good afternoon. so we have talked quarter about conspiracy theories, u.s. history. we talked about conspiracy theories in the 19th century, which mainly on secret societies and on marginalized groups, particularly religious minorities. and then we about how in the 20th century there is this peer fit as americans more afraid of conspirators in the us government and the us government itself becomes the focus of their fears. our topic for today is red scare. the fear of communists infiltrating institutions in american life. in the late 1940s and 1950s, fear of communists in nato meant communists in the government and communists in so that's our

topic for today. now as you know this is the second red scare us history we talked earlier about the first red scare which happened right after the bolshevik revolution in was fear in the united states that there could be a similar revolution here right this second red scare it last much longer and it's much consequential than the first red scare. right. so as i'm talking about today, i want you to keep a couple of questions in the back of your mind. first of all, is this really a conspiracy theory? should we be considering this in conspiracy theory, class? because as we'll discuss there were some real soviet spies in the us in the 1930s and during world war two. so if there was a real conspiracy, should you call it a conspiracy theory? if they were all were real witches, should you call it a witch hunt? so i'm going to argue that it is

a conspiracy theory. and the reason is that some of the leading some of the leaders in the red scare, some of the most extreme anti-communists made, a leap in their logic that we're familiar with by now in studying conspiracy theories. remember we talked about richard in his famous essay, the paranoid style in american politics and how he identified that in every example of what he called the paranoid style or what would call a conspiracy theory, there's a leap from the undeniable to the unbelievable that there's a leap in argument from fact, fake fact, fact, undeniable fact to, and therefore there's a secret cabal controlling the world. and so what i'm going to look at today in part is how, when, who made those leaps in logic, that leap from the undeniable to the

unbelief. all right. so that's one question to keep in the back of your mind is what makes this a conspiracy theory? another question i'd like you to keep in mind is so what what's the significance? we've talked a lot this quarter about why americans believe theories at particular points points in history. and i think that's very important for his story to get a window into history to look at why people believe them, to really empathize with the people of the past and say what motivates, but also when, we're studying conspiracy theories. i think we need to look at the effects. what are the effects of these widespread beliefs what what were the main effects of the scare? why did it matter and then finally course as always when you're studying the past a good to ask yourself is are there any lessons that we can learn from

this episode in the past that will help us better understand the present? okay all right. so with that, let begin with a little bit of context before the late 1940s. i want to begin the story by talking about the communist party in the united states at its popularity, its moment of peak in the 1930s. so about a decade, a decade and a half before the red scare. so the us communist party, the communist party of the usa had its heyday, its peak popularity, its its biggest moment appeal and attractiveness to americans in the 1930s. at that time there were by 1938, about 100,000 american kids who were card carrying members of the communist. they signed party cards, they

were capital c communists. and if you belong to the party was quite demanding. they had that were very expensive and you had to go to three or four meetings a week. so about 100,000 people, american who did that. in addition there's about a million americans who are close the party but don't join the party because it is such a demanding organization but they sympathize with the party and they consider themselves, you know, small communist, right. they join the party in the great depression because it's the great depression, they look around them, their country and they see high unemployment poverty, inequality, racism. and so they believe they were living through a moment in world that marx had predicted. you know, marx believed there were three phases in history was feudalism and there was

capitalism the capitalism would have a big crisis and then there would be communism. and so when they looked around in the great depression, they said, well, obviously this is the moment, this is the crisis of capitalism we will now move to a communist society. and they believe the party's rhetoric about, how it would lead to economic and racism and social injustice. all right. so i don't want to make and i want to exaggerate the appeal because there's 132 million people living in the united states this time about, a million communists. you know that's less than 1%. but still, it's a million people. it's a significant social movement. all right. who are these communists? well, they're all over the united states is a picture of a mayday parade in sacramento in 1934. sacramento a very visible vibe

and two energetic communist party. and we had lots of marches and parades and protests. there were also very visible communist party events in laos, in san francisco in the san joaquin valley, and that's in california, rural and urban california, all the nation there were rural and, urban areas where you could find very active communist parties who were the communists. well, mostly they were people who were marginalized. so very poor people, coal miners, farm workers, factory workers, people who were most disadvantaged by the depression also they were disproportionately immigrant, disproportionately jewish immigrants. there were, however, some people in 100,000 members of the party who were professionals or an

intellectuals who were teachers, professors, screenwriters or government officials. all right. so during this period of the 1930s, when the communist party reaches its in popularity, there still is anti-communism in american life. you can find books like this that are published this is called the red network. it's by a woman who is essentially a professor and anti-communist or she lists who she believes are communist in american life. lots of books like this. you can go to an anti-communist speeches, find anti articles in the newspaper. so it isn't like anti-communism disappears during the great depression. it doesn't even disappear during war two when the soviet union is with the united states in fighting the axis powers. but it is more submerged like it surges during the first red scare and then it significantly

