Talk:House Un-American Activities Committee

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Cold War Wiki Project House Un-American Activities Committee is part of the Cold War WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the Cold War on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to the people, places, things, and events, and anything else associated with the Cold War. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Contents

[edit] Expansion Request

I dig everything here. This article could do with a lot more, though (specifically, everything between 1947 and 1967). I'm tagging it for expansion, hope that's cool with all. Grahamdubya 02:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] general comment

The general tone of this article is very supportive of the HUAC. I think it would be more \]This article says "Only Mission to Moscow was ever found to have traces of propaganda in it", but I ask: according to whom? What qualifies as a "trace"? But most of all, what about the movie Salt of the Earth? I don't know enough about the issue here to be able to write it into the article myself, but I'm pretty sure it needs to be mentioned.


[edit] NPOV

I've put a lot of work into fixing and expanding the Hollywood blacklist article and still have much more to go. I haven't gotten to the "Mission to Moscow" etc. referred to in this HUAC article however inserting an NPOV notice for such a small matter as an interpretation of a film doesn't seem to solve much. If you (sj7700) disagree with this or something else, just change it because your comment above does't warrant an NPOV insertion. I will probably get around to rewording it as I too am no expert on films I have never seen and know nothing about. Even if I had seen it, I doubt I am qualified to "interpret" much of its meaning. Ted Wilkes 1 July 2005 22:48 (UTC)

Ted: I came across this article the other day [1], I thought it might be interesting for what you're doing. Good work. Nobs01 2 July 2005 00:54 (UTC)
Thanks. Ted Wilkes 2 July 2005 02:38 (UTC)

Ted, thanks for your good work. I hope you'll continue. IMHO, a lot of fact-checking is particularly needed. The election fraud reference is unclear (at least to me) and, perhaps, a distraction to the reader. I can find absolutely no references to the claim that the committee uncovered shipments of bomb-grade material to the USSR. The company named in the story does not appear in any search engines in this context: you'd think a revelation of that magnitude would leave plenty of traces. The story is also completely lacking in references to the civil liberties issues (with criticism not only from the left but also from some centrist Republicans) which at least ought to be referenced. But the article has been greatly improved, and it's a difficult one to write. Thanks again! --langohio 16:18, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Petitions

Individuals such as W. E. B. DuBois and I. F. Stone were found to have been affiliated with literally dozens of Comintern sponsored groups, although, in reality, many of the groups were petition drives involved in election fraud the Committee determined.

  • This sentence just had a major change in tone and conclusion. What's our source for the election fraud determination? Thanks, -Willmcw July 4, 2005 21:24 (UTC)
FBI Silvermaster file; see Peter Rhodes for example. The information comes from the Dies Committee and clearly uses the word "signature", not "name". This warrants even further investigation, because Rhodes may have been outside of the United States at the time the petition was signed. This is not unusual; Joe McCarthy for example ran for Senate while serving in the Pacific.Nobs01 4 July 2005 21:32 (UTC)
Also, as to the "number of glorified petition drives", let me refer you to History_of_Soviet_espionage_in_the_United_States#Method, which granted, is incomplete. Thanks again. Nobs01 4 July 2005 21:35 (UTC)
    • You mean on the basis of one guy who fraudulently signed a petition we're calling the entire effort fraud? That seems to be a bit excessive. In the modern citizen initiatives it's not uncommon for tnes of thousands of fraudulent signatures to be discarded. I didn't see any mention of the matter in History_of_Soviet_espionage_in_the_United_States#Method. Are we just using Wikipedia as the source for associating DuBois and Stone with election fraud? -Willmcw July 4, 2005 22:41 (UTC)
    • I put back the old text, leaving the new text as a separate sentence. -Willmcw July 4, 2005 22:46 (UTC)
      • OK, so it was uncorroborated; the next couple of dozen instances should take care of that.Nobs01 4 July 2005 23:21 (UTC)
      • It needed to be edited into two sentences as regards Dubois & Stone, cause they really werent the example; I was just balancing another editors work. Good job.Nobs01 4 July 2005 23:24 (UTC)

[edit] Name change, again

Please see the above seciton on the name of this committee. Apparently it is properly called the "House Committee on Un-American Activities." -Willmcw 21:35, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

No it is properly called the "House Un-American Activities Committee". See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and then check Google. If your argument was the case, then the article Shining Path would be Communist Party of Peru and Khmer Rouge would be Communist Party of Cambodia, the "proper names". But that's not how it works, we do it by the Wikipedia naming convention standards, not what you think is "proper". If the rule were to do things by what people think is "proper" instead of the common name naming convention, the articles Shining Path and Khmer Rouge would have disappeared a long time ago. Ruy Lopez 21:39, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I think Ruy is correct. The formal name (I used to work for the House of Rep.) would have been "Committee on Un-American Activities" (HCUA) but general usage is "House Un-American Activities Committee" (HUAC). For accessibility you need the more common title in the headline, and one reference in the first graf to the formal name -- which the article already does. --langohio 16:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name Change, YA... Requested move: U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities

Just to make the name consistent with other House Committee names. This isn't about CUAA or HUAAC or whatever. Just whether US should be in front of it all.

