The most important part of this packet is section VII, which contains roughly 50 documents—mostly drawn from primary sources—about the Cold War and Red Scare in Washington state. The other sections of this packet seek to place the documents in historical perspective and to offer some suggestions for how to use the documents in the classroom. The documents in section VII allow students to investigate how the Cold War affected Washington’s politics, economy, and even its geography. The majority of the documents relate either to the Canwell Committee’s 1948 investigation of “un-American” activities in Washington state or to the University of Washington’s 1949 decision to fire three pro-communist professors. Other documents allow students to see how the Cold War affected specific places in Washington-Hanford, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Boeing plants, and even the Space Needle.

The documents presented here are designed to be used in classes about Pacific Northwest history or U.S. history. Although the documents deal specifically with events in Washington state, they are still potentially useful for a course about U.S. history as a whole. As historian Richard Fried has observed, “‘McCarthyism’ is so often characterized in abstract terms that its meaning remains fuzzy. To sense the emotional bite of the Communist issue and to understand both how it affected life for those who ran afoul of it and how it shaped the nation’s political culture, it is useful to look at specific cases.” These documents allow students to explore such specific cases.

Section II is a rather lengthy essay which tries to place the Cold War and Red Scare into historical perspective. It also analyzes the effect of the Cold War on Washington’s economy and describes the major events of the Red Scare in Washington state. Much of this information is presented very briefly in a timeline in section III. Teachers may wish to distribute photocopies of section III to orient students to the main events of Cold War and Red Scare and to allow the students to place the documents in a chronological framework. Teachers may also with to distribute copies of the glossary in section IV to familiarize students with Cold War terminology. The bibliography in section V suggests books and videos about the Cold War and Red Scare that teachers may find useful.

The documents in section VII can be used in a vast number of ways. Section VI offers suggestions for in-class and homework assignments based on the documents. The concordance in section VII not only lists the source of each document, but also offers some possible discussion questions about many of the documents.

The Cold War created many aspects of modern Washington. Military spending sustained Washington’s rapid economic growth after WWII. Although federal hydropower projects and World War II had initially industrialized Washington state, the struggle against the Soviets ensured that federal money continued to pour into the state. The Cold War left a physical legacy across the state that can still be seen today. Military bases were created and expanded. The production of plutonium at Hanford created radioactive waste that will exist for thousands of years. Even Seattle’s most famous icon—the Space Needle—is a concrete monument to one aspect of the Cold War, the space race. In addition, the fear of communism fueled important political changes in Washington. The Red Scare, which was more intense in Washington than in most states, deprived communists of their First Amendment rights, permanently destroyed several radical political organizations, temporarily frightened many liberals into silence, and allowed conservatives to virtually dismantle Washington’s state-level health care system for the poor.

The rise of the Communist Party in the 1930s and the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s were not unprecedented events in Washington history. Indeed, the ebb and flow of radical movements, and reactions against them, have profoundly shaped the political history of Washington state. In the 1880s, white laborers demanded higher wages and began to form Washington’s first successful labor unions. White working-class mobs also forcibly evicted Chinese immigrants from Seattle, Tacoma, and other coastal towns in this same period. The Populist and Progressive movements were both very strong in Washington around the turn of the century, partially because of aid they received from Washington’s relatively sizable Socialist Party.

Radical political activity reached a high-water point in the late 1910s, precipitating a forceful reaction against left-wing groups. Numerous radicals vehemently denounced US entry into the First World War, resisted the draft, and urged the U.S. to recognize the Bolshevik government of Russia that came to power in 1917. Despite efforts to quash the “subversives” (including violent attempts such as the Everett Massacre), radicals remained very powerful in Washington until the failed Seattle General Strike of 1919. The Seattle walk-out, the nation’s first general strike, convinced many conservatives that the US was on the verge of revolution and thus helped trigger the nation’s first “Red Scare.” A few months after the Seattle strike, U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ordered J. Edgar Hoover to round up “subversive aliens”—non-citizens who were Socialists, Communists, or Wobblies. Several prominent radicals in Washington state were captured in these “Palmer raids” and deported to the USSR. In addition, most Washington businessmen vowed to de-unionize the state’s economy. The economic downturn immediately after World War I dramatically increased Washington’s unemployment, allowing employers to fend off strikes and break unions in most industries. More conservative union leaders—led by Dave Beck of the Teamsters—used this opportunity to take control of the Washington labor movement in the early 1920s. These so-called “business unionists” loudly proclaimed their acceptance of capitalism and ejected communists from their ranks.

In many respects this first “Red Scare” was quite different from the one that would follow in the late 1940s and 1950s. The first Red Scare focused on immigrants; the second primarily targeted U.S. citizens. The first Red Scare also included many violent vigilante actions, while the second worked primarily through state and national government agencies. Nonetheless, Washington’s anti-radicals learned several lessons from the first Red Scare that they would apply again in the 1940s. Conservatives learned that branding ideas or policies as “Red” was politically successful. Labor leaders such as Dave Beck learned they could make their unions more acceptable to corporate leaders by fighting radicals.

By 1922 Washington radicals seemed thoroughly defeated. Washington’s Communist Party dwindled to only a few dozen members, and the Wobblies and Socialists also virtually disappeared. Conservative Republicans controlled the governorship and 90% of the state legislature for the rest of the 1920s. However, the economic catastrophe of the 1930s set off a new wave of radicalism in Washington. The Great Depression hit Washington’s two largest industries—timber and agriculture—especially hard. The state’s unemployment rate reached 30% in 1933. Discontent with capitalism was probably at all-time high in the early 1930s, but the Communist Party (CP) still made only limited gains in this period. The CP’s growth in the early 1930s was inhibited by its focus on doctrinal purity, its refusal to cooperate with other leftist groups, and its denunciation of popular President Franklin Roosevelt.

Roosevelt’s Democratic Party was the initial political beneficiary of the Depression. After decades of being the minority party in Washington state and the nation as a whole, Democrats swept to power in the 1930 and 1932 elections. The popularity of Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms—especially hydroelectric projects and Social Security—kept Democrats in office. Although the New Deal was popular, it did not end the Depression. Washington’s unemployment rate dropped to 17% in 1937 and then hovered around 20% for the rest of the decade.