decreases. but there are still anti-communist throughout the interwar period. then world war two ends in 1945 and after the war ended there are signs that there's going to be a resurgence of anti-communism. one of the first signs is that there are several political candidates around the country who run for office in 1946. so is the year after the war ended. they run for office in 1946 and make as one of their primary themes the danger was that the nation faces from domestic communism, that there are enemies within who are communists secret communist former communists people who are working secret americans who are working secretly with the soviet

union. one example of this sort of anti-communist runs for office in 1946 is richard nixon, who runs for the first time for political office. he's a lawyer and navy veteran in orange county in 1946. he runs for congress, his first elected office in 1946. and one of his major themes is that his opponent, who's a liberal democrat, is actually secretly helping the communists, has communist sentiments and is therefore a danger. so nixon wins. in 1946, there were several members of congress who get elected that year who were starting to make this a theme right? so that's 1946. then in 1947, there are several that the context for a resurgence of anti communism one

has to do with a global con tax. president harry truman in 1947 proclaimed to his truman dr. an in which he said that the united states would support free peoples all over the world. he defined free peoples as people fighting communism. so in 1947, the cold war has really begun. the united states has declared that it is going to fight communism all over the globe. it's obviously important context for understanding the figure of communism at home. truman also in 1947 starts a loyalty program for government workers, which means that you can only work for the federal if you swear loyalty to the us constitution and the fbi conducts background checks on people who are working for the federal government. this loyalty program begins with truman. over the years, it becomes a

much extensive and intensive, much more stringent criteria. over the next decade. so but it does begin in 1947. yes. question. do you need to move the mike for him or not. for? where was the socialist party during this time? did they have more members? and what was their relationship to the communist party? the socialist party was very hostile to the communist party. the socialist party believed that the communist party was making it much more difficult for leftists in the united states, the socialist party was not connected to the soviet union and was committed to democracy and to peaceful transition to socialism.

so socialists tended to be very hostile to the communists and the socialist did exist. but they're not at all in league with the. all right. so this is 1947 and it was 1947 that we get our first major episode in what would be called the red scare when there is a big investigation alleged. subversives, communists in the entertainment industry, particularly in the film industry. right now. it's in 1947 that the house un-american activities committee goes to hollywood to, hold hearings to investigate the extent of communist infiltration and of the film industry anti-communist by. 1947 or increasingly worried that the media have been

corrupted, particularly entertainment media, and that domestic communists have infiltrated the film industry later tv industry, the radio, and are using their positions in the entertainment industry to create entertainment that will weaken american resistance to communism or convince americans to become that they're molding american. and so house un-american activities, which had been around since 1930s looking at fascist and communists in the united states by 1947, has it exclusively focused on communist subversion action in the united states and, they decide there's such a danger communists infiltrating, the film industry that they take the whole committee, the congressional committee from washington, d.c., to hollywood to, hold hearings

to investigate, hold hearings to investigate the extent of communist infiltration of the film industry industry. now, it's true that there were some communists in the film industry people, mostly behind the camera, who had either were either still communist party members a lot more who had been communist party members, but were not any more. there's not a lot of evidence that they were able to influence the kind of movies that were built, that were built, that were were produced. the movie industry is very capitalist. the studios are huge. they're trying to make money. there's really the the investigators can't find evidence of communist propaganda in the movies. the there are three movies that were made during world two about the valor of the soviets when

the us was allied with the soviet union. but that's not so much because there's common in the movie industry as the industry executives wanted, to curry favor with the us government and say, look how patriotic we are, we're showing these, we're making these movies about our soviet allies right? but nevertheless, the house activities committee is convinced in the future there could be this danger. so they come to hollywood, they started out having people testify who are called friendly witnesses. this included the actor ronald. these were people in the industry who sympathize with the committee, they're friendly. then they go to unfriendly witnesses, people who have been accused being communists and those witnesses are extremely unfriendly. they're hostile. and in some cases they start

shouting the committ members, there are, ten in particular. here's a picture of seven of them walking up the steps of the courthouse to become as the hollywood ten, because they completely refuse to coorate with the committee. and they protest that they should not have to testify about their political beliefs, that the first amendment protects them. so cite the first amendment refused to cooperate with the committee. they believe that the supreme court will back them up on this, but it turns out they're wrong and eventually they lose their appeals and they get sent to prison. now, the hollywood ten case has a chilling on the rest of hollywood because becomes clear, first of all, that you can't cite the first amendment. and second, that you real dangers if you refuse to, cooperate. now, another option available.

