McCarthyism- Selective Timeline:

 

1691

Salem Witch trials

 

1798

Alien and Sedition Acts

 

1830s

Anti- Masonic Party

 

1849

Know-Nothing Party

 

1917-18

Russian "Bolshevik" Revolution: Western powers support anti-communist "White" Russians

 

Espionage Act

 

Sedition Act

 

1919

Founding of American communist parties (CPA and CLP)

     

"Red Scare:" Raids by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (organized by the young J. Edgar Hoover); Deportations of suspected Communists

 

1921

Comintern forces consolidation of American Communists into Communist Party of America. Form Workers Party of America

 

1928-32

First Five Year Plan and forced collectivization of farms ( displacement and millions of deaths)

 

1935

Comintern policy of "popular front" with anti-fascist democracies

     

CP becomes popular amongst African-Americans and unionists

 

1936-38

Stalin purge trials (up to 6 million sent to their deaths)

 

1938

Martin Dies Committee on Un-American Activities (renamed HUAC in 1945)

 

1939

Hitler-Stalin Nonagression Pact. Germany and USSR divide Poland. USSR occupies Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) ; CPUSA advocates non-intervention

     

Hatch Act bars Communists, Nazis and other totalitarians from government employment

 

1940

Smith Act makes it illegal to "teach or advocate" the overthrow of the government or to join any organization that does (first peacetime sedition act in U.S. history)

     

USSR “Sovietizes” Baltics (Lituania, Latvia, Estonia) and Rumania  

 

1941

Hitler attacks USSR ; CP changes non-intervention stance and calls for intervention against Hitler

     

Earl Browder becomes CPUSA leader, calls for war production and working through unions rather than more radical measures

 

1944

Soviets establish communist governments in Bulgaria

 

1945

February: 

Soviets enter East Prussia and approach Berlin. Soviets enter Prague, Czechoslovakia

 

Yalta conference: Stalin pledges "representative government" in Soviet dominated territory; USSR gets east Poland, Poland gets parts of eastern Germany; 4 zones of Germany; reparations discussion; Stalin agrees to enter Pacific War in exchange for territory.

 

April:

President Roosevelt dies; Harry Truman is sworn in as President.

 

Fifty nations meet to draw up a charter for the United Nations.

 

Soviets enter and occupy Prague, Czechoslovakia

 

Soviets support and recognize communist regime of Wladyslaw Gomulka in Poland

 

Soviets annex Baltic States

     

Fall of Berlin to Soviets

 

May 7, Germany surrenders to Allied forces.

 

July 16, scientists working on the Manhattan Project detonate an atomic bomb at Alamagordo in the New Mexico desert.

 

July 17, the Potsdam Conference convenes.  Truman, Atlee and Stalin discuss plans for postwar Europe and other issues.  In the “Potsdam Declaration” the Allies issue a demand that Japan surrender unconditionally. Poland gets further concessions from Germany; defacto separation of Germany re-inforced by Western refusal of general reparations

 

August 6, the United States Air Force drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

 

August 8, Soviets declare war on Japan, move into Manchuria and later Korea (to 38th parallel).

August 9, the United States Air Force drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

 

August 17, the Allies divide Korea at the 38th parallel.  Soviet troops occupy the North, and U.S. troops occupy the South.

 

French Communist leader Jacques Duclos denounces American CP for softness on capitalism in "Duclos letter"

           

Moderate CPUSA leader Earl Browder replaced by more belligerent William Foster under pressure from USSR     

1946

January: Iran dispute: Soviets refuse to withdraw troops as agreed at Potsdam; Demand oil concessions comparable to those of US and Great Britain

 

March: Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, speaking in Missouri, declares that an “Iron Curtain” is descending across Europe allowing “police governments” to rule Eastern Europe.

 

August: Black Sea Straits dispute: USSR masses troops on Turkish border demanding naval access to Mediterranean Sea.

Baruch Plan on international Atomic Bomb oversight fails in UN

 

November:

US Congressional elections: Republicans control both houses. Isolationist sentiment rises and Congress calls for demobilization and budget austerity. US refuses loan to Soviets and ends lend-lease

 

Joseph McCarthy elected to senate from Wisconsin

 

     

1947

Truman issues Executive Order 9835 establishing a Loyalty Program to investigate the loyalty of federal workers and barring communists from employment in the Executive Branch.

 

HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee opens an investigation into Communist influence in the American movie industry.

 

Elizabeth Bentley identifies 80 government employees in a “communist spy ring”

 

January: US, British and French zones of Germany merged into "Bizonia." Reparations to USSR cut off. Britain cuts aid to anti-communist forces in Greece and Turkey; Truman replaces with US funds

 

March: Secretary of State George Marshall begins work on European Recovery Program. The Marshall Plan is outlined by Secretary of State George Marshall in a speech at Harvard. The program gives economic aid to help European nations rebuild.  The participation of all European nations is welcomed.  But, the Soviet Union and other communist nations of Eastern Europe decline to be involved.