When reform failed to end the Depression, the CP’s call for fundamental economic change became more appealing. Furthermore, the CP became less radical and changed its tactics in the mid-1930s, allowing the Party to reach a much wider constituency. In 1935, frightened by the rise of fascism throughout Europe, the Soviet Union changed its foreign policy, abandoning isolationism and pursuing a “United Front” (or “Popular Front”) with capitalist democracies. Communist parties across the globe followed suit and sought to forge anti-fascist alliances with liberals. The American CP swung its support behind the New Deal, which it saw as the best bulwark against the spread of fascism in America. During the “United Front” period, the CP was not revolutionary, but reformist. At CP rallies in the late 1930s, one could usually find pictures of FDR hung beside posters declaring, “Communism Is 20th Century Americanism.” In addition, the Party no longer required members to disavow religion and proclaim faith in Marxist theory. Not surprisingly, CP membership in Washington skyrocketed in the late 1930s. Washington’s radical history made it an attractive recruiting ground for the CP. Indeed, Seattle and San Francisco were widely considered to be the strongest bases of CP support west of the Mississippi River.

During the United Front, communists were elected to leadership positions in a handful of left-wing organizations. (These groups were called “communist fronts” because many members did not know the leaders were communists. Many members did know, but didn’t care.) The largest communist-controlled group in the state was the Washington Commonwealth Federation (WCF). The WCF was formed by liberal Democrats in 1935, but most of its leaders were communists by 1937. The WCF functioned as the left wing of the Washington State Democratic Party. The WCF endorsed candidates in Democratic primaries, and its members went door to door campaigning for them. Through the efforts of the WCF, roughly five communists were elected to the Washington state legislature on the Democratic Party ticket in 1936 and ten in 1938. (The WCF, however, endorsed more liberals than communists.) Although the WCF was somewhat powerful in the late 1930s, it never grew strong enough to take control of the Washington State Democratic Party away from the conservative and moderate supporters of Governor Clarence Martin.

The Washington Pension Union (WPU), another fairly powerful communist front, had somewhat more success fighting Governor Martin. The WPU was formed by liberals and by angry senior citizens of all political stripes in 1937 after Governor Martin refused to raise the state’s meager appropriation for Social Security. Led by the charismatic William Pennock, communists won control of most of the WPU’s leadership posts in 1938. The WPU drafted and circulated Initiative 141 to guarantee that all Washingtonians over 65 had a minimum income of $40 per month. With 58% of voters supporting it, the measure passed in 1940.

Communists also helped build many of Washington’s labor unions from the bottom up. Even dedicated anti-radicals such as Dave Beck occasionally hired communists because they were frequently the best, most tireless union organizers. But communists rarely achieved positions of power in American Federation of Labor (AFL) unions. They did, however, have substantial influence in some Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) unions, especially the large International Longshore Workers Union led by Harry Bridges.

The American CP suffered a tremendous setback in August 1939, when Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Later that year, as Germany conquered western Poland, the Soviets invaded eastern Poland and all of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The Soviet Union, once the most avowedly anti-fascist nation in Europe, was now openly abetting Hitler. After several weeks of confusion, the American CP reversed its “line.” The CP had previously supported FDR’s preparations for war, but it now declared FDR to be a “war-monger” and an “imperialist.” The CP denounced FDR’s efforts to assist Britain when Nazi planes incessantly bombed the island nation. The WCF lost credibility with Washington voters when it followed CP’s change of policy, and the organization soon dissolved. The WPU and communist-influenced unions lost many members but survived. Overall, the CP’s membership in Washington state declined by more than half in 1939 and 1940 as most Party members could not stomach the new tolerance of Hitler and were repulsed by the CP’s willingness to follow a “Party line” dictated in Moscow. Many people who left the Party in this period were so embittered that they later testified against the CP during the late 1940s and 1950s and welcomed the persecution of communists.

The Nazi invasion of the USSR in mid-1941 revived the CP’s call for a “United Front” and restored much of the Party’s lost popularity. As soon as the Soviets were invaded, the CP urged FDR to increase the aid given to the USSR and Britain. Many people were initially disgusted by the CP’s second reversal of policy in two years, but once the US entered the war in December 1941, a large proportion of Americans were impressed by communists’ unflagging dedication to the war effort. The American CP abandoned its calls for social reform and became downright conservative. The CP cooperated with employers to put down strikes during wartime and urged people to work longer hours without pay increases. CP membership in Washington state rose, but never again reached the plateau of the late 1930s. The WPU once again became a power in the Democratic Party, and its efforts led to the election of a half-dozen communists to the Washington state legislature on the Democratic ticket in the early 1940s.

When the U.S. and USSR defeated Germany in mid-1945, the CP in Washington state prepared to resume its advocacy of social reform and reclaim its role as the left wing of the Democratic Party. This strategy became increasingly untenable as the American-Soviet rivalry after the Second World War soon developed into a “Cold War.”

The Second World War destroyed the old diplomatic system of “great powers” and replaced it with a polarized world of two superpowers. Germany, Japan, and Italy were occupied and demilitarized. France, Britain, and China had all suffered heavy losses, and their economies were in shambles. Although the Soviets had suffered over 15 million casualties during World War II and witnessed the burning and bombing of much of European Russia, the USSR still possessed the most powerful infantry in the world. The US undoubtedly emerged from the war as the world’s most powerful nation. The US had the largest navy and air force, and its economy had grown massively during the war. (Unemployment in Washington fell from about 20% in 1939 to 2% in 1942.) Perhaps most importantly, the US had a monopoly on the atom bomb.

Relations between the superpowers, which were fairly amicable at the end of the war, rapidly soured. Although they did not realize it at the time, FDR and Stalin’s decision to partition Germany at the end of the war served as a model for the division of all of Europe into eastern and western “blocs.” After the war, the Soviets consolidated their power in eastern Europe and banned dissent against the communist satellite governments they had established throughout the region. A handful of American politicians, such as former vice-president Henry Wallace, saw Soviet actions as defensive. The Russians, after all, had been repeatedly invaded from the west in the past three centuries, and their desire to create a buffer zone of satellite states was not irrational. President Harry Truman and the vast majority of his advisors, on the other hand, thought Soviet policy was aggressively expansionist. They saw Stalin as another Hitler seeking world domination, not as a leader pursuing national self-interest in calculated but limited fashion. Truman’s advisors were determined not to repeat the policies of appeasement and isolationism that had allowed Hitler to become so powerful. They believed the best way to prevent World War III was to contain communism within its existing boundaries.