well, two people who actually were communists in the 1930s is to take the fifth amendment before the committee, so that when the committee says are you now or have you ever been a member, the communist party, you can say, i refuse to testify. the grounds that my answer incriminate me. think this the court allows it is they can refuse to testify based on the fifth amendment, but if they take the fifth amendment, then they are blacklisted. they're not sent to prison because it's legal to take the fifth amendment, but they do but they do end up on a blacklist. what this means is, if you're on the blacklist, you can't get work. and further blacklist expands to be about 300 people. and at last, for more than a

decade now. one of the reasons that these people refused to cooperate, even if they no longer support the communist party, is if they cooperate, they are pressed to name every that they can think of that saw at a party meeting. so if you answer truthfully and say, yes, i was a communist in 1935, but only briefly and i'm not anymore, they would keep asking you until you named everybody that you saw at the last party meeting. so in order to avoid in order to become to avoid being an informer, these people take the fifth amendment and then they end up losing their jobs. there's the blacklist, which is the official list of people who take the fifth amendment. there is also what some people informally call gray list. this is a list of hundreds of more names, people who lose their jobs in hollywood because they're suspected of having leftist sympathies. they never actually get called the committee. but the movie industry suspects

them of making the movie industry vulnerable to these who ask how said american activities committee investigations? yes. question yeah, i was wondering, though, because it's like a house committee how able to affect, which is like a separate industry on its own and if people like higher up in hollywood are sitting on the house committee because how do you just prevent an industry from hiring people? that's a really good question. one thing that the congressional committees can do is threaten legislation like we will pass laws that have official censorship. if you don't get your house in order. the other that they can use their political power politicians as representatives, congress to organize boycotts. and so the the movie industry is frightened and they decide, okay, what we're going to do is

and appease this committee. and one way we can appease it is to set up these blacklists. yeah, very good question. all right. so there's the black list. there's the gray lists there is also among people who are left who don't lose their jobs. there's an a of edgy topics. this is especially true after 1951, when there's another major hugh whack investigation of hollywood in the movie industry gets really scared and they decide you know, what we should do is not make any movies that can be construed in the least sense of having communist sympathies. so no movies about about labor struggle, about racism. you and so the people who are left in the industry tend to produce movies that are much conformist, much more than movies in the past. so it not only affects hollywood

by having all these people lose their jobs, but the people who are left are determined to make certain kind of movie that are either apolitical or, conservative, and then finally there's some of the studios, respawn by making overtly anti-communist films again in an attempt appeal to hugh mark and prove their patriotism so there a whole slew in the 1950s of films the evils of the communist party. one of the best there's a whole lot of really bad ones that i would not recommend to you, but if you're interested in a good one. this is from 1962, the manchurian. and i'm mentioning this one in particular, because not only is it a good movie, but it it sets this idea of a manchurian candidate that we'll see again and again in conspirator theories, the basic plot of the movie is that an american soldier is kidnaped during the

korean war and taken to manchuria where he is brainwashed and programed to be an assassin by the communists. then they release him. he goes to the united states and. he is set up to kill a presidential candidate, and once he kills the presidential candidate, then the path will be to the presidency for another politician who is controlled by the soviet union. so is a very clever 1962 communist movie showing the evils of communism and also setting up this idea that see again and again in american entertainment of brainwashed americans who are who the commie is can use for all kinds of evil purposes. all right, so the red has this big effect. hollywood, starting in 1947 through the 1950s.

there is also, of course, in this era, a great fear of communism. the government and, this fear that really takes off year after the hollywood hearings. it takes off. 1948 because it's too defectors to, ex-communist come forward and tell their stories and very dramatic ways and their stories. americans that there are the us government is filled with communists. right. so let me talk about each of these defectors and their stories. right? this is the first one. her name was elizabeth. she went public. 1948 to reveal all that she had been in charge of a soviet spy ring in the united states from. 1938 to 1945. or who was she and? how had she gotten involved in

soviet spying? right. all right. so elizabeth bentley was from a very old american family. she she had an ancestor who came over on the mayflower. certainly her family had been in connecticut for generations she was protestant. she was middle class. she was a republican. she went when time when it was time to go to college, she went to vassar, prestigious women's. then she went to columbia university for her master's. and in the middle of the 1930s, she finished, her master's at columbia, found herself in new york city. and she decided to join the communist party. she joined the communist party, presumably for the same reason that 100,000 other americans did at that time, for the reasons that she it would be the best way to get social justice in the united states right. she joined the communist party, but then she did something that

