Analysis: Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover before the House Un-American Activities Committee
The testimony of J. Edgar Hoover before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 marked a significant moment in the U.S. government's fight against Communism, especially during the early Cold War period. As the FBI director, Hoover's appearance aimed to reinforce the idea that federal agencies were united in their stance against Communist threats, which many Americans feared might undermine democracy and capitalism. His testimony emphasized the dangers he associated with Communism, describing it as a movement that sought the destruction of American governance and free enterprise. Hoover's alignment with HUAC's objectives brought increased legitimacy to the committee’s investigations, particularly targeting Hollywood figures whom he accused of promoting Communist ideologies through film.
The context of his testimony is pivotal; it came shortly after the Truman Doctrine was articulated and faced the backdrop of growing public apprehension about Communist infiltration in various sectors of American life. Hoover expressed concerns that those in influential positions—such as filmmakers and educators—could inadvertently spread these ideologies, potentially leading to societal upheaval. Overall, Hoover's testimony served as a rallying cry for anti-Communist sentiment, illustrating the federal government's broader strategy to combat perceived subversion during a tumultuous period in American history.
On this Page
Analysis: Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover before the House Un-American Activities Committee
Date: March 26, 1947
Author: J. Edgar Hoover
Genre: speech; report
Summary Overview
Whereas the most famous hearings held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) were interviews with movie stars, artists, or intellectuals, conducted in order to ferret out Communists within US society—especially in Hollywood—the HUAC's interview with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover was of a different sort. Hoover's testimony acted both to provide the HUAC with ideological cover and to demonstrate that various federal organizations were all on the same page regarding the threat posed by Communism and what to do about it. Hoover's authority as FBI director, his almost folk-hero status due to his successes fighting gangsters such as John Dillinger during the 1920s and 1930s, and his long track record of fighting Communism and radicalism beginning in 1919 made his HUAC testimony compelling and gave Hoover a platform to speak to the American people.
Defining Moment
During the years after the end of World War II, the US government turned its focus from defeating fascism in Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan to defeating Communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and especially within the United States itself. Though Communist political ideologies had gained some traction in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with the country's emergence as a world superpower after World War II, such ideologies were increasingly unwelcome in the context of the threat posed by the other superpower, the Soviet Union. Many Americans feared that American Communists were preparing an overthrow of the government as had occurred in the Soviet Union, and the US government began taking steps to root out the influence of Communism in the United States.
To that end, the House Un-American Activities Committee, which had been formed in 1938 to investigate Americans who potentially had ties to Fascism and Nazism, emerged from World War II to focus almost exclusively on the threat posed by Communism in US society. With the onset of the Cold War, the American people were exceedingly fearful of Communism and the threat it posed to democracy and capitalism within the United States, and thus many eagerly supported the HUAC's investigation of the influence of Communism in Hollywood during 1947.
In 1947, the HUAC began to hold hearings in Hollywood that sought to uncover subversive Communist messages that were allegedly introduced into motion pictures by left-leaning producers, directors, writers, and actors. Though many Americans supported the aims of the HUAC hearings, many also were wary of the tactics used to gain information, such as potentially abusing the power of the subpoena, demanding that witnesses publicly name those they suspected of being Communists even if there was no evidence, and encouraging the firing of those who were seen as possibly having Communist sympathies.
Though the HUAC had been successful in rooting out those it considered to have Communist sympathies within federal arts organizations, such as the Federal Theatre Project, its members felt they needed both the support of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and the investigative power of the FBI in order to truly make a difference in Hollywood. To that end, HUAC chair J. Parnell Thomas invited Hoover to testify on March 26, 1947. Only two weeks before Hoover testified in front of the HUAC, President Harry S. Truman articulated the Truman Doctrine of containing Communism and authoritarianism, squarely placing the US federal government against those whom they suspected of subverting either US allies or the US government itself. Further, only four days before Hoover's testimony, Truman issued Executive Order 9835, which instituted a loyalty program to ensure that federal employees posed no threat to the US government.
