Taking Action: House Investigations Are a Positive First Step
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) has a controversial reputation, thanks to a tireless smear campaign by the Left. The committee, which operated from 1938 to 1975, was officially authorized “to make from time to time investigations of the extent, character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States, the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propaganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution, and all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary remedial legislation.”
While some remember only the so-called blacklisting of Hollywood actors and actresses as a result of the committee’s work, HCUA more importantly helped to “out” key subversives such as Alger Hiss. Hiss had served in the State Department and was instrumental in founding the United Nations, serving as its first acting secretary-general. In televised hearings, Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist and then senior editor for Time magazine, told the committee that Hiss was a Soviet agent and had fabricated 80 percent of his testimony. Hiss was convicted of perjury two years later (the statute of limitations for espionage had run out) and sentenced to five years in prison.
Hiss was a well-connected operative in what we now call the Deep State. JBS founder Robert Welch called Hiss “one of the Conspiracy’s most able, cunning, and audacious agents.”
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