99.5% of american communists not do. and that is that she also became a soviet spy. she a soviet spy by volunteering herself. now, she was educated. she knew to do these things. so she went to the communist party headquarters in new york city and said, would like to be a spy. i imagine communist party headquarters, people that you have contacts with soviet spies. i would like to be one. and her pitch to them was that she was? elizabeth bentley from connecticut from vassar middle class protestant. nobody said is going to suspect me because there are these excuse me, these stereotypes of communists, of being immigrants and -- and poor. oh, nobody's going to suspect me, of being a communist and so they put her in contact with the

soviet spy, which i'll call the changed its name a few in this era, but it became the kgb. so she becomes a soviet intelligence agent, a kgb agent, and they turned her over to a kgb operative in new york city. his name was jacob golos, and he trained her to be a soviet spy. he trained her with, you know, disappearing ink and how to check if somebody is tailing you dead, drops everything you've read about in spy novels or seen in spy movies. he trained her with these things and they fell in love. and she moved in with him. they lived together from 1938 to 1943 until his death. he was the great love of her life. yeah. then he suddenly died in 1943 of a heart attack. he was a lot older than she was, but still was quite unexpected.

he died and the soviets then put her in charge of his spy network. they didn't usually trust women, which jobs like that, but knew the work she had worked for him. she knew the job and it was a war. they were distracted. so they let her take over. they almost immediately regretted it. however, what she did them was that she managed to go losses, agents, americans who work for the kgb there were about 30 of them. some of them were in industry. they saw stole stole industrial like film processing for the soviets. some of them were in the government, mid-level bureaucrats in places like the bureau of economic warfare. so she managed his his agents and she continued to manage them after died. but she got more and more disillusioned when she was working directly with the kgb instead of with her lover and

began to wonder if she was on the right side. so she started drinking a lot drinking was always a problem. her drinking a lot having a lot of sexual partners, going to bars and hooking up with guys. the soviets began to worry that this was not the best tradecraft for a spy. and so she began to pick up on fact that they were disillusioned with her long short, she decided to defect. she was afraid that the soviets assassinate her and they were talking about doing that to shut her up. didn't around to it. she was worried that the fbi was about to catch her, which they weren't. but she was about getting caught or killed. so she decided to go to the fbi. she went to the fbi and she gave them a list. spent three days being

debriefed, named absolutely every person she could think of not only the 30 agents who she had mentioned, she had mentored, handled, but also 80 additional names of americans and russians, names had come up in conversation. while she in the room. so she a top spy. she had sometimes gone to parties or met with friends of jacob golos, and she had heard gossip. so she gave the fbi everything. sometimes it was fragmentary, sometimes it was only a first name, but she gave them long list. right? so the fbi had this trove information dropped in their lap and j. edgar hoover, the head of the fbi tried to keep this information very he didn't even the president bentley's identity he told the president that there was a defector but he referred to the defector as grigory and

used him pronouns tried hard to keep her identity secret, but he did tell top british spies, and they told the head of soviet counterintelligence for the british guy in charge of catching soviet spies. the british? his name was kim philby and he was a soviet spy. he was a mole. so almost the soviets knew that she had defected. all right. so i this story about philby, not just because it's an interesting story and intelligence history, but also it's very significant because what the soviets learned immediately after bentley had defected was that all of their spies in the united states were vulnerable, not only the people she had directly managed, but anybody she might have encountered or gossip that she might have heard. and so in 1945, the soviets to shut down their intelligence networks in north america,

there's very little soviet spying in the united states after 1945 because of bentley's defection, now, what that means is when americans start getting really afraid of soviet spies and worried about soviet spies. in 1948, there's very little soviet spying that's actually going on and it's historical. that point. okay. okay. all right. so she worked for them, but she worked for them for the fbi. then as a double agent, trying to gather evidence against the people that she accused of being soviet spies doesn't get anywhere because they all know that she's working for fbi. but she worked as a agent by about 1947. she getting restless. the fbi paid, her, but not very much. and she starts noticing, you know, it's a cold war truman doctrine loyalty program you

back hearings in hollywood, people are really afraid of communism. and she also starts noticing there are a lot of ex communist people who are apostate have left the communist party who were writing bestselling books about. the dangers of communism. in many of the cases, these people who write the memoirs and get paid to give lectures, they aren't. they were never big players in the communist party. they're nobodies, yet they're selling about. i was a communist so she thinks you know what i have a good story i have a story is going to sell books because i was not only a communist, i was a spy. so she goes to the fbi, says, i want to go public and sell my story. they said, no, no, no, no. and she didn't listen. she seldom listened to authority figures. and so in 1948, she decided to go to the newspapers and, tell her story in of monetizing it,

her is she will then write her memoir earn of go on the paidecture circuit as an ex-communist in other words, this conspir theout communism in america and the threat of domestic communism fo she goes public, she just recognizes that there's an rtuny to uel the flames all right so she went to the newspapers they told her story very sensationalistic she's a red spike lee and she's the blond queen. she's the mystery blond. then she was called to congress to testify. so here she is again, testifying congress. she told her story. congress, one key problem she has is that she has no documentation. she take any documents with her when she defected. so she's got no proof for her story. so at that point, the people on the house activities committee

