US SG 4-13-3

The House Un-American Activities Committee

HUAC is an acronym. What does it stand for?

Wiretapping

Secret monitoring of communications for investigative purposes

J. Edgar Hoover

FBI director who urged HUAC to hold public hearings on communist subversion to find communist sympathizers

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Arrested in the Summer of 1950 and executed in 1953, they were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage by passing plans for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

Project Venona

The project that worked to crack the Soviet spy code to read messages between Moscow and the US collected during the Cold War

demagogue

Term for a political leader who gains support by appealing to people's prejudices instead of using rational arguments or moral reasoning.

Subversion

A systematic attempt to overthrow a government by using persons working secretly from within.

Loyalty Review Program

A policy established by President Truman that authorized the screening of all federal employees to determine their loyalty to the U.S. government.

Alger Hiss

A former State Department official who was accused of being a Communist spy and was convicted of perjury. The case was prosecuted by Richard Nixon.

McCarthyism

Eponymous term associated with the search for communists in America during the early 1950s. The senator from Wisconsin was the leader of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Censure

Harsh criticism or disapproval.

Fallout

Radioactive particles dispersed by a nuclear explosion.