8.3: The Red Scare

Question 1

TAFT-HARTLEY ACT [1947]

Answer 1

• response to widespread union strikes
• made striking harder
• union leaders required to pledge they weren’t communist

Question 2

FEDERAL EMPLOYEE LOYALTY AND SECURITY PROGRAM

Answer 2

• Truman executive order
• employees required to swear not communist and fascist
• provisions for federal investigation into political affiliation of employees

Question 3

HOUSE UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE

Answer 3

• searched for communist influences in society
• targeted Hollywood
• believed Hollywood = platform for communists to spread message
• 1947: HOLLYWOOD TEN
• ten communist accused directions summoned to testify in Congress
• refused
• held in contempt of Congress
• jailed and blacklisted

Question 4

MCCARTHYISM

Answer 4

• Senator Jospeh McCarthy
• 1950: gave speech claiming to know 205 communists who had infiltrated state department
• relevance spiked and popularity surged
• Senate held meetings for him to prove conspiracies
• failed
• claimed he only had 57
• never publicized names
• censured by Senate

Question 5

ROSENBERG CASE

Answer 5

• 1949 = first Soviet atomic bomb test
• US believed above only possible due to stolen information
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg accused of espionage
• both spies
• 1953: executed via. electric chair