who wanted to believe her, who wanted to support her story, decide to call to testify, another defector to her up and. so this is where we get the story of the second defector, whittaker chambers chambers. so whittaker chambers was known to members of the house un-american activities committee in 1948 when bentley was testifying because he was a well-connected journalist on the right. he was known throughout washington as someone who was an admitted ex-communist. he said he had been a communist in the 1930s. he had realized how evil was and now he was working against communism. he had told many people that he knew secret communists in the u.s. government in the 1930s. so the house un-american activities committee called him after bentley's testimony, to

ask him to tell his and essentially to affirm that what she said made sense. he had never met her, but he said, first of all, i think she's telling the truth because i too was a secret communist at this point. he doesn't say he was a spy. he says i was a secret communist. i knew secret communists in, the us government. so her story sounds plausible to me, that's all. he's asked to testify to at the beginning. is, is her story plausible or right? chambers has an advantage telling his story that bentley did not, and that is that he has the ability to name names that. people in washington have of bentley were as i said, mid-level bureaucrats mostly in the bureau of economic. it's hard to get excited about that this person you never heard of in this bureau you never

heard of was communist spy. but chambers is able to name a couple of people that. well-connected insiders have heard of. right. and the most important these names is alger hiss. so insiders in washington, political journalists, members, congress, congressional staff members have heard of alger hiss. he's a name that's familiar. that's because alger hiss had been in the state department for several years. he was not the secretary state, but he advised the secretary state and he was connected. a couple of events that got a lot of fresh press coverage. he was with the state department delegation that went to yalta with franklin. yalta was the summit, the last summit of world war two, the where roosevelt was still alive. and it was controversy still, because a lot of conservatives

by 1948 believed that roosevelt had sold out at yalta right. so alger hiss was known as somebody who went to yalta and advised president roosevelt at alger hiss is also known as an american who helped set up the united nations. he's one of several state department who helped organize the first conference of the united nations. a lot of conservatives don't like the united nations because nationalists, they're america first ers. they think that the us ceding some of its power to an outside force with the united nations. so he's associated with a couple of things that anti-communist already hate. he's no longer in government this point he's working for a non profit but nevertheless this revelation that alger hiss was a secret communist in the 1930s has as the symbol resonance because of alger was a communist then like bentley's white

anglo-saxon protestant good family his case harvard you know knows everyone. if he's a communist and how can you tell who a communist is, they might be hiding everywhere. they might be influencing the secretary of state. they might be influencing important decisions. those made at yalta. all right. so alger hiss naming. alger hiss as a secret communist was a big deal. he was called the test defy. he insisted the chambers lying. he said, i never even met is guy. he's making this up. and he was insistent that chambersasut to destroy him, that his then decided to sue chbers for, slander, get money for him for the consequences of lying about hiss. so it was at that point when chambers sued hiss that chambers

decided to change his story and he said actually, up until this point i have been defending hiss, i have been protecting him because it's not true when i said he was just a secret communist, he was also a spy. i confess that i was a spy. i managed agents just like elizabeth bentley. this was back in the mid 1930s. i was a manager of communist agents in the us government and alger hiss was one of my agents and so suddenly it's, it's a much more, it's a much bigger story. it's not just that alger hiss, the new the guy at yalta, the u.n. guy, is a secret communist, but also he's a soviet spy. chambers also said, i have not up until this point, but i have proof for this, because when i was a spy, which by now was, you know, over a decade, i saved documents, i figured the soviets might come after me.

so i told them i had a life. i had documents, proved my story, both print documents and microfilm, and i have hidden them. and if i die in a weird car accident, they're going to be revealed. so he tells the committee and he had saved these documents with a friend, and then right before he revealed them, he took the microfilm and he hid it in pumpkin, a hollowed out pumpkin on, his farm in maryland. so late at night. he then led investigators out this hike through his pumpkin patch on his maryland farm to this pumpkin is hollowed out. he lifts off the lid and inside is microfilm microfilm of soviet. i'm sorry, of state department documents from the 1930s some with alger hiss his handwriting on them. so he took this back the house un-american committee then had a big press conference of soviet

espionage in the roosevelt white house, and of course, the person on the house activities committee who was most happy about this is richard nixon, who has been talking about the dangers of domestic communism since, 1946. now it is just two years into his career and he has helped to prove there was this significant soviet in the roosevelt white house. so i love this picture of nixon because he was posing for the press here. he has the microfilm and he has a magnifying glass to read the microfilm. you can't actually microfilm with a magnifying glass. right. but it makes a picture. right. and he becomes rising star from this point on. and on the issue of the communist threat, right. okay. alger hiss was then tried. he had two trials, actually. second one, the first one was a hung jury. the second one, he was

