The onset of the Cold War created an opportunity for some conservatives to use anticommunism as a weapon to attack the Truman administration. In Senator Joseph McCarthy’s case, the charge was that the U.S. government was harboring Soviet spies. There was also a broader, more amorphous attack on people accused not of spying but of having communist sympathies; such “fellow travelers” were considered “security risks” and thus unsuitable for government positions. The basis of suspicion for this targeted group was generally membership in organizations that supported policies that either overlapped with or seemed similar to policies supported by the Communist Party.

Senator Joseph McCarthy

Speech Delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9, 1950

Though Senator McCarthy was actually late getting on board the anticommunist rocket ship, this was the speech that launched him into orbit. No one else ever saw the piece of paper he waved about during this speech with the names of 57 spies in the State Department. Over time, the numbers he cited fluctuated (in early versions of this speech he claimed to have a list of 205 names) and never materialized into a single indictment for espionage. Still, McCarthy had an extraordinary talent for whipping up anticommunist hysteria. His downfall came in 1954, when the U.S. Senate formally censured him for his conduct; three years later, he died of alcoholism at the age of forty-eight.

Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time. And, ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down. …

The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation. It has not been the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this Nation out, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer — the finest homes, the finest college education, and the finest jobs in Government we can give. …

I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.

Fulton Lewis Jr.

Radio Address, January 13, 1949

The groundwork for McCarthy’s anticommunist crusade was laid by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which had been formed in 1938 by conservative southern Democrats seeking to investigate alleged communist influence around the country. One of its early targets had been Dr. Frank P. Graham, the distinguished president of the University of North Carolina. A committed southern liberal, Graham was a leading figure in the Southern Conference on Human Welfare, the most prominent southern organization supporting the New Deal, free speech, organized labor, and greater rights for southern blacks — causes that some in the South saw as pathways for communist subversion. After the war, HUAC stepped up its activities and kept a close eye on Graham. Among Graham’s duties was to serve as the head of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, a consortium of fourteen southern universities designed to undertake joint research with the federal government’s atomic energy facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. To enable him to carry on his duties, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) granted Graham a security clearance, overriding the negative recommendation of the AEC’s Security Advisory Board. That was the occasion for the following statement by Fulton Lewis Jr., a conservative radio commentator with a nationwide following.

About Dr. Frank P. Graham, president of the University of North Carolina, and the action of the Atomic Energy Commission giving him complete clearance for all atomic secrets despite the fact that the security officer of the commission flatly rejected him. …

President Truman was asked to comment on the matter today at his press and radio conference, and his reply was that he has complete confidence in Dr. Graham.

… The defenders of Dr. Graham today offered the apology that during the time he joined the various subversive and Communist front organizations [like the Southern Conference for Human Welfare] — organizations so listed by the Attorney General of the United States — this country was a co-belligerent with Soviet Russia, and numerous people joined such groups and causes. That argument is going to sound very thin to most American citizens, because the overwhelming majority of us would have no part of any Communist or Communist front connections at any time.

Frank Porter Graham

Telegram to Fulton Lewis Jr., January 13, 1949

One can imagine Graham’s shock at hearing himself pilloried on national radio. (He had not even been aware of the AEC’s investigation of him.) The following is from his response to Lewis.

In view of your questions and implications I hope you will use my statement to provide for my answers. … I have always been opposed to Communism and all totalitarian dictatorships. I opposed both Nazi and Communist aggression against Czechoslovakia and the earlier Russian aggression against Finland and later Communist aggression against other countries. …

During the period of my active participation, the overwhelming number of members of the Southern Conference were to my knowledge anti-Communists. There were several isolationist stands of the Conference with which I disagreed. The stands which I supported as the main business of the Conference were such as the following: Federal aid to the states for schools; abolition of freight rate discrimination against Southern commerce, agriculture, and industry; anti-poll tax bill; anti-lynching bill; equal right of qualified Negroes to vote in both primaries and general elections; the unhampered lawful right of labor to organize and bargain collectively in our region; … minimum wages and social security in the Southern and American tradition. …

I have been called a Communist by some sincere people. I have been called a spokesman of American capitalism by Communists and repeatedly called a tool of imperialism by the radio from Moscow. I shall simply continue to oppose Ku Kluxism, imperialism, fascism, and Communism whether in America … or behind the “iron curtain.”

House Un-American Activities Committee

Report on Frank Graham, February 4, 1949

Because of the controversy, HUAC released a report on Graham.

A check of the files, records and publications of the Committee on Un-American Activities has revealed the following information: Letterheads dated September 22, 1939, January 17, 1940, and May 26, 1940, as well as the “Daily Worker” of March 18, 1939, … reveal that Frank P. Graham was a member of the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom. … In Report 2277, dated June 25, 1942, the Special Committee on Un-American Activities found that “the line of the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom has fluctuated in complete harmony with the line of the Communist Party.” The organization was again cited by the Special Committee … as a Communist front “which defended Communist teachers.” …

A letterhead of February 7, 1946, a letterhead of June 4, 1947 … and an announcement of the Third Meeting, April 19–21, 1942, at Nashville, Tennessee, reveal that Frank P. Graham was honorary President of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare. …

In a report on the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, dated June 16, 1947, the Committee on Un-American Activities found “the most conclusive proof of Communist domination of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare is to be found in the organization’s strict and unvarying conformance to the line of the Communist Party in the field of foreign policy. It is also a clear indication of the fact that the real purpose of the organization was not ‘human welfare’ in the South, but rather to serve as a convenient vehicle in support of the current Communist Party line.”

Source: # 1819 Frank Porter Graham Papers. Courtesy of the Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.