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

Comment: Can you give the link to a Category or list where the House Committee's appear. Thank you. nobs 05:05, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

    • Google for HCUA: 756
    • Google for HUAC: 172,000
    • Google for "House Committee on Un-American Activities": 67.900
    • Google for "House Un-American Activities Committee": 169,000

So if you want to change the name of this page, you have to go debate the existence of this convention. Because the committee is more well known as HUAC. Ruy Lopez 05:24, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Withdrawn: Ruy Lopez made a convincing argument. I'll take it back. Cheers! --Mark Adler 11:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Ruy Lopez's argument fails on the grounds that google's seach does not imply or suggest accuracy of a name... it only "suggests" commonality on usage. The issue is not about google, but rather about the official nomenclature of the United States House of Representitives' own published document DATED FROM THAT TIME (as opposed to recently published documents). Sweetfreek 00:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're the one making the losing argument. If Wikipedia followed Sweetfreek's rule instead of its own rule (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)), then there would be no Khmer Rouge but a Communist Party of Kampuchea, no Shining Path but a Communist Party of Peru and so forth. Wikipedia policy does not care about "official nomenclature". Personally, I don't care one way or another for this rule, but I'm certainly not going to allow it that all these other pages must follow the rule, but you don't have to on this page. Your problem is with this rule, not the title of this page. If you want to change the rule, fine, you might even do so, but as long as the rule stands you are not changing the title of this page. Ruy Lopez 02:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Left

Placed here for (1) sourcing (2) rewriting:

"In its later years HUAC investigated the New Left, but these investigations were less successful. The young witnesses like Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman had much less to lose than the targets of the earlier investigations, and they swayed public opinion in their favor by openly defying the congressmen and making the investigations look ridiculous by performing pranks such as appearing in a clown suit. In the 1960s and 1970s the Committee conducted a major investigation of the Ku Klux Klan. nobs 18:54, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I was hoping somebody would cover the HUAC's investigations of the Ku Klux Klan after the 1930's. The way this article is written now, you'd think that they just let the KKK do whatever they pleased after the 1930's, but that isn't true. ----DanTD 14:58, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture for Decline

The Decline section needs a better picture. A Viet Cong flag hardly relates to the article at all. A picture of Rubin would be much better. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing Information

The page is missing very simple, yet vital, information such as how many members were on HUAC at one time, and what was the ratio of Republicans to Democrats on the committee. 8:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.32.144.124 (talk • contribs).

The committee was active for almost 40 years, and would have had changing partisan membership from term to term just like any committee. The size may have changed as well, but we have some hope of finding that info. You might try looking in the sources already listed. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 21:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish targets?

I ran across http://www.sfjff.org/site/pages/index.php?ptype=4&pchild_id=92&detlID=24, the sanfran Jewish film festival 25 year retrospective that looked at the work of blacklisted Jews. It states in part "Six out of the so-called “Hollywood Ten,” and 10 of the 19 brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) were Jews." I have no idea whether this belongs in this article in any form, but I hadn't seen that noted before, though it doesn't surprise me. Mulp 06:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HUAC vs. HCUA

Although "HCUA" is in some sense more technically accurate, the fact is that "HUAC" is the term that is used in the English language. See the numbers connected with this search versus this one. In a book search (this vs. this), the difference is less overwhelming but still conclusive. Please don't "correct" this article to introduce an error. RedSpruce 14:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The accurate name of the committee was the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). There should be some effort here to emphasize that fact. I agree with you that the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) is the more popular term. (The more popular but less technically accurate term most likely came into usage due to the spacing needs of newspaper columns. It is even found in many of the anti-Communist films made in the 1950's.) Most of the history book indexes or indices that I consulted listed the committee as the House Committee on Un-American Activities and only a few had the other. (I consulted books from 1952 to 2007.) One that did, never actually used House Un-American Activities Committee in the text of the book. It used the accurate House Committee on Un-American Activities or the more popular initials HUAC instead. Since either is correct, I would not agree with you that an error was introduced. You have only shown that one is more popular than the the other. --Diosprometheus 04:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Better sources for decline

Does anyone have any sources that the Yippies were responsible for the decline of HUAC other than the Yippies themselves? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.52.215.67 (talk) 02:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I was going to ask the same thing. The article reads well until we get to the "Yippies." Surely, there must be some good sources out there that documents the rise and fall of the House of Un-American Activities Committee. J Readings (talk) 09:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)