House Un-American Activities Committee
The McCarran Act created a similar
investigative committee structure in the Senate. HUAC was also
instrumental in making sure the Hollywood
blacklist worked the way anticommunists wanted. According to
critics like Victor Navasky, HUAC helped create a climate in which there
were fewer than ever films with "social themes." The logic of HUAC
investigations implied an anticommunist
theory of language. HUAC led the way, in the late 1930s, in
conservative attacks on federally supported
art. In one of its reports, HUAC offered lines from the poetry of Sir
Walter Scott in defense of its activities.
There is a documentary available
about HUAC.
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Document URL:
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modified: Thursday, 31-May-2007 09:42:21 EDT