TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93HT0266> <link 93XP0192> <link 93XP0156> <link 93HT0295> <title> 1940s: "Un-American Activities" </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1940s Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> "Un-American Activities" </hdr> <body> [But there were looming shadows over the country, cast by the intensifying Cold War. As Soviet-style Communism was revealed as a monolithic movement intent on relentlessly advancing the interests of the Soviet Union everywhere in the world, U.S. Communists became suspect, not because of anything they had done, but just because they were Communists. It was true that Americans had been, and still were, spying for the Soviet Union, and others were conspiring to infiltrate important American institutions, like labor unions, in order to influence them to take pro-Communist positions and actions. But in the race to identify and punish these agents, many innocent people lost jobs and friends, and were harassed by the police and FBI. Among the most celebrated congressional investigations into Communist infiltration was that directed at the film industry: the case of the so-called "Hollywood Ten" writers and producers believed to be Communists or to have Communist connections. It set the tone and style for extravaganzas, by McCarthy and others, to come in the 1950s. In the parade of witnesses before the House Un-American Activities Committee were some famous names and faces.] (November 3, 1947) The witnesses, famed and photogenic, the heroic, romantic faces known to all the U.S.--and to all the world as representing the U.S.--kept coming. Robert Montgomery turned up, looking like a handsome, but not incredibly handsome, broker. Said ex-Naval Commander Montgomery: "I gave up my job to fight totalitarianism called Fascism, and I am ready to do it again to fight totalitarianism called Communism." Dancer-Actor George Murphy and lazily-drawing Actor Gary Cooper followed him to the stand. By week's end the committee had heard testimony from 21: Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, soberly warned against the dangers of Red-baiting. Said he: "I abhor the Communist philosophy, but...I hope that we never are prompted by fear of Communism into compromising any of our democratic principles." Walt Disney, film-father of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, told how the Reds had first tried to put a crimp in World-Girdler Mickey, the traveling salesman of the U.S. When the Disney studios went on strike in 1937, he said, Labor Leader Herbert Sorrell admitted that Communist money had financed the walkout. (December 8, 1947) The motion picture industry, whose aim is always to please the greatest number, last week staged its sequel to the big show put on by the Thomas Un-American Activities Committee. Fifty of the industry's top executives, representing virtually every U.S. film producer, got together in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. After two days of conferences, they fired the ten Hollywood writers and producers cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify whether or not they are Communists. Said the 50: "We will not knowingly employ a Communist." They then asked Congress to establish a policy covering employment of Communists, to "assist American industry to rid itself of subversive, disloyal elements." The hard fact was that the atmosphere of fear was heaviest around the box office. Most of the cinemoguls were scared stiff by what they thought was the average moviegoer's indignation over Communism. In Hollywood there was fear of further movie retrenchments; last week Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer slashed its payroll by 40% and other studios were firing hundreds of carpenters, electricians and eyebrow-pencilers. The movie bosses were in for a long and probably bitter legal fight with the ten talented men who got the pink slips of dismissal. The film industry, they cried, had been "stampeded into surrendering" its freedom of ideas and expression. (May 31, 1948) Last week Screen Writers Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson, who had been found guilty of contempt by District of Columbia juries, were each sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of $1,000. The other eight of Hollywood's "unfriendly ten"--who had also refused to answer when asked whether or not they were Communists--waived jury trials. They agreed to rest their fate on the outcome of appeals to higher courts by Trumbo and Lawson. [From the Hollywood Ten to the New York Twelve: beginning in August 1948, a trial of U.S. Communist Party leaders--comparable in length, delaying tactics by lawyers and obstreperousness by defendants to that of the "Chicago Seven" leftists in the 1960s--was presided over by long-suffering New York Judge Harold Medina. It was to decide an important question about America's Communists.] (October 24, 1949) Almost nine months of relevant and irrelevant wrangling, or sneering and shouting by defense attorneys, of contradictory testimony from Reds, ex-Reds, agents of the FBI, of high excitement and vast