Unamerican activities

Phrase used during the McCarthyite? trials of the House Unamerican Activities Committee applied to both those who were believed--often falsely--to be engaged in political activities funded or otherwise supported by the Communist Party, and those who were believed to hold radical leftist political beliefs by those with radical rightist polical beliefs.

The phrase came from the title of the House Unamerican Activities Commission formed in 1947 to investigate the supposed inclusion of Communist propaganda by Hollywood. This led to the the blacklisting of a number of film makers known as the "Hollywood Ten" after such, subsequently largely discredited, accusations were made against them. By 1951 the Commission's hearings were largely under the control of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. To many at the time the investigations seemed to have lost their original aim, and had taken on the aspect of a witch hunt, due to the Senator's demands that witnesses "name names" of those sympathetic to the Communists.

At McCarthy's instigation the remit were widened to investigate the US Army. In a now famous cross examination at these latter hearings, McCarthy's motives were publically discredited by an Army lawyer. Shortly afterwards, in 1954, the Senate censured McCarthy for "conduct contrary to Senatorial tradition".

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