Unamerican activities

Phrase used during the McCarthyite? trials of the House Unamerican Activities Committee to describe those who were believed--often falsely--to be engaged in political activities funded or otherwise supported by the Communist Party, or 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 accusations, which have largely been discredited, were made against them. By 1951 the Commission's hearings were largely under the control of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. To many, at this time, the investigations seemed to have lost their original aim and, due to the Senator's demands that witnesses "name names" of those sympathetic to the Communists, had taken the aspect of a witch hunt.

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

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