 

"Truman Doctrine" speech: US will assist free peoples struggling against internal or external pressure. The Truman Doctrine proposes $400 million in aid for Greece and Turkey to help those nations resist Russian/Communist insurgence. Congress approves the plan.

 

July: George Kennan's "X" article calls for 'long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansionist tendencies"

     

US Congress passes National Security Act: National Security Council, Joint Chiefs, CIA, Secretary of Defense (James Forrestal)

 

October: Soviets revive ComIntern, the Communist International set up originally by Karl Marx

 

Soviets begin replacing eastern European coalition governments with communist regimes 

 

Taft-Hartley Act requires unions to expel communists if members of National Labor Relations Board

     

"Hollywood Ten" take firm first amendment stand (freedom of association) against HUAC. Convicted of contempt of Congress. Leads to reliance on Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. (See Lillian Hellman reading)

 

1948

"Marshall Plan" approved by US Congress

     

Berlin Crisis: Western controlled Germany changes its currency; Soviets cut off access to Berlin; West  begins airlift

     

Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers accuses former State Dept. official Alger Hiss of espionage. Hiss was eventually imprisoned for 4 years on evidence that appears to have been manufactured by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and embelleshed by House prosecutor Richard Nixon, a first term Congressman from California.

 

1949

CIO expels communist unions

     

Soviets test atom bomb

     

Chinese Communists prevail in civil war against Nationalists

 

1950

Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican of Wisconsin) makes his initial charges that there are communists in the State Department. In his “Internal Communist Menace” speech at Wheeling, VA. McCarthy claims to have in his hand a list of “57 cases of individuals… loyal to the Communist Party.” The Senate begins an investigation into his charges.

 

Troops of communist North Korea – equipped with Soviet made weapons – cross the 38th parallel and invade South Korea.  At the urging of the U.S. (and in the absence of the Soviet representative) the United Nations adopts a resolution calling for armed intervention to liberate South Korea. 

 

President Truman sends U.S. troops to Korea to liberate South Korea from the attacks of the Communist North. General Douglas MacArthur is named commander of U.S. troops.

 

In September, U.S. troops land at Inchon. By the end of the month they reach the 38th parallel.  In October U.S. troops cross the 38th parallel and invade North Korea.  By October U.S. troops capture the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and proceed North towards the Yalu River, the Korean border with China.  By November, China wages a massive counteroffensive and U.S. troops begin to retreat.

 

President Truman sends $10 million in aid to the French in Indochina (Vietnam) who are fighting a war against guerrilla forces led by nationalist/communist Ho Chi Minh.

 

Congress passes the Internal Security Act (McCarran Act) over Truman’s veto.  The Act requires communists to register with the government and to be detained in event of a national emergency.

     

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg arrested on espionage and conspiracy charges. Ethel is the sister of David Greenglass, who works at the Los Alamos lab.  In 1953 they became the first US civilians to suffer the death penalty in an espionage trial.

     

First publication of Red Channels, a 213 page list of the affiliations of actors, writers, musicians  and other entertainers. Sponsored by prominent anti-communists and the Catholic Church.

 

1951

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death, after a controversial trial in which they are found guilty of giving top secret information to the Soviet Union.

 

President Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of his duty as commander of U.S. forces in Korean because MacArthur publicly lobbies against Truman’s plan for a negotiated peace in the Korean conflict. MacArthur also advocates expanding the war to include direct attacks on Red China.

 

1952

Academic purges begin in universities and colleges

 

Republican General Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the election of 1952.

 

The U.S. successfully tests the hydrogen bomb.

 

1953

Eisenhower enters White House. Richard Nixon of California is his Vice President. Republicans control Congress.

     

Republican leadership gives McCarthy chair of Permanent Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Government Operations Committee.

 

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed.

 

An armistice is signed halting the Korean War.

 

1954

Democrats regain control of Congress

     

Army-McCarthy Hearings; McCarthy accuses Sec.of Army Robert Stevens of concealing evidence of espionage. Army accuses McCarthy and aid Roy Cohn of blackmail to aid associate G. David. The proceedings are televised. 

 

The U.S. Senate votes to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy because of his conduct during the Army-McCarthy hearings.  This marks the end of his campaign against domestic communism.

 

1956

Joe McCarthy dies

 

FBI embarks on COINTELPRO, the secret “counter-intelligence program” of political sabotage, unauthorized surveillance and disinformation directed against “radical” groups and suspected communists (such as the Rev.. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

 

1961

Junius Scales becomes the last person imprisoned under the Smith Act (see 1940), serving six years in prison for advocating communism.