Truman, realizing containment would not be cheap, took the advice of Senator Arthur Vandenburg and decided to “scare the hell out of the county.” In March 1947 Truman spoke to Congress to request $400 million in aid for Greece and Turkey, which were fighting civil wars against communist rebels. Truman’s speech outlined what became known as the Truman Doctrine. This doctrine shaped U.S. foreign policy for the next 40 years. Truman equated communism with fascism, labeling both as “totalitarianism.” Truman argued the world was divided into two types of nations, one based on the “will of the people” and another based on the “will of a minority” enforced by “terror and oppression.” This dualistic thinking reduced complex geostrategic rivalries into a framework of “good versus evil,” which dramatically simplified America’s choice of allies. Sure, the Greek and Turkish governments might be corrupt, Truman argued, but they weren’t dictatorships and they fought communists, so they therefore must be part of the “free world” and worthy of American aid. The Truman Doctrine also relied on a sort of domino theory: “If Greece should fall, . . . disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East” and “free peoples” throughout Europe would be “discouraged and demoralized.”

Despite Truman’s urgent rhetoric, America’s containment policy initially relied on economic, rather than military, means. Truman sent rifles and money to Greece, not GIs. The most famous, and most successful, containment policy from this period was the $20 billion Marshall Plan, initiated in 1947.

The Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948 prompted the U.S. to adopt more “militarized” containment polices. The blockade led the U.S., Canada, and ten European nations to create a permanent military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The first Soviet explosion of an atom bomb and the victory of Maoists in China in 1949 convinced the US State Department that “this Republic and its citizens . . . stand in their deepest peril.” In early 1950 the State Department drafted a report, known as NSC-68, to persuade the Truman Administration that the “fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is . . . the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the . . . countries of the non-Soviet world.” NSC-68 argued the U.S. must raise taxes and cut spending on social programs in order to fund the development of hydrogen bombs, expansion of conventional forces, and “intensification of . . . covert operations . . . with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest and revolt in selected strategic satellite counties.” Truman, not certain the U.S. could afford all this, referred NSC-68 to his economic advisors. Before they could respond, communist North Korea invaded its southern neighbor. Truman, assuming Stalin had ordered the attack, dispatched troops to South Korea. The U.S. implemented NSC-68 and more than tripled its military budget during the Korean War.

The same belief in a communist conspiracy masterminded by the Kremlin that led the U.S. to militarize its containment policy also allowed Senator Joseph McCarthy to rise to power. In February 1950 McCarthy catapulted himself to national prominence by announcing communists had infiltrated the State Department. He remained in the center stage of American politics until the Senate stripped him of much of his power in 1954. McCarthy was popular with many Americans because he provided a convenient explanation for why the US, undeniably the most powerful nation in the world, seemed to be falling behind in the Cold War. America wasn’t losing the Cold War—it was being betrayed by traitors from within. (The revelation in 1951 that Ethel and Julius Rosenburg actually had sold some atomic plans—albeit not very important ones—only added to McCarthy’s credibility and popularity.) In addition, the Truman administration had helped pave the way for McCarthyism by using rhetoric that simplified international relations into a struggle between the “free world” and evil communists. Thus, the logic of McCarthy’s persecution of communists and suspected communists was congruent with the logic of U.S. foreign policy.

Even after the fear of domestic subversion declined and the Supreme Court overturned many of the McCarthyist restrictions on communists’ liberties in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the fear of an overarching communist conspiracy continued to underpin American foreign policy. Beginning with the Korean War, the US interpreted every communist insurgency as a simply a pawn advanced by the Kremlin to test American resolve. This logic made every nation seem strategically vital since any failure to contain communism would make America appear weak, leading Moscow to redouble its aggression. The U.S. thus backed repressive, but anti-communist, governments in Iran, Pakistan, and most of Central America. American diplomats also repeatedly misinterpreted nationalist and anti-colonialist movements across the globe as Soviet-led ploys. This type of thinking eventually led the U.S. into the Vietnam War. American leaders could not comprehend that Ho Chi Minh’s strength derived less from Soviet and Chinese support than from his promise to expel the colonialists. Most Americans simply thought those pesky Soviets were at it again; it was just like those devious fellows in the Kremlin to test American willpower in some far-away place that appeared to have little strategic importance.

Americans’ faith in the righteousness of the Cold War unraveled rapidly after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Although relatively few Americans believed that the whole concept of containment was fundamentally flawed, a majority came to question many tenets of Cold War orthodoxy. Why should the US prop up a government despised by most of its own citizens? Why should the US fight a major war in a strategically insignificant country? The Vietnam War thus eroded the American public’s confidence in its military and political leaders and reduced public willingness to support repressive regimes or to deploy US troops abroad.

In addition, Vietnam convinced many Americans—including Richard Nixon—that more skillful diplomacy could reduce America’s dependence on military force to contain communism. Unlike previous presidents, Nixon realized the Kremlin was not ruthlessly pursing world domination and that communism was not a monolithic force. In 1971 Nixon exploited a growing Sino-Soviet rift and normalized diplomatic and economic relations with Beijing. As intended, Nixon’s deals with China placed pressure on the Soviets, making them more willing to seek détente—a general relaxation of Cold War rivalries. In 1972 the U.S. and USSR signed a treaty limiting the size of their nuclear arsenals and agreements re-opening trade between the nations. Both sides took advantage of détente by reducing their military budgets.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and Ronald Reagan’s defense build-up in the early 1980s temporarily ended American-Soviet cooperation, but these events did not renew the direct superpower confrontations that had defined the pre-détente Cold War. The Cold War finally ended in 1989 and 1990 when pro-democracy uprisings in eastern Europe and pro-independence movements in many Soviet republics led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. When the U.S., with Russian approval, fought the Gulf War in 1991, Americans learned the end of the Cold War had not ushered in an era of peace. Indeed, many Americans now occasionally wax nostalgic about the Cold War—an era when the U.S. had a clear enemy to hate, when the Soviets were powerful enough to keep rival ethnic groups in the Balkans from killing one another, and when international relations were clearly structured and generally predictable.

The Cold War profoundly affected domestic politics as well as international relations. As we have seen, the logic of America’s foreign policy supported the logic of McCarthyism. In Washington state, however, the “Red Scare” began before most Americans had heard of Joseph McCarthy and even before Truman had committed the US to containing communism. Since communists were more powerful in Washington than in virtually every other state in the union, it was perhaps not surprising that conservatives in Washington latched onto the “Red issue” before anti-radicals elsewhere. Events in Washington often provided a model for other states to follow. Several states copied the resolution that created Washington’s Canwell Committee. The University of Washington’s decision to fire three pro-communist professors in 1949 set off a wave of similar dismissals on colleges throughout the nation. Although the Red Scare in Washington state was unique in many respects, it also helped establish a national pattern and contributed to the growing persecution of communists across the country.