convicted. so now you have two pieces of information, communism and the government. one is elizabeth bentley and her in the government till 1945. now alger hiss has been convicted of being a soviet spy spy. there's one other spy case that comes out in 1950 that i will discuss briefly here. but it is an important part of e story. this is a picture of ethel and julius rosenberg. they were arrested in the summer of 1954 for allegedly stealing the secret of the atomic bomb. this a case that came out of british investigation. the british had scovered that of their scientists in the manhattan project to build a bomb during the war had been giving information to the soviets. so british were able to identify this scientist. he then name some names that led

them eventually to ethel and rosenberg. the information from the british scientist probably helped soviets get a bomb quicker than they would have otherwise. maybe 1 to 4 years faster than if they had not gotten information. so the british spy in the project was important. ethel and julius rosenberg were really not important in that story. julius a spy and ethel knew that he was a spy. he stole some portant military. right. but were arrested in 1950. they're accused of ealing the secret of the atomic bomb. and they were executed in 1953. okay. so for people who are afraid of government, of communists in the government, you have bentley case. the his case now the rosenberg case, it seems to be evidence yet more subversion.

so what are the effects? well, what. is first president truman and then his successor president eisenhower, the loyalty program, it becomes a loyalty security program, which means it's not enough for you just to swear you're loyal to the us government. the fbi will try to determine if you are a security threat. so it's your loyalty. and also, do you threaten us security? i think many more fbi investigations as these investigate asians go forward. about 3000 federal workers lost their jobs in the loyalty probes were some these people communist spies? maybe the vast majority of. them were people who at some point in their past, their remote past or their past, closer past, had some contact

with some aspect of the american left, and they had been in the party or they had been in the socialist party, or they had been in the progressive party or. they had worked for unionization, or they had worked in pacifist groups or subscribe to the wrong magazines, or they went to the wrong bookstores, or they were denounced by their coworkers for saying things that seemed disloyal, like so, about 3000 workers were then fired as a result of these loyalty probes, an even bigger effect was what was called the lavender scare because soon as this loyalty security program expanded the us government decided that people who were gay or who appeared to be gay were a threat to national security. so this is called the lavender scare. it had even more victims than

the red scare. about 5000 federal workers lost their jobs for being queer the federal government. the federal bureau of investigation looked into their background and decided that they a security risk because their sexuality or their gender presentation. the reason foriven this was stated here in this us senate coittee was those who engaged in overt acts of perversion, as they call it, lack the emotional stability of normal persons and that one homosexual can pollute a government office that they wereulnerable to blackmail and that because they were allegedly perverted they were morally weak and could be put to use by the soviets. all right. so that's in effect, is that these people are then purged

from the federal government. the final point i want to make about communists and government is the way that the issue was weaponized by one particular. the us senator who gave his name to this era, joseph. joseph mccarthy. this is often called the mccarthy era. mccarthy because he was the most reckless proponent of these, he was pretty late though to the to the party, to the conspiracy theory he was elected to senate, to the senate, from. in 1946 and for first four years that he was in the senate. he did not make anti-communism big issue. but then in 1950, right after hiss was convicted and realized that this was a that a lot of americans held, that there were communists in the government in

1950. he decided to become the leader of the people charged that there was communism in the. so he burst into the public eye in february of 1950 when he went to west virginia to give a speech. and at the speech he gave this people a piece of paper over his head and said, i have here in my a list of 205 a list of names were made known to the secretary of state as being members of the communist party and who nevertheless are still in shaping policy in the state department and so how was different? how is this an escalation portion from what elizabeth bentley or whittaker chambers were saying? what do you identify as being the new accusation here? yes, that they were known to the state department. yes.

and chambers is talking about the mid 1930s and bentley is talking up until 1945. what mccarthy is saying is right now, 1950, this very moment we have communists, the state department, hundreds of communists in the state department alone and the state department knows the secretary of state knows why are they letting 200 known communists operate in the state department. well, he must be a communist himself. he must be a communist agent. now, he made this up. he didn't have a list, and he would go on to these unfounded, reckless accusations for the next several years at his this. the conspiracy theory that he offered and this was in 1951, a speech, the floor of the senate in, which he said he started talking all of the foreign policy that the united states

had suffered, the communist one, the civil war in china the soviets tested an atomic bomb. and he said, how can we account for our present situaon and unless we believe that high in this government are concerning, deliver us to disaster, this must be the product of a great conspiracy. copiracy on a scale s immense as to dwarf any such venture in the history of man, a conspiracy of infamy so black when it is finally exposan its principles shall be forever deserving of the malady, actions of all honest men. it's a conspiracy that goes all way to the top. biggest conspiracy in world history. it is a conspiracy which the us government is filled with, honeycombed with traitors who are working actively to make sure that the us loses to the communists and eventually that communism over the united states. so this is his big leap, right?