boredom came to an end then in an instant of dead hush. Pretty Mrs. Thelma Dial, wife of a musician, foreman of the jury, looked straight in front of her and said: "We find each and everyone of the defendants guilty." The Smith Act made it a crime to teach or advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government, or to conspire to commit such acts. There was no question of an overt act of violence; no revolution had actually been attempted. Had the activities of the eleven then constituted for the U.S. what Justice Holmes once characterized as "clear and present danger"? The defendants had merely plotted and planned, taught and preached. No matter how unpopular such activities, wasn't the law the forbade them an infringement of the First Amendment, an abridgment of the right of free speech? The day before the verdict, Judge Harold Medina (rhymes with arena) had give the jury a long and careful charge. He made it clear that despite the outcries of leftists, the Communist Party, as a political party was not on trial. Only the eleven were on trial--eleven individuals charged with criminal conspiracy. The jury was not to try to decide whether the whole U.S. Communist Party was a criminal conspiracy; that question was not before it. What Judge Medina was also saying was that it was not necessary to show the presence of clear and present danger before the state took steps to protect itself. At that time it might be too late. It was enough to show that an evil thing existed, a thing which might, "at the earliest time that circumstances would permit," propel disaster on the state. and to forestall such a possibility, Congress might indeed rightly put a limitation on what use a man might make of free speech. On that Judge Medina confidently rested the validity of the trial, and instructed the jury to pass on the guilt or innocence of the defendants under the Smith Act. [The Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 1951.] [Perhaps the strangest, and probably the most publicized, "Communist" case was the conflict of personalities and lifestyles that emerged in the repeated confrontations between two supposed ex-Communist agents: Whittaker Chambers, reclusive, unprepossessing senior editor of TIME (on leave of absence), who admitted being a former Soviet agent; and Alger Hiss, bright, urbane self-assured government official, who denied it all.] (September 6, 1948) By the time Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers stood up to each other in public last week, it was clear to everyone that they had known each other quite well in the mid '30s. Those were the days when Hiss was publicly on the rise as a bright young new Dealer and Chambers was an undercover Communist agent. The point which the House Un-American Activities Committee wanted to demonstrate was that--as Chambers had testified--they had been Communists together. Hiss stoutly continued to deny the charge. but he had backtracked once before. He had first denied ever having known Chambers, then admitted that he knew him as "George Crosley," a free-lance writer. Would the rest of his story stand up under searching examination and a public confrontation with Chambers? Last week, with television and newsreel cameras whirring, Hiss and Chambers faced each other in the big, air-conditioned house caucus room. To Hiss, Chambers was still "George Crosley." To Chambers, Hiss was Hiss--"the closest friend I ever had in the Communist Party. Then, for more than six hours, the committee's questioners tried to pin Alger Hiss down to fine details. Lawyer Hiss, a Harvard Law School graduate and a onetime secretary to Oliver Wendell Holmes, was not an easy man to pin down. He was cool, deliberate and professional, at times tripping up and correcting his questioners, at all times insisting on giving a precise answer, knowing better than anyone that a possible perjury charge hung on his every word, he almost never offered a flat yes or a flat no. His favorite phrase, as he fenced tediously with the committee, was: "To the best of my recollection." He used it and similar phrases 198 times. Then, while Hiss took a seat among the reporters, the committee summoned Chambers to the witness chair. What had Chambers thought of Hiss's testimony? Said Chambers: "Mr. Hiss is lying." Chambers was asked what motive he could have for accusing Hiss of being a Communist. Chambers' voice was close to breaking, and some of his listeners thought that he was close to tears as he answered: "The story has spread that...I am working out some old grudge or motives of revenge or hatred. I do not hate Mr. Hiss. We were close friends, but we are caught in a tragedy of history. Mr. Hiss represents the concealed enemy against which we are all fighting, and I am fighting. I have testified against him with remorse and pity, but in a moment of history, in which this nation now stands, so help me God, I could not do otherwise." Summing up the Hiss-chambers case, the committee reported that Hiss had been "vague and evasive," while Chambers had been "forthright and emphatic." "The verifiable portions of Chambers' testimony," the committee said, "have stood up