufman +3 more mccarthyism red-scare capital-punishment civil-liberties political-persecution +1 more

Hollywood Blacklist Reaches Peak with Over 300 Industry Professionals Banned

1952-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

By 1952, the Hollywood blacklist had reached its peak, with over 300 writers, directors, actors, and other film industry professionals banned from employment. What began with the Hollywood Ten’s 1947 contempt citations expanded through HUAC hearings, private “clearance” systems, …

Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals Studio executives House Un-American Activities Committee American Legion FBI +1 more mccarthyism civil-liberties blacklist entertainment-industry first-amendment +1 more

Dennis v. United States Supreme Court Upholds Smith Act Convictions, Criminalizes Political Advocacy

1951-06-04 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On June 4, 1951, the United States Supreme Court ruled 6-2 in Dennis v. United States, upholding the convictions of eleven Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act of 1940. The decision effectively criminalized political advocacy, allowing prosecution for teaching or advocating revolutionary …

Fred Vinson U.S. Supreme Court Eugene Dennis Communist Party USA Department of Justice mccarthyism civil-liberties judicial first-amendment red-scare +1 more

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Convicted of Espionage in Controversial Red Scare Trial

1951-03-29 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On March 29, 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage after a three-week trial that began on March 6, 1951. The couple had been charged with providing top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs to …

Julius Rosenberg Ethel Rosenberg David Greenglass Ruth Greenglass Roy Cohn +1 more red-scare political-persecution surveillance-state death-penalty institutional-corruption

McCarran Internal Security Act Passes Over Truman Veto, Requires Communist Registration

1950-09-23 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

President Harry Truman vetoes the Internal Security Act of 1950 (McCarran Act) on September 22, 1950, sending Congress a lengthy veto message criticizing specific provisions as “the greatest danger to freedom of speech, press, and assembly since the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798,” a …

Pat McCarran Karl Mundt Harry Truman Hubert Humphrey U.S. Congress +4 more mccarthyism red-scare congressional-action civil-liberties huac +1 more

State Loyalty Oaths Spread as California Passes Levering Act, Requires Public Employee Pledges

1950-09-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

In 1950, California passed the Levering Act, requiring all state employees to sign a loyalty oath swearing they did not belong to organizations advocating overthrow of the government. The law followed a bitter fight at the University of California that had already fired 31 faculty members for …

California Legislature Earl Warren University of California Board of Regents American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) mccarthyism civil-liberties academic-freedom red-scare political-persecution +1 more

State Department Revokes Paul Robeson Passport for Political Views and Soviet Support

1950-08-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

In 1950, the State Department revoked the American passport of Paul Robeson—All-American football player, Phi Beta Kappa recipient at Rutgers, Columbia Law School graduate, internationally acclaimed concert performer, actor, and persuasive political speaker. The revocation came in response to …

Paul Robeson State Department J. Edgar Hoover FBI red-scare civil-liberties political-persecution surveillance-state racial-justice

Red Channels Published, Launching Broadcasting Blacklist and Corporate "Smear and Clear" Racket

1950-06-22 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

American Business Consultants Inc. publishes Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television on June 22, 1950, as an anti-Communist pamphlet-style book naming 151 actors, writers, musicians, broadcast journalists, and others in the context of purported Communist manipulation …

American Business Consultants John G. Keenan Kenneth M. Bierly Theodore C. Kirkpatrick Vincent Hartnett +5 more hollywood-blacklist mccarthyism red-scare corporate-complicity broadcasting +1 more

Margaret Chase Smith Delivers Declaration of Conscience Against McCarthy Witch Hunt

1950-06-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

On June 1, 1950, less than four months after McCarthy’s Wheeling speech, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith delivered a fifteen-minute speech on the Senate floor known as the “Declaration of Conscience.” As a freshman senator, a fellow Republican who considered herself a friend of …

Margaret Chase Smith Joseph McCarthy Wayne Morse George Aiken Edward J. Thye +3 more red-scare political-resistance institutional-corruption civil-liberties

McCarthy Wheeling Speech Claims 205 Communists in State Department Launching Witch Hunt