you have undeniable facts there. soviet spies in the government, soviet spies in military, especially during world two, when the us was allied with the soviet. now mccarthy was saying in saying and and in addition they're still here. they're dominating the government the secretary of the state and the secretary defense are their tools. are. all right. any questions about communism in the government. are all right. okay. let me now turn to the last segment of americans where there was a great fear the communists had infiltrated and were destroying american society from within. yes. question hundred. he it's unclear he made it up. yeah yeah. people have tried to figure out

why he said that described a number out of the hat out the air. yeah. okay. so anti-communist worried about indution, k-12 education, colleges universities they called communist educators reggie carter's. it's a little harder to quantify than it is to quantify the number of federal employees who lost their jobs because it happens at the local level in this country especially you know most education decisions were made at the local. so you're looking at school districts throughout, the united states, who hire, who hired and then fired unknown numbers people because they believed that they were communist. i want to talk about two of the most prominent it episodes in this period of fear that the educational institute agents of this country had been infiltrated by.

first of all, the first episode exam still happens here in california at the university of lifornia. all right. so in california. in sacramento, the state government had its own un-american activities committee. this happened in a lot of states. have the house un-american activities committee, and then there are many at the state level in california, the california activities committee was one of the most active. it had investigations. it had hearings that had blacklists. it would pressure both public employers, private employers to fire people because they were suspected of being communist the california un-american committee in the late 1940s pressured the uc board regents to require all faculty, just faculty. at that point to sign an oath, a loyalty oath.

and so the u.s. regents to do this, i put it on the slide here. the key part is that they had to swear that they were not a member of the communist party in to keep their job. now, the u.s. had for ever since like 1940 refused to anyone who was a communist. so at this point it was seemed very unlikely that there were any communist professors. if they were they were secret and presumably weren't going be disturbed by having to sign an oath and but the 1950, the regents said if you want to keep your job as a u.s. professor, have to sign this oath. there was a big controversy. a lot of professors mobilize to try and resist this. they said, i am not a communist. i have never been a communist, but academic, shared governance amendment. this should not be something that we have to sign on.

they said, i will not sign this. so there were about 30 people, 30 professors who refused to sign. in the end, it was a big number. it got whittled down as it became clear that they were going to fire you if you didn't sign it. so there were 30 in the end who said, i refuse to sign this oath. and so they were fired. now, over the next several years they appealed their firing through the courts. eventually they were offered the opportunity to get rehired if they signed another that some of them found less offensive. right. but they were all fired in 1950. and so has a chilling effect, not only in california, but throughout the nation. many public universities systems copy the uc loyalty us. now, this is a public university. so this controversy place at a public university, you can see

how the state legislature would have a lot influence over the board of regents. but this is true. this fear of communism and the communist, the communist also occurred in private university. and chief example. so i would like to give here at a private university concerns the case of linus the chemist and professor at the california institute of technology. all right. so let me give you a little of background on linus pauling. so you the stakes of his case. there he is as a young man, he was brilliant, a very young age, grew up oregon, went to oregon state university city at age 16. by age 19, he was teaching the chemistry classes there. it was called the boy professor. then he went, to caltech, got his ph.d. in chemistry, got on the faculty

there at age 26 and started a lot of field changing work in chemistry and then biochemistry. his greatest work was the nature of the chemical bond. it's there's the cover page printed there. he starts publishing on the nature of the chemical bond throughout, the 1930s, his work on chemical bonding is the most among the most widely cited scientific works of the 20th century. he then on to being really interested in biochemistry and living systems. during world war two, he the us government. he developed an oxygen meter for submarines that would help determine the level of oxygen in a submarine. got a presidential medal for that. and then after world war two, he decided, write a chemistry textbook, which became one of

the most widely assigned chemistry textbook generations of chemistry students. this helped him to become independently wealthy. so was a decorated renowned and now wealthy chemist who had helped transform american science in the late 1940s. now that he had his job secure. that he had money. he decided that he would get active in politics. he had never been active in politics before. he was in his lab all the time. but by this point is in his late forties and decided, you know, i'm going to start joining organizations. he joined civil rights organizations. he joined pacifist organizations and he starts speaking out. the red scare in particular. he comes to the defense of professors who were getting fired because of their refusal to sign loyalty oath or their supposed communist pasts. and so he starts speaking out,

being a leader of the people, of the professor those that are opposed to the red scare in education. he he. starts attracting the attention as he does this of this man j. edgar hoover. so pauling in becoming this outspoken anti anti-communist, someone who was saying anti communism has gone crazy. you are undermining american science and american education by attack on these educators. when he said this j. edgar hoover became convinced that that pauling must be a communist. he must be doing the soviets bidding if he was insisting that the red scare in education was wrong or going too far far. hoover was particularly upset

