Those Bumbling Red Hunters

The release of 8,000 pages of transcripts of the state Senate’s un-American activities subcommittee recalls an era when fears of communist subversion cast suspicion on the loyalties of many Americans and when politicians not esteemed for their scruples manipulated public anxieties to advance their careers.

The transcripts, covering 1941 through 1958, were released by the secretary of state’s office as a result of a lawsuit brought by the California First Amendment Coalition. Other records remain under seal, including reports on more than 20,000 individuals and a card file with the names of an estimated 125,000 people and organizations that came to the subcommittee’s attention.

The Legislature granted the subcommittee wide-ranging powers. What stands out is how remarkably slipshod, unfocused and sometimes ludicrous so much of its work was. At one hearing, in the early 1940s, the panel asked witnesses what they knew of a group called Mankind United, described as “a race of little men with large metallic heads who dwelled in a subterranean abode somewhere in the interior of the Earth.” One witness solemnly assured the senators he had indeed heard of such a group.

Cases of mistaken identity weren’t unusual. But even an erroneous summons before the committee could be professionally and personally calamitous. The panel’s purported aim was to expose communist influence in labor unions, the entertainment industry, the medical and teaching professions.

Some of those it questioned were almost certainly Communist Party members. Many had simply been targeted by unnamed accusers who disagreed with their views and support for certain causes.

It’s now known that Soviet-directed espionage in the United States was even more pervasive than the spying revelations of the Cold War years suggested. But the state Senate subcommittee appears to have contributed nothing to uncover those activities. Its singular accomplishment might have been to alert the public to those little men with large metallic heads, who seem to have been so shaken by the exposure that they vanished without a trace.