1950-02-09 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

On February 9, 1950, junior senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin delivered a Lincoln’s birthday address to the Women’s Republican Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, claiming he possessed a list of communists working in the State Department. McCarthy declared: “While I cannot take …

Joseph McCarthy Harry S. Truman red-scare political-persecution disinformation institutional-corruption authoritarian-tactics

Corporate Anti-Communist Network Coordinates Labor Suppression Through NAM, Chamber of Commerce Infrastructure

1950-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

A sophisticated anti-communist network coordinated by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and Chamber of Commerce reaches peak effectiveness in suppressing labor organizing during the early Cold War. The Hagley Museum and Library’s NAM collection contains extensive materials from …

National Association of Manufacturers Chamber of Commerce American Legion J.B. Matthews Hearst Corporation +1 more anti-communism labor-suppression corporate-propaganda red-scare union-busting +1 more

CIO Expels United Electrical Workers and Farm Equipment Workers, Beginning Purge of Communist-Led Unions

1949-11-15 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) holds its eleventh annual convention in Cleveland and expels two member unions, the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) and the Farm Equipment Workers, for alleged “disloyalty to the CIO” and support for the …

Congress of Industrial Organizations Philip Murray Walter Reuther United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Farm Equipment Workers +1 more labor-suppression red-scare anti-communism union-busting mccarthyism +1 more

Alger Hiss Testifies Before HUAC as Whittaker Chambers Accuses Him of Espionage

1948-08-03 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist Party USA member, testified under subpoena before the House Un-American Activities Committee that Alger Hiss—a former State Department official who had accompanied FDR to Yalta—had secretly been a communist while in federal service. Hiss …

Alger Hiss Whittaker Chambers Richard Nixon House Un-American Activities Committee red-scare political-persecution surveillance-state institutional-corruption

Waldorf Statement Launches Hollywood Blacklist, Studio Executives Pledge to Fire Hollywood Ten

1947-11-25 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, issues the two-page Waldorf Statement on November 25, 1947, following a closed-door meeting by forty-eight motion picture company executives at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on November 24, 1947. The statement is …

Motion Picture Association of America Eric Johnston Louis B. Mayer Eddie Mannix Harry Cohn +16 more hollywood-blacklist mccarthyism red-scare corporate-complicity first-amendment +1 more

HUAC Hollywood Hearings Begin, Studio Executives Cooperate as "Friendly Witnesses"

1947-10-20 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

The House Un-American Activities Committee opens its first postwar hearings on October 20, 1947, investigating alleged Communist influence in Hollywood with Chairman J. Parnell Thomas presiding and Robert E. Stripling serving as chief counsel. Drawing upon lists provided in The Hollywood Reporter, …

House Un-American Activities Committee J. Parnell Thomas Robert E. Stripling Walt Disney Jack L. Warner +8 more huac hollywood-blacklist mccarthyism red-scare corporate-complicity +1 more

Anti-Communist Loyalty Oaths and Taft-Hartley Act Weaponized to Crush Labor Movement

1947-06-23 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

After World War II, as worker militancy swept the country, the right-wing struck back with the Taft-Hartley Act, passed by a Republican Congress over President Truman’s veto on June 23, 1947. The bill used the threat of communist subversion to justify rolling back advantages labor had gained …

Robert A. Taft Fred A. Hartley CIO AFL CPUSA labor-rights red-scare institutional-capture corporate-power union-busting

Executive Order 9835 Establishes Federal Loyalty Program - 5 Million Screened, Guilt Presumed

1947-03-21 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9835 on March 21, 1947, nine days after announcing the Truman Doctrine, establishing the first general loyalty program in United States history designed to root out Communist influence in the federal government. The order mandates loyalty …

Harry S. Truman Federal Bureau of Investigation Civil Service Commission House Un-American Activities Committee civil-liberties mccarthyism red-scare surveillance loyalty-oath +1 more

HUAC Made Permanent Standing Committee, Institutionalizes Political Persecution

1945-01-03 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On January 3, 1945, the House of Representatives votes to make the Dies Committee a permanent standing committee, renamed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Mississippi Representative John Rankin, a virulent segregationist and antisemite, engineers the transformation through a …