when he learned that pauling at first refused to to say anything about whether he had ever in the communist party, because he said, well, that's just pauling said, that's playing into their hands. so i'm just not even going to answer that question. eventually, caltech forced him to answer the question and he said truthfully that he had never been a communist. right. but hoover is convinced that's lie. and so what started to do was, first of all, he launched a major investigation. the angeles fbi office started interviewing everyone from pauling's past. in his present, his colleagues his neighbors. they started interviewing everyone that they knew who had gone to communist party in the 1930s in los angeles, trying to prove that he had been a communist, devoted tremendous resources to and came up with nothing. we're not able to find a single who could testify that pauling

ever been to a meeting or said anything in favor of the communists or the soviets. hoover though was convinced that pauling was just very good at covering his tracks. he urged the justice department prosecute pauling for perjury for hoover's view, lying about being a communist party. he pressured caltech, begin an investigation of pauling's politics. he started pressuring u.s. government agencies and private donors to yank their grants from. pauling's lab. he pressured universities around the country to rescind speaking invitations so pauling could not travel to discuss his research and then hoover in 1952 worked with the us passport office to deny pauling a passport so that

he could not travel abroad. it was this particular moment that pauling felt particularly oppressed by the fbi, because he really wanted to go to specific conference in london 1952, where he was going to see some photographs of, the of dna that he believed help him become the person who discovered the structure. dna was going to map the helix structure of dna. but he couldn't go to that conference couldn't work with those british scientists. and so it was a different group of british scientists who discovered the double helix of structure of dna. so what we have here is another case of a big leap. we have j. edgar hoover looking at linus pauling and saying, well, he is a leftist this guy is speaking out against me and he's speaking out against other. all of this is true.

therefore, he must be a soviet agent. therefore, i am in investigating him and trying to undermine his career. and remember that this is a time in u.s. when the us is involved in a cold war with the soviet union as a competition. that's not military and diplomat pick, it's technological, it's cultural and. hoover is willing to undermine one of america's greatest scientists because he so firmly believes this conspiracy theory. rh okay. you should not feel sorry for linus pauling because he was able to transcend all of this. in 1954, he awarded the nobel prize in chemistry. yes. question the people who were publicly sort of like interviewed by hoover. were there lives at risk? was there any chance that someone from someone could upload an american patriot? we're trying to kill them?

you know, not aware of any story like that. i think what happened more is that they would die by suicide and there were people who did take their own lives after lost their work and. of course there was. not only did you lose your job but your neighbors would shun you. but i don't think back then people were as worried about vigilantes against them. okay. so linus pauling gets the nobel prize in 1954. this is for his work on chemical bond. there he is getting it in sweden with three sons. the us government considered not letting him go to sweden to collect his prize. but the secretary of state then overruled the fbi and said this is ridiculous. we're going to look it's going to a very bad image for the united states. we don't let our scientists go collect their nobel prizes. after he got that nobel prize, linus pauling was free.

he felt i have achieved the pinnacle of my career. i can do what i want. and so he got even more politically active. and in particular, he started working against nuclear testing. he used his credibility as a scientist to say that the soviets and and british who were testing weapons above ground were causing carcinogens to drift into the atmosphere and, causing cancer and birth defects. so he worked he put a tremendous amount of energy over the next several years to to lead a movement against nuclear. here's one of the books that he published. i this cover because you can see famous he was no more by nobel prize men pauling. that's how they identify him. that was 1958. he continued into the 1960s.

here he is at a march asking the british prime minister and the american president to stop testing. and ultimately he. he. he won the us the soviets and the british signed a nuclear test treaty in 1963 that put the tests underground so that there would not be that toxic fallout anymore. and pauling pauling believed that this was greatest achievement. he got the nobel peace prize. so his second nobel prize was for his work against nuclear testing. and he said that, you know, he was very proud of the chemistry prize. on the other hand, the nobel peace prize was an indication to me that i had done my duty as a human being. okay. so me wrap this up here by, talking about the consequences here. linus pauling escaped the

concept of being a target of j. edgar hoover's theory. right. he was wealthy. he was well-connected. he was internationally renowned. but most victims of this conspiracy theory were not so lucky. and almost all of hoover and mccarthy's targets during that entire communist crusade were guilty only of being linked at some point in their past to some group that was 99.9% of them or. they were guilty of being gay or, appearing to be gay. so it's true that there were real soviet spies and we've talked about them today, but i think it's the experience of that much larger group of people that explain why the second red scare can properly called a witch hunt. that was motive motivated by a conspiracy.

all right. thank you very much. and i will see on thursday.