***** as you want about using Wiki, but it is a good place to start in trying to get factual;
...
The
House Committee on Un-American Activities (
HCUA), popularly dubbed the
House Un-American Activities Committee (
HUAC), was an investigative
committee of the
United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having either
fascist or
communist ties. It became a standing (permanent) committee in 1945, and from 1969 onwards it was known as the
House Committee on Internal Security. When the House abolished the committee in 1975,
[1] its functions were transferred to the
House Judiciary Committee.
The committee's anti-communist investigations are often associated with
McCarthyism, although
Joseph McCarthy himself (as a
U.S. Senator) had no direct involvement with the House committee.
[2][3] McCarthy was the chairman of the
Government Operations Committee and its
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, not the House.
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en.wikipedia.org
Note that HCUA/HUAC were the ones whom went after the "Entertainment" Industry: ~ Writers, Actors, Movie makers, etc.
McCarthy was focused on Communist infiltration of the Federal Government and USA Military. While chastised by many, especially on the political Left (hint!~hint!) he would later be vindicated in most part by the declassification of the Venona Project.
One facet and consideration;
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What would become known as the McCarthy era began before McCarthy's rise to national fame. Following the breakdown of the wartime East-West alliance with the Soviet Union, and with many remembering the
First Red Scare, President
Harry S. Truman signed an
executive order in 1947 to screen federal employees for possible association with organizations deemed "totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive", or advocating "to alter the form of Government of the United States by unconstitutional means." ...
...
en.wikipedia.org
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The
Venona project was a United States
counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's
Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the
National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until October 1, 1980.
[1] It was intended to decrypt messages transmitted by the
intelligence agencies of the
Soviet Union (e.g. the
NKVD, the
KGB, and the
GRU).
[2] Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, the program continued during the
Cold War, when it was considered an enemy.
During the 37-year duration of the Venona project, the Signal Intelligence Service decrypted and translated approximately 3,000 messages.
[3] The
signals intelligence yield included discovery of the
Cambridge Five espionage ring in the United Kingdom
[4] and Soviet espionage of the
Manhattan Project in the U.S.
[5] (known as project Enormous). Some of the espionage was undertaken to support the
Soviet atomic bomb project. The Venona project remained secret for more than 15 years after it concluded. Some of the decoded Soviet messages were not
declassified and published by the United States until 1995.
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en.wikipedia.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTW, much of this was already covered in another thread on this Board. Just recently.
www.timothysnyder.org