Hoover was happy to help the HUAC's efforts. After all, he had been fighting Communism for nearly thirty years when he stepped before the committee. His view of the threat's gravity, as well as the appropriate actions to combat it, were in line with the committee's and demonstrated unity within various organizations of the federal government.
Author Biography
J. Edgar Hoover was born on January 1, 1895, and joined the US Department of Justice in 1917. Within his first two years of federal employment, he made a name for himself as an anti-Communist by heading the General Intelligence Division of the Department of Justice, which staged raids against suspected anarchists and Communists at the direction of US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and became part of the Bureau of Investigation in 1921. After becoming director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924 (which became the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935), Hoover made a name for himself by capturing notorious gangsters, but he remained especially vigilant against those whom he considered to have radical political perspectives, carrying out spying operations, often without reporting them to the attorney general or the president. By the beginning of the Cold War in the 1940s, Hoover was seen as one of the greatest anti-Communists of the day and the FBI as an essential tool against Communist subversion. Hoover remained director of the FBI until his death on May 2, 1972.
Document Analysis
When the House Committee on Un-American Activities invited FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to testify on March 26, 1947, it was ostensibly to discuss the possibility of outlawing the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). However, Hoover spoke much more broadly about the threat posed by Communism and the various things that could and should be done to combat its influence. Hoover argued that Communism stood for nothing short of “the destruction of our American form of government” and “the destruction of free enterprise.” He asserted that the “the communist, once he is fully trained and indoctrinated, realizes that he can create his order in the United States only by ‘bloody revolution.’” Hoover's views on Communism were well known to both the committee and the public, and he acknowledged that he had never hesitated to speak of his “concern and apprehension” about Communism. His testimony that day was less about outlawing the CPUSA and more about forging an alliance between the HUAC and the FBI to fight Communism together moving forward.
To Hoover, the activities of the HUAC worked hand-in-hand with those carried out by the FBI. The FBI could investigate potential Communists, but the HUAC could best publicly disseminate the FBI's findings through its hearings. To Hoover, there were true Americans who aided the Communists in spreading their message, but many who had done so were “apparently well-meaning but thoroughly duped persons.” By informing the American people of the dangers of Communist infiltration, the HUAC was performing a public service by creating a well-informed populace. The function of the FBI within the United States throughout the Cold War, on the other hand, was completely different. The FBI could investigate those suspected of Communist sympathies in order to find any violations of the law or any potential threats in terms of espionage or sabotage.
At the time of Hoover's testimony, HUAC's target was the producers, directors, writers, and actors in Hollywood, whom committee members felt were imbuing American movies with subtle Communist messages. Hoover backed the HUAC agenda, noting efforts by Communists to infiltrate labor unions that organized workers on film productions as well as those who actually wrote, directed, and acted in the movies. Again, Hoover's answer is to educate the public on the perils of Communism and the tactics he said Communists used. His greatest fears were that those who might influence public opinion, particularly Hollywood filmmakers, liberal and progressive politicians and activists, left-leaning members of the clergy, and academics who favor academic freedom, would “teach our youth a way of life that eventually will destroy the sanctity of the home, that undermines faith in God, that causes them to scorn respect for constituted authority and sabotage our revered Constitution.” To Hoover, these were the real threats that the FBI should investigate and the HUAC should expose.
Glossary
fifth column: a group of people who act traitorously and subversively out of a secret sympathy with an enemy of their country
indoctrinated: to instruct in a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially to imbue with a specific biased belief or view point; to teach or inculcate
palliation: to relieve or lessen without curing; mitigate; alleviate
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Bentley, Eric, ed. Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938–1968. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2002. Print.
Hoover, J. Edgar. Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It. New York: Holt, 1958. Print.
Litvak, Joseph. The Un-Americans: Jews, the Blacklist, and Stoolpigeon Culture. Durham: Duke UP, 2009. Print.
May, Lary, ed. Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989. Print.
O'Reilly, Kenneth. Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI, HUAC, and the Red Menace. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1983. Print.
Sbardellati, John. J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood's Cold War. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2012. Print.