Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
CR 1.3 Reasons for the Red Scare: Events in the USA - Coggle Diagram
CR 1.3 Reasons for the Red Scare: Events in the USA
The Role of the FBI
The Director of the Federal Bureau Investigations, J. Edgar Hoover, was hugely anti-communist and important in arresting so many suspected communists in the first Red Scare in 1919-1920.
When the Cold War began the FBI started collecting files on those they thought were spying for Russians.
Hoover was worried about people possibly working in government as communists and wrote to President Truman about it.
In March 1947, Truman decreed that government employees could be fired if there were just grounds conveying they weren't entirely loyal to the US.
Hoover then set up the Federal Loyalty Boards to investigate possible communist links to government employees.
Between 1947 and 1951 3million workers were investigated and 3,000 either were fired or forced to resign.
No actual evidence of spying was found.
As fear of communism everyone began investigating their own employees and firing them for suspicions of links to communism.
House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
In 1938 the US government set up HUAC to monitor extremist groups. Members of Congress were voted to be on the committee.
In 1947 it began public hearing on the Communist Party of America.
Hoover was the most important witness and agreed with HUAC's aims on educating the public and exposing taritors.
The FBI began secretly giving information to HUAC.
HUAC began questioning suspects and witnesses which could lead to them being trialed.
The Hollywood Ten
During this period many people were going to the cinema and the government feared this could be used as communist propaganda.
From October 1947 HUAC questioned 41 members of Hollywood and they gave 19 names of supposed communists.
10 of these people refused to be questioned by HUAC claiming the First Amendment.
All 10 were jailed for a year and blacklisted. Most of them never worked in Hollywood again.
This gave huge publicity to HUAC and increased hysteria in the USA as well as the production of anti-communist films.
The Hiss Case
Alger Hiss was a member of the State Department who had been an important advisor to Roosevelt in the 1930s and during WW2.
In 1948 Hiss was named as a communist to HUAC.
When questioned he denied being communist but was still sent to trial as Richard Nixon insisted he had been leaking information the Soviet Union.
In January 1950 he was sentenced for 5 years for having lied to the court.
Although he was never found guilty of spying many people assumed he was as he was found guilty of something and sent to prison.
This seemed to prove Hoover right that spies were everywhere.
The Rosenberg Case
In February 1950, Klaus Fuchs was arrested in Britain for passing information regarding to atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
He confessed and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
He also named other spies including David Greenglass, who was arrested and named his sister and brother in law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
In March 1951 they had their trial and denied everything.
The evidence against them was weak but they were still convicted as guilty and executed on 19th June 1953
The Impact of the FBI and HUAC's work
Many in Hollywood defended the Hollywood Ten, although this was unusual as a majority of the public also believed in the Communist Conspiracies.
During the Hiss Trial it was found out about the Soviet Union's atomic bomb which caused hysteria to be at it's peak.
The McCarran International Security Act was passed in August 1950 forcing all communist organisations to register.
Some people believed in the Rosenberg's innocence. However most thought that they were the reason North Korea invaded South Korea as they were arrested at the outbreak of the Korean War.
Due to the amount of prosecutions people were on high alert of those around them and of being accused themselves.
The McCarran Act was strengthened in 1952: communists weren't allowed US passports, they weren't allowed to work in certain jobs and in emergencies anyone suspected of subversion could be placed in detention camps without trials.
Truman tried to stop the act but hysteria had grown to such extremes, partially due to McCarthyism, that is passed.