Washington Republicans made anti-communism the central theme of their 1946 campaign, charging that Democrats had “sold their soul to the Communist Party.” They concentrated their fire on Hugh DeLacy, a US Representative from Seattle who advocated friendly relations with the Soviets. Republicans asserted (quite accurately) that DeLacy was secretly a member of the CP. The accusations that Democrats aided communism, combined with a mild post-war recession, led Republicans to sweep the elections, regaining controlled of the Washington state legislature for the first time in 16 years.

Albert Canwell was one of the many Republicans whisked into the state house in the 1946 landslide. Canwell, who later described himself as a “one-man FBI,” had previously worked undercover to monitor CP activities for Boeing, Washington Water Power, and the Spokane Police Department. During the 1947 legislature, he introduced a resolution to create a committee with broad powers to investigate “organizations whose membership includes communists.” (Canwell’s resolution is document 2.) The resolution passed by a wide margin since a majority of Democrats decided to support it. Most Democrats knew all too well that their tolerance of communists, which had broadened their base of support in the late 1930s and early 1940s, was now a massive electoral liability. Voting against Canwell’s resolution seemed like political suicide. Disgusted by this treatment from their former allies, Washington’s communists walked out of the Democratic Party and joined the Progressive Party led by former vice-president Henry Wallace. The Democrats never let the communists back in.

The newly-created Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities made Canwell its chairman. The press referred to the group simply as the “Canwell Committee.” The Committee planned to hold public hearings to convince the public that the Washington Pension Union and several CIO unions were communist fronts controlled by Moscow. Canwell’s task was simplified by the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in mid-1947. This act required every leader of a union to disavow membership in the Communist Party before the National Labor Relations Board could recognize the union. The leaders of many unions, including some in Washington, responded by purging all communists from positions of power. With the communists already being evicted from the labor movement, Canwell could focus the first hearing solely on the WPU.

At the start of the first public hearing, Canwell laid down a series of rules that ensured that the proceedings would be rather one-sided. Only the Canwell Committee’s hand-picked witnesses and its investigators could speak at the hearings. Those accused of being communists could neither question their accusers nor make statements in their own behalf. Canwell ordered the State Patrol to eject anyone in the audience who tried to make a speech or otherwise “disrupt” the hearings. (Document 4 is a photo of WPU vice-president E. L. Pettus being thrown out of the hearings.)

As the Committee had intended, the first set of hearings made the front page of newspapers across the state in January and February 1948. The Committee began by taking testimony from several ex-CP members who had become professional anti-communist witnesses. The Committee paid these witnesses for testifying that the American CP was subservient to Moscow, that communists’ participation in seemingly reformist “front” groups was simply a ruse to attract soft-headed liberals the CP wanted to convert, and that the ultimate aim of the CP was the violent overthrow of the US government. (See document 8 for an example of this testimony.) The Committee then heard a large number of local ex-communists who swore they saw WPU officials at closed meetings of the CP where only “comrades” were allowed. (See documents 7, 13, and 14.) These local witnesses offered fairly convincing proof that most WPU leaders were communists and that the WPU had consistently supported Soviet foreign policy through all its twists and turns. The hearings, however, fell far short of proving that the WPU received frequent instructions from Moscow or that the group was really unconcerned with helping the elderly. The hearings weakened but did not destroy the WPU. Membership in the WPU dropped somewhat after the hearings, but the organization still had little trouble gathering enough signatures to place on the 1948 ballot a measure to provide free health care to impoverished Washingtonians.

The Canwell Committee held a second set of public hearings in July 1948 about “Communist activities at the University of Washington . . . and Seattle Repertory Playhouse.” Canwell again refused to permit cross-examination of the witnesses the Committee chose to put on the stand. Unlike the first hearings, the Committee also subpoenaed people suspected to be communists or former communists. The second professor to take the stand, ex-communist Garland Ethel, set a courageous example by testifying about his own activities in the Party, but refusing to give the names of people he had seen at communist meetings. (Ethel’s testimony is document 10.) All the subsequent professors followed Ethel’s lead and refused to name names. All in all, six professors, including Ethel, admitted they had once been members of the CP. Professors Melvin Rader and Joseph Cohen vehemently denied they had ever been communists; they proclaimed that the witnesses who had said otherwise were lying. Three professors and Florence and Burton James, the directors of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse, declined to answer any questions about their political affiliations. (The Jameses explain their decision not to testify in document 21.)

The Seattle Repertory Playhouse never recovered from the negative publicity generated by the Canwell hearings. During the hearings, several witnesses alleged that the Playhouse produced “communist plays” and served as a “recruiting ground” for the CP. The witnesses supplied little evidence to corroborate their charges, except for the fact that some members of the Playhouse had occasionally provided entertainment at CP fund-raisers. Nevertheless, attendance at the theater declined precipitously after the July hearings, and the Playhouse’s income fell by two-thirds the following year. In early 1950 the Playhouse filed for bankruptcy.

University of Washington (UW) administrators sought to “clear the University’s reputation” by preparing to dismiss six professors—Garland Ethel, Harold Eby, Melville Jacobs, Joseph Butterworth, Herbert Phillips, and Ralph Gundlach. The UW tenure code required the Faculty Senate to create a Tenure Committee to try the administration’s charges against the professors. The Tenure Committee had to find the professors guilty of “incompetency, neglect of duty, incapacity, dishonesty, or immorality” before the administration could fire them. (The Tenure Committee’s rules are described in document 26.) The tenure hearings stretched from October to December 1948. The administration contended that Butterworth, Phillips, and Gundlach were all present members of the CP and that their unswerving devotion to communist dogma rendered them incapable of fulfilling their scholarly duty to “seek the truth wherever it may lead.” The assumption was that “the truth” could never lead to Marxism. The administration also argued these three professors were immoral because they belonged to an organization dedicated to overthrowing the government. Ethel, Eby, and Jacobs—all former communists—were charged with having committed these offenses in the past. All six were also accused of having been dishonest with UW President Raymond Allen when he questioned them about their political affiliations.