House of Representatives John Rankin Martin Dies House Un-American Activities Committee red-scare political-persecution civil-liberties institutional-capture legislative-overreach

Smith Act Criminalizes Advocacy of Government Overthrow, Enables Political Persecution

1940-06-28 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

Congress passes the Alien Registration Act, commonly known as the Smith Act after its sponsor Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia, on June 28, 1940. The law makes it a criminal offense to “knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or …

Howard W. Smith Congress Department of Justice Franklin D. Roosevelt civil-liberties first-amendment political-persecution red-scare labor-suppression +1 more

Dies Committee (HUAC) Formed by Conservative Democrats to Discredit New Deal as Communist Infiltration

1938-05-26 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

The House of Representatives establishes the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), commonly known as the Dies Committee after its chairman Representative Martin Dies Jr. (D-TX), on May 26, 1938, as a special investigating committee to probe alleged disloyalty and subversive activities by …

Martin Dies Jr. John Garner House of Representatives Franklin D. Roosevelt anti-communism new-deal congressional-investigations political-weaponization red-scare

Sacco and Vanzetti Executed After Seven Years of Biased Proceedings

1927-08-23 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed by electric chair at Charlestown State Prison in Massachusetts at 12:19 AM, exactly seven years after their arrest. Despite worldwide protests, new evidence suggesting innocence, and widespread doubt about the fairness of their trial, Massachusetts …

Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti Alvin Fuller A. Lawrence Lowell Webster Thayer civil-liberties labor-suppression xenophobia judicial-capture anarchism +1 more

Supreme Court Upholds Criminal Anarchy Conviction While Expanding Due Process

1925-06-08 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 7/10

The Supreme Court rules 7-2 in Gitlow v. New York to uphold Benjamin Gitlow’s conviction under New York’s Criminal Anarchy Act for publishing “The Left Wing Manifesto,” a socialist pamphlet advocating revolutionary mass action. Justice Edward Sanford’s majority opinion …

Edward Sanford Benjamin Gitlow U.S. Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes civil-liberties first-amendment red-scare supreme-court labor-suppression

Sacco and Vanzetti Arrested in Red Scare Climate of Anti-Immigrant Hysteria

1920-08-23 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

Italian immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested in Brockton, Massachusetts, on streetcar robbery charges that will be escalated to murder charges in connection with a payroll robbery in South Braintree that left two men dead. The arrests occur at the height of the …

Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti Frederick Katzmann Webster Thayer Department of Justice civil-liberties labor-suppression xenophobia judicial-capture red-scare +1 more

Palmer Raids Escalate with Coordinated Mass Arrests Across 33 Cities

1920-01-02 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 8/10

On January 2, 1920, the Palmer Raids reached their peak with coordinated mass arrests in 33 cities across the United States, targeting alleged radicals, communists, and anarchists. Under the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the Justice …

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer J. Edgar Hoover Department of Justice Acting Secretary of Labor Louis Post political-repression civil-liberties red-scare deportation

Palmer Raids Begin: Attorney General and J. Edgar Hoover Arrest 6,000 in 36 Cities, Deport 249 on "Soviet Ark"

1919-11-07 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

The U.S. Department of Justice began a series of raids on November 7—a date selected to coincide with the anniversary of the Russian Revolution—to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. The Russian Revolution in 1917 and …

A. Mitchell Palmer J. Edgar Hoover U.S. Department of Justice Emma Goldman Alexander Berkman +1 more red-scare state-repression labor-suppression fbi deportations

Haymarket Affair Bombing and Police Violence Trigger Massive Anti-Labor Backlash

1886-05-04 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 9/10

A peaceful labor rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago advocating for the eight-hour workday descends into violence when an unknown person throws a dynamite bomb at police officers attempting to disperse the gathering. The blast and ensuing retaliatory police gunfire kill seven police officers and at …

Chicago Police Department Albert Parsons Lucy Parsons August Spies Carter Harrison +3 more labor-suppression gilded-age police-violence anarchism red-scare +2 more