strongly; the verifiable portions of the Hiss testimony have been badly shaken." The hearing has "definitely shifted the burden of proof from Chambers to Hiss." [Hiss challenged Chambers to repeat his charges in public. When Chambers did so, Hiss sued him for slander. To bolster his case, Chambers produced a sheaf of confidential documents, some of them copied in what was attested to be Hiss' handwriting. The House Un-American Activities Committee thereupon subpoenaed Chambers to produce any other documents or evidence in his possession.] (December 13, 1948) That night two committee investigators tramped up to the door of the farmhouse. Chambers examined their credentials, switched on a string of yard lights, and led them to his garden. He pointed to a rude circle of squash, each of which had been arranged to point at a yellow pumpkin, and said: "Here's what you're looking for." After a moment of hesitation, one agent learned over curiously and examined the pumpkin. Its stem had not been severed and close examination revealed that its top had been sliced off and then carefully replaced. Its hollow interior held three aluminum capsules of microfilm. Chambers explained that he had picked the pumpkin as a hiding place that morning before leaving for Washington, said that he had been afraid Communists might search his house and barn while he was away. The microfilm yielded a three-ft. pile of photostatic copies of highly confidential military and State Department dispatches. One came from Ambassador William Bullitt in Paris. One bore a heading which explained that it had been handed to the German Ambassador by Under Secretary of State Summer Welles. They were dated during the years 1937 and 1938. (December 27, 1948) The question was carefully phrased. Had Alger Hiss or his wife ever turned over any Government documents to Whittaker Chambers? In a hushed room in New York's federal courthouse, Alger Hiss, onetime State Department official, listened to the question. Outside, a wet snow was falling on the city. Hiss, the man with the impeccable background, answered: "Never..." Would Hiss say that he had never seen Chambers, the self-confessed ex-Communist espionage agent, after Jan. 1, 1937? Replied Hiss: "Yes, I think I can definitely say that." Alger Hiss presented himself once again in Judge Clancy's courtroom, his debonair manner had vanished. His boyish face was a bleak, set mast. He was charged, he was told, with perjury. How did he plead? "I plead not guilty to both counts," he said. His trial was set for the end of January. If convicted, the penalty could be up to five years in prison and a $2,000 fine on each count. (July 1, 1949) There were, Prosecutor Tom Murphy continued, three uncontradicted facts: 1) that Chambers had in his possession copies of secret State Department documents; 2) that these documents were all dated in the first three months of 1938; 3) that all but one of the typed documents were copied on the Hiss typewriter. With all "that country bumpkin stuff," the defense attorney had refuted none of these points. Then Murphy took up the defense's explanation of where the Hiss typewriter was at the time the confidential documents were typed on it. The Hisses had said that in 1937 they had given it to Pat Catlett, son of their Negro maid. Well, then, how did State Department documents get typed on it in 1938? "The Catletts didn't know how to type. And the Catletts didn't know Chambers." He reminded the jury of Pat Catlett's testimony that he had taken the Hiss typewriter to one of two Woodstock repair shops soon after the Hisses gave it to him--but one shop had not opened until May 1938, the other not until September 1938. "Those are facts you cannot change," said big Tom Murphy. After the jury retired, Alger Hiss sat in the courtroom reading a magazine. He seemed unworried, even happy. As the evening wore on, he read bulldog editions of the morning papers, chewed gum. As hour after hour dragged by, Hiss's confident smile faded. Everybody thought that if there were to be an acquittal, it would come fast. That was the way Stryker and Hiss had pitched their case--to brand the whole charge ridiculous. Obviously, some members of the jury did not think so. In the jury room, tempers grew short. The jury was locked up for the night and returned still undecided. Twice, the foreman reported that they did not think they could reach a verdict. Twice, Judge Kaufman sent them back to try again. Finally, 28 hours and 40 minutes after it had received the case, the jury announced a hopeless and final deadlock. One of Hiss's attorneys leaned over to ask a juror how they had balloted. The answer was a shock to him; eight to four for conviction. Amid the closing hubbub, Alger Hiss sat motionless, staring straight ahead. Priscilla Hiss watched him, her eyes moist. At last she took his arm and they walked out together. Hiss said, "Please, please," to questions and walked on. Outside, they got into a red Chevrolet with some friends. Photographers rushed to the window. Alger Hiss hid his face behind a magazine. [Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950.] </body> </article> </text>