HUAC Vs. Hollywood: America on trial In post-World-War-II America, the fear of communism and the distrust of the Soviet Union was pervasive. It was in this atmosphere that the House of Representatives began to use a standing committee, originally formed in 1938, to investigate the extent of communist influence in the American film industry and the threat that such influence might pose to American society. Although this may have been the stated goal of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), analysis of the hearings indicates that the unstated goal of the committee, which was made up of conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats, was to discredit the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. In fact , further analysis of the testimony before the committee provides little hard evidence that the communist threat was actually real and reveals that most of the "evidence" presented was based on opinion and hearsay rather than fact. Even though the hearings failed to prove that the communist threat to either the film industry or to American society was real, they ultimately resulted in an unofficial blacklist that affected the entire Hollywood community. During the course of the committee s hearings and in their wake, constitutional rights were denied, careers were destroyed, and lives were ruined. After World War II, the distrust of the Soviet Union began to grow. One such example showing this had to be the Truman Doctrine. Truman, in his appeal to Congress, overstated the communist threat in Greece and Turkey. Yes, there were communists present in the rebel forces, but Truman failed to state that the actual number was low. Furthermore, the United States feared the return of Nazi Germany in the 1930 s. The Soviet Union was already difficult to deal with, and there was a growing question of a pending threat, with the shrinkage of the globe from the advent of the air-age. HUAC was created by the House of Representatives for "exposing and spotlighting subversive elements wherever they may exist."1 It is true that films do have an affect on the public, and therefore film medium has been used in the past to convey select messages by the minority to influence the majority. Movies such as Mission to Moscow, and Song of Russia had already been implicated as propaganda films by the select few.

"I cannot emphasize too strongly the seriousness of Communist infiltration, which we have found to be a mutual problem for many, many different fields of endeavor in the United States. Communists for years have been conducting an unrelentless boring from within campaign against America s democratic institutions. While never possessing a large numerical strength, the Communists nevertheless have found that they could dominate the activities of unions or other mass enterprises in this country by capturing a few strategic positions of leadership."1 Through the analysis of the testimony given by Jack L. Warner, Vice President, Warner Bros. Studios, it becomes clear that the actual unstated goal of the committee was to discredit the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, and thus the Democratic Party. The committee probed Warner for answers pointing to the government, in an attempt to put down FDR. While the committee interrogated Louis B. Mayer, Head, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, the committee repeatedly asked if a Government representative visited during the making of the film, Song of Russia. Much of the "evidence" used to implicate many was based on opinions given during testimonies to the committee. Through naming names, from telling the committee who was a communist, a person could be considered a "good American". Through certain "tests", one could be considered a communist. The testimony of Adolph Menjou indicates this. You could be considered a communist if you acted like a communist or belong to a communist-front organization and take no action against communism or resign your position. "In November 1947, fifty motion picture executives held a two-day meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, at which they established an informal but highly effective blacklist that prevented suspicious people from finding jobs in films. No studio would hire a blacklisted writer, director, producer, actor, or actress, nor would any film in which a blacklisted person had taken part be distributed."2 Many people could not find work in films for years, still others fled the country to escape the persecution from the committee and from the influences that they had.