Alger Hiss

The History of the Case Against One of America's Most Notorious Alleged Spies

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Scott Clem

Shortly after World War II, Congress' House Committee on Un-American Activities began investigating Americans across the country for suspected ties to communism. The most famous victims of these witch hunts were Hollywood actors, such as Charlie Chaplin, whose "un-American activity" was being neutral at the beginning of World War II, but at the beginning of the Cold War, many Americans had the Red Scare, and Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy would make waves in 1950 by telling the Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, that he had a list of dozens of known communists working in the State Department. The political theater helped Senator McCarthy become the prominent anti-communist crusader in the government, and McCarthy continued to claim he held evidence suggesting communist infiltration throughout the government, but anytime he was pressed to produce his evidence, McCarthy would not name names. Instead, he'd accuse those who questioned his evidence of being communists themselves.

©2016 Charles River Editors (P)2017 Charles River Editors