Each professor offered a different defense, but all six introduced abundant evidence that their colleagues and students found them to be objective and thoroughly competent scholars whose teaching did not reveal pro-communist biases. (See document 29.) Rather than attempting to refute this testimony, the administration insisted it was irrelevant. The administration asserted that regardless of how qualified the professors appeared to be, the fact that they were (or had been) members of the CP rendered them inherently unfit. The professors’ lawyers argued that the since the administration could not prove their clients’ individual guilt and incompetence, it had fallen back on the unsound doctrine of “guilt by association.” (Document 27 contains the administration’s case, while document 30 sets out the professors’.)

The Tenure Committee voted to dismiss Ralph Gundlach and retain the other five professors. The Committee unanimously supported keeping Professors Ethel, Eby, and Jacobs on the faculty. These professors had proved their competence by leaving the CP. The most controversial cases were those of Phillips and Butterworth, who admitted they were still active members of the CP. Of the 11 members of the Tenure Committee, three thought Phillips and Butterworth should be immediately dismissed, three asserted communists had every right to be part of the faculty, and five contended the UW should amend the tenure code to ban communists from teaching in the future but could not fire Phillips and Butterworth because existing rules did not allow it. (The Committee’s recommendations regarding Phillips and Butterworth can be found in document 31.) The Committee recommended dismissing Ralph Gundlach even though he was the only defendant to claim he had never been a communist. The vast majority of the Committee admitted the evidence was insufficient for them to determine whether or not Gundlach had participated in the CP, but they voted 7-4 to dismiss Gundlach for being dishonest with President Allen. They saw this dishonesty as part of a larger pattern of unsatisfactory relations with the UW: Gundlach had sponsored numerous controversial speakers, had clashed repeatedly with some administrators, and had leaked data from UW-sponsored public opinion surveys to Hugh DeLacy’s campaign in 1946.

The UW Regents, the seven gubernatorial appointees who supervised University affairs, made the final decision about the professors in January 1949. While UW administrators were bound by the tenure code, the Regents were not. Angering much of the faculty, UW President Allen advised the Regents to ignore the Tenure Committee recommendations and dismiss Butterworth and Phillips, as well as Gundlach. Some state legislators pressured the Regents to remove all six professors. Indeed, conservatives in the legislature blocked hearings on the UW budget until after the Regents made their decision. That Teamster leader Dave Beck was a Regent did not help the professors’ cause. At the Regents’ meeting, Beck moved for the dismissal of all six professors; his motion was narrowly defeated, 3-4. The Regents then unanimously decided to discharge Butterworth, Phillips, and Gundlach and place Eby, Ethel, and Jacobs on probation for two years.

The dismissals set a national precedent. Newspapers throughout the US praised the Regents for their “bold, forceful, but fair decision.” When the American Association of University Professors failed to protest the UW’s actions, universities across the nation began investigating allegedly communist professors. A large number of college administrators looked to the UW cases as a model and echoed Allen’s claim that communists were not fit to teach because they were not intellectually independent. Nearly 200 American professors were dismissed for being communist or “subversive” in the 1950s. A much larger number of liberal or ex-communist academics, fearing for their jobs, cut their ties to left-wing groups, toned down their lectures, and generally concealed their political views. With the tide of public opinion running against communism, liberals often acquiesced in the dismissals.

As the anti-communist wave convulsed academia, Gundlach, Phillips, and Butterworth soon found they had been effectively blacklisted. None of them found another job in higher education. (See document 39 for an account of what happened to the professors after the tenure hearings.)

Professor Melvin Rader, on the other hand, successfully fought back against the Canwell Committee. During the July 1948 hearings professional anti-communist witness George Hewitt swore he had seen Rader at a secret CP training school in New York in the late 1930s. (Hewitt’s testimony is document 15; see also documents 16 and 17.) The Canwell Committee did not give Rader a chance to cross-examine Hewitt before Hewitt left the state. Shortly after the hearings were over, Rader filed perjury charges against Hewitt. Canwell and other conservatives pressured the King County prosecutor to drop the case. Although they failed in this effort, they did convince a New York judge (in a highly irregular legal proceeding) to refuse to extradite Hewitt back to Seattle. When it became clear the courts would not address the issue, the Seattle Times assigned reporter Ed Guthman to investigate the case. In September 1949 the Seattle Times began running a series of Guthman’s articles about Rader’s mistreatment at the hands of the Canwell Committee. Guthman described how Committee investigators had taken a hotel register which seemed to vindicate Rader and how this register was later “lost” in the Committee’s files. Guthman won a Pulitzer Prize for these articles. (Rader describes his ordeal in document 24.)

The Canwell forces suffered another setback in the November 1948 election: four of the six members of the Committee, including Canwell, failed to win reelection. The defeat of Canwell and his allies had little to do with the Rader affair (which had not yet grabbed front-page headlines) or with the WPU’s campaign against the Committee. The coattails of Harry Truman’s surprising 1948 reelection victory wiped out many inexperienced Republican legislators and helped Washington Democrats recover much of the ground they had lost in 1946. Control of the 1949 legislative session was thus divided. When the Republican-controlled state house passed a bill renewing the Canwell Committee, the Democratic-controlled state senate enacted a counterproposal that would create a less powerful investigative committee. The Democrats’ committee would hold hearings closed to the public and would give alleged subversives a chance to cross-examine their accusers and to call witnesses in their defense. Both parties refused to compromise, and neither bill became law. This impasse occurred again in the 1951 legislature with the same result. The Canwell Committee was never revived.

The 1948 election also brought the WPU back into the political spotlight when 57% of Washington voters passed Initiative 172. (See document 43.) This WPU-sponsored measure provided senior citizens a minimum income of $60 per month and guaranteed health care to all Washingtonians on public assistance (Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, etc.). Liberals in the US Congress held up Initiative 172 as a possible model for a national health care law.

Ironically, the passage of Initiative 172 did not lead to further extensions in the social “safety net,” but instead set the stage for the demise of the WPU. Seeking to maximize political support, the WPU did not include a funding mechanism in Initiative 172; the measure simply ordered the state legislature to find a way to pay for the new programs. Republican Governor Arthur Langlie urged the 1949 legislature to raise taxes, but legislators refused, triggering a fiscal crisis. Washington’s budget surplus turned into a rapidly growing deficit in a matter of months. The growth of welfare spending, which now consumed 49% of Washington’s total budget, threatened the state’s ability to pay for schools and highways. In late 1949 Governor Langlie gave up trying to cajole new taxes out of the legislature and resorted to red-baiting to destroy public support for the popular measure. In a series of radio addresses, Langlie proclaimed Initiative 172 was a “communist plot to bankrupt our state.”

The 1950 election thus featured a duel between Langlie’s proposal to dramatically restrict Washington’s health insurance for the poor and a WPU measure to increase social security payments by $5 per month and tie future pension increases to the rate of inflation. Pundits initially thought both measures would fail. In June 1950, however, the Korean War began, prompting the WPU to denounce Truman as an “imperialist” for sending US troops to defend South Korea. The WPU’s communist leaders had placed their foolish commitment to Soviet foreign policy above their commitment to their health care program. Langlie intensified his attack on the WPU, and his measure won a smashing victory at the polls in November. The WPU’s initiative barely garnered 30%. The membership of the WPU plummeted precipitously after 1950. The organization was never again able to collect enough signatures to place an initiative on the ballot.

After the demise of the WPU and the legislature’s failure to renew the Canwell Committee, the locus of the anti-communist crusade in Washington moved from the state government to the federal government. The state legislature did outlaw the Communist Party and pass laws requiring state employees to sign loyalty oaths in the early 1950s, but these laws were tied up in the courts and not enforced. The federal government, on the other hand, had entered its period of unrestrained McCarthyism and deployed its considerable power against the remnants of the CP in Washington state. In 1952 the Justice Department arrested seven leaders of the CP in Washington-including the WPU’s president and vice-president—for conspiring to overthrow the US government. The defendants, known as the “Seattle Seven,” produced proof they had never openly advocated the overthrow of the government. The prosecutor argued, and the judge concurred, that such evidence was irrelevant because the defendants participated in an organization that conspired to attack the government at some unspecified point in the future. During the course of the trial, WPU President William Pennock committed suicide. The remaining six defendants were found guilty and sentenced to five years in jail and fined $10,000 each. They served roughly a year of the sentence before they were released pending appeal. Their convictions were finally overturned on appeal in 1958.

In addition, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) visited Seattle in 1954 and 1955. HUAC’s star witness was Barbara Hartle, one of the “Seattle Seven” who had become an informant for the FBI after her conviction. Hartle listed literally hundreds of people she had seen at CP meetings, including minor WPU functionaries and people who had only attended three or four communist gatherings before dropping out of the Party. Many of the people Hartle named had left the CP over 15 years earlier, and some vehemently denied they ever had anything to do with the CP. Although very few of those named during the HUAC hearings lost their jobs, many of them found their friends and colleagues suddenly unwilling to talk to them or be seen with them.

Resistance to McCarthyism in Washington state grew stronger in the mid-1950s, especially at the UW. Professor Melvin Rader became head of the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and toured the state speaking against the excesses of the fight against communism. In late 1954, the majority of the UW faculty vigorously protested when administrators canceled a one-week series of lectures about nuclear physics to be given by left-wing physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was widely seen as the “father of the atomic bomb.” UW professors argued it was absurd to deny students the chance to learn from one of the world’s most brilliant physicists. The “ban on Oppenheimer” generated terrible publicity as newspapers across the nation charged that “thought control” and political orthodoxy were turning the UW into a second-rate college. After the Oppenheimer incident, the UW became more willing to hire controversial professors. In addition, in the late 1950s a group of UW professors challenged the legality of the loyalty oaths required by Washington law. This case, Baggitt v Bullitt, languished in the courts for several years, but in 1964 the US Supreme Court declared Washington’s oaths unconstitutional. Indeed, the Supreme Court’s decision went even further and proclaimed that no public institution (except those directly related to national security) could require a loyalty oath as a condition of employment. Just as the UW’s dismissal of pro-communist professors in 1949 had helped trigger a nationwide Red Scare in academia, the UW professors’ victory against loyalty oaths in 1964 helped end the persecution of political dissenters in American universities. (Documents 41 and 42 relate to loyalty oaths.)

Thus, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Red Scare was fading. The Supreme Court helped this process with a string of decisions like Baggitt v Bullitt. However, a more important factor in the decline of the anti-communist crusade was simply Americans’ increased sense of security in this period. After the Korean War ended in 1953, America’s policy of containment appeared to be working and communists seemed less of a military threat. In addition, the American CP had already been virtually destroyed by the early 1950s; hunting the remnant bands of communists hardly seemed worth the effort. Furthermore, rising personal income levels throughout the 1950s and 1960s made many Americans optimistic about the future and convinced them that their society was stable and secure. By the early 1960s, belief in a widespread communist conspiracy to subvert the US was largely confined right-wing groups such as the American Legion and the John Birch Society (JBS). JBS-backed candidates won some seats on city councils and school boards in Washington state in the early 1960s, but they tended to discredit themselves fairly quickly by applying the “Red” label to everyone who disagreed with them.

The end of the Red Scare allowed Washington politics to once again move in a more reformist direction in the 1960s. Throughout the 1950s, conservatives had been able to defeat many reforms by denouncing them as “communist-inspired.” But by the end of the decade, conservatives’ favorite electoral strategy—calling their liberal opponents “soft on communism”—had clearly lost its magic in Washington. After 1957 Washington voters began to elect more Democrats and liberal Republicans to the state legislature. In step with John Kennedy’s “War on Poverty” and Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs of the 1960s, the Washington state legislature began to see persistent poverty in the midst of a prosperous economy as a problem. The legislature modestly expanded education and welfare programs like unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and food stamps, but never restored Washington’s comprehensive state-level health care system. In addition, the emergence of strong civil rights groups (which barred communists from joining in order to protect themselves from red-baiting) drew attention to a new set of political issues centering on segregation and the exclusion of African-Americans from most of the economic gains made since the Second World War.

Cold War military spending helped create many of those economic gains in Washington. The Pentagon pumped billions of dollars into Washington’s economy during the “boom years” of Cold War defense spending between 1950 and 1970. While Washington’s unemployment rate had averaged about 10% in the first four decades of the twentieth century, unemployment in Washington was less than 5% during the 1950s and 1960s. Washington’s population jumped from 2.37 million in 1950 to 3.41 million in 1970. In addition, most of the positions created by defense spending were high-wage jobs. Military spending thus contributed to the substantial growth in Washingtonians’ median income in this period.

This was hardly the first time that Washington’s economic development had been tied to federal spending. The federal government’s Indian treaties and land grants to railroads had laid the basis for Washington’s timber- and wheat-based economy in the nineteenth century. During the First World War, federal spending fueled the growth of shipyards, beginning to give Washington an industrial base. The sudden cancellation of shipbuilding at the end of the war, however, wiped away this base and once more left the state primarily dependent on the export of wheat and lumber. The construction of Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams in the late 1930s laid a more durable foundation for later industrialization. The Second World War rapidly transformed Washington into a veritable hive of military bases and arms factories. At the end of the war, many people feared that, just as after WW I, the federal government would cut military spending, once again dissolving Washington’s nascent industrial base. Indeed, as the US demobilized, many parts of Washington experienced a recession in 1946 and 1947. Defense spending began to rise in the late 1940s when Truman decided to adopt a policy of containment. As we have seen, the start of the Korean War and the adoption of NSC-68 tripled the U.S. defense budget, ensuring that Washington would retain an industrial economy.

Washington received more than its share of federal military spending. Geography partially accounted for Washington’s favored status. The Puget Sound was large, deep, and relatively easy to defend militarily, making it an ideal center for the U.S. Navy. The presence of two large Army posts, Fort Lewis and the Yakima Training Center, also made Washington a logical choice to receive Army dollars. However, one should not underestimate the influence of Washington’s two powerful Senators, Warren Magnuson and Henry “Scoop” Jackson. Both were liberals who were endorsed by communists when their political careers began in the 1930s. However, both men distanced themselves from communists during World War II and wholeheartedly embraced Truman’s philosophy of containment after the war. They realized a vigorously anti-communist foreign policy was good for Washington’s many defense contractors. Their influence helped ensure that the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton remained one of the largest shipbuilding centers in the US during the Cold War. (See document 49.) This shipyard also served (and still serves) as the home port for part of the Navy’s Pacific fleet. In the 1960s, when the Navy wanted to build nuclear-powered Trident submarines, Jackson guided the proposal through the Senate and won funding to build a Trident Support Site at Bangor, Washington. Today, Bangor is the home port of virtually all U.S. nuclear submarines based in the Pacific. Jackson and Magnuson also successfully championed the expansion of the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station and the Yakima Training Center. In addition, Magnuson’s efforts led the military to award more than a few research grants to scientists at the UW and Washington State University. After the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, Magnuson convinced Congress that spending $10 million on a US Science Exhibit for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair would be a timely investment in national security that could persuade American children to study science in school. (See document 50 for a description of how the Cold War shaped the space-themed design of the fair, including the Space Needle.)

Boeing was, of course, the real titan of Washington’s Cold War economy. Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Boeing provided well over half of the industrial jobs in the Seattle area. The economic health of the entire Puget Sound region depended largely on the economic condition of Boeing, which was, by far and away, Washington’s largest employer. The Air Force’s decision to buy Seattle-built Boeing B-52s spurred the rapid growth of the Seattle area after the late 1940s. The profits from B-52s allowed the company to develop its first commercial jetliner, the 707. (See document 47.) As Boeing became the world’s largest supplier of commercial jets in the 1950s and 1960s, the region’s dependence on military spending lessened somewhat. (The growth of firms providing consumer goods and services also contributed to the diversification of Washington’s economy in this period.)

Nonetheless, it became painfully apparent in the early 1970s that Washington’s economy was still intimately tied to defense spending. In 1970 Boeing simultaneously faced a stagnant market for commercial jets and a loss of military contracts as the US began to withdraw from Vietnam, pursue détente with Moscow and Beijing, and cut its defense budget. When Boeing dismissed nearly three-quarters of its workforce in the next three years, Washington’s economy took a nose dive. (See document 48.) The state’s population declined for the first time in over a century. The population of Seattle fell so rapidly that residents put up a billboard along Interstate 5 at the city line which asked, “Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?” Only a strong market for 747s in the mid-1970s pulled Boeing, and Washington, out of the recession. President Reagan’s defense build-up greatly contributed to the Boeing-led economic boom of the 1980s.

The economy of Washington’s Tri-Cities-Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick—has been even more intimately tied to American foreign policy. Before the coming of the Manhattan Project, the population of the Tri-Cities was 6,000. During World War II, the Army build a large company town, a “secret city,” at Richland, near its Hanford site. By 1945 Richland alone held 15,000 residents. The relative calm of the immediate post-war years generated a slight decline in the Tri-Cities’ population. The U.S. decision to produce hydrogen bombs, however, spurred further growth of Hanford and the Tri-Cities in the late 1940s and early 1950s. (See document 51.) Throughout the early Cold War, Hanford was America’s largest producer of weapons-grade plutonium. The slowing down of the nuclear arms race in the middle to late 1960s brought economic stagnation to the Tri-Cities. The Tri-Cities are still dependent on federal spending. Now, however, federal money is devoted not to building bombs, but to cleaning up the highly toxic by-products of plutonium production that contaminate the Hanford site.

Simply by looking at a map, one can see ways in which the Cold War has affected Washington. The large Hanford Nuclear Reservation fills a fair amount of the southeastern part of the state. Of the many lasting impacts of the Cold War on Washington state, the radioactive waste at Hanford is perhaps the most apparent, and certainly the most enduring. It will be over 10,000 years before many of the compounds created at Hanford stop emitting dangerous levels of radiation. Other places also still bespeak the influence of the Cold War—especially the submarine base at Bangor and the enlarged Yakima Training Center and Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. The expansion of Washington’s military infrastructure during the Cold War is one of the main reasons why about 7% of the land in Washington state is now owned by the military or the Department of Energy. Although the gradual diversification of Washington’s economy has made the state less reliant on defense spending, military bases and defense production continue to play a substantial role in the Washington economy. Indeed, many Washington bases have grown even larger after the end of the Cold War. As the federal government closed scores of military posts during the 1990s, it redeployed troops and equipment to stations that remained open. The strategic location of Washington bases, combined with the ability of Washington politicians to keep these posts stocked with the most up-to-date military hardware, has allowed Washington’s military bases to prosper during the post-Cold War contraction of the American military as a whole.

The long-term political effects of the Cold War are harder to spot. The Red Scare obviously cut a broad swath across Washington state politics in the late 1940s and 1950s—propelling conservative politicians to power, destroying the Washington Pension Union and other radical political groups, temporarily silencing liberal dissenters, and leaving a trail of besmirched reputations and shattered careers. Identifying the lasting consequences of these events, however, is not a simple task because it requires speculating on what might have happened in the absence of the Red Scare. How would Washington’s 1948 health care plan for the poor have fared if it had not been doomed by conservatives’ vigorous red—baiting and the WPU’s commitment to Soviet foreign policy? How would Washington politics have developed differently if Canwell and his allies had not systematically destroyed the far left wing? Communists and leftists could have simply faded away, discredited by their apologies for Stalinism, or they might have survived as an organized force and strengthened the political movements of the 1960s.

Although the American CP was extinguished as a political force, communists eventually won a series of victories in court, setting important precedents. During the height of the Red Scare, courts condoned the persecution of leftists by accepting the principle of “guilt by association” and by granting incredibly broad powers to the Canwell Committee and HUAC. However, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Supreme Court declared many anti-communist tactics unconstitutional. The Court narrowed the definition of conspiracy to making definite and detailed plans to overthrow a government, prohibiting the “guilt by association” arguments used against the “Seattle Seven.” It also declared that the First Amendment prohibited legislative committees from forcing private individuals to testify about their political beliefs or affiliations. Similarly, the Court proclaimed that loyalty oaths, laws banning or restricting the CP, and other laws designed to prevent communists from obtaining employment were clear violations of the First Amendment. One of the legacies of the Red Scare—or, more accurately, the fight against it—was thus the strengthening of First Amendment protections.

Perhaps the most important change the Cold War brought to Washington state was sheer growth. Over 1,000,000 people moved to Washington between 1950 and 1970, the apex of Cold War military production. (See document 46 for population statistics from several Washington cities.) The majority of those newcomers settled in the rapidly expanding suburbs of the Puget Sound region. As development sprawled along much of the Puget Sound, residents became increasingly concerned about the loss of green spaces, the increasing air and water pollution, and the ever-worsening traffic problems. (Of course, most Washingtonians liked suburbs and wanted further economic development; they just didn’t care for the “side effects.”) While Washington politics had revolved around struggles between radicals and anti-radicals from the 1880s to the 1950s, by the 1960s a new set of issues, centering on growth and the environment, had risen to the fore. By promoting rapid economic growth and by destroying the far left wing, the Cold War had thus refocused Washington state politics.

Please note that many of the terms listed below have several definitions (i.e. “liberal” also means generous). This glossary defines terms only in regard to how they are most commonly used in this packet.

Bolshevik Revolution (proper noun) – The violent struggle which removed the czar and brought communists to power in Russia in 1917. The Bolsheviks were a group of communists led by Vladimir Lenin.

capitalism (noun) – An economic system in which the means of production (factories, printing presses, etc.) are owned privately and operated for profit. Under capitalism, prices and wages are generally determined in the market rather than by voters or government officials.

communism (noun) –

1. A system of political beliefs which advocates the abolition of most forms of private property and the creation of a society where property is owned in common, with all members of the community sharing in the work and the products.

2. The economic and political system instituted in the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Also, the economic and political system of several Soviet allies, such as China and Cuba. (Writers often capitalize Communism when they use the word in this sense.) These Communist economic systems often did not achieve the ideals of communist theory. For example, although many forms of property were owned by the government in the USSR and China, neither the work nor the products were shared in a manner that would be considered equitable by many communist or Marxist theorists.

Cold War (proper noun) – The struggle between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. The Cold War began shortly after the end of the Second World War and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90. The Korean War (1950-53) and the Vietnam War (1965-73) were part of the Cold War. The Cold War had both a military and an ideological component. The military component consisted of an “arms race” between the U.S. and USSR and also American and Soviet intervention in numerous civil wars in smaller countries. The ideological component consisted of arguments over whose economic system was superior and competition to be the first nation to achieve various technological feats (such as landing a man on the moon).

conservative (adjective) – Tending to preserve established political, economic, and social institutions; opposed to most forms of change.

conservative (noun) – A person who holds conservative ideas. American conservatives tend to favor the existing forms of American capitalism and democracy and tend to oppose efforts to modify or reform them substantially. American conservatives are usually strongly anti-communist.

fascism (noun) – Although there is no single body of political theory associated with fascism, it tends to include a belief in the superiority of one national or ethnic group over others, insistence on national unity under a powerful leader, and hostility toward democracy. Fascism developed in Italy in the early 1920s. It became quite influential in several European nations in the 1930s, most notably in Germany under the Nazi Party.

fellow traveler (noun phrase; slang) – A person who, although not a member of a given political group, cooperates with that group. This phrase was most commonly applied to the non-communist supporters of the Communist Party.

“front” organization (noun phrase; slang) – A political organization which is dominated by another political organization; a political group that is a “puppet” of another group. This phrase was most commonly applied to political groups whose leadership included communists. Such groups were also called “fronts.”

left-wing; right-wing (adjectives) – Terms used to define political ideas or people who hold such ideas. If the variety of political beliefs is thought of as a spectrum, the more liberal or radical ideas are left-wing, while the more conservative or fascist ideas are right-wing.

Leninism (proper noun) – The political and economic doctrines of Karl Marx as interpreted and applied by Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1924. Lenin stressed the need for a violent revolution to bring communists to power. He developed specific strategies and tactics for bringing about such revolutions. Lenin also argued that communist governments should not tolerate political opposition. Leninism is often used combined with other terms. Marxism-Leninism means the same thing as Leninism. Leninism-Stalinism means Lenin’s doctrines as interpreted and modified by Josef Stalin.

liberal (adjective) – Tending to favor constitutional or legal reforms in the direction of greater freedom or democracy. Favorable toward social and cultural change.

liberal (noun) – A person who holds liberal ideas. American liberals approve of many features of capitalism, but believe that government action is needed to regulate some aspects of the capitalist system. Specifically, American liberals tend to favor programs designed to guarantee individuals a minimum standard of economic security. American liberals generally prefer gradual reform to dramatic political or economic changes. American liberals also tend to believe that all groups should have full political and civil rights. In the 1950s, however, American liberals were divided over the issue of whether communists deserved full political and civil rights.

Marxism (proper noun) – A system of thought based on the writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883). Marx claimed that all wealth was really created by workers, not capitalists. He argued that capitalism was wrong because capitalists controlled and profited from the products of workers’ labor. He advocated a communist economic system where the working class would own and control the means of production (factories, printing presses, etc.). Marx believed that history followed a set pattern and that the working class would inevitably overthrow the capitalist class in a series of revolutions. Marxism and communism are not entirely identical terms. Many Marxists (followers of Marx) accept Marx’s criticisms of capitalism, but reject his plan for a communist economic system. Thus some Marxists are not communists. Similarly, some communists are not familiar with or do not accept Marx’s theories.

McCarthyism (proper noun)

1) A series of political attitudes and tactics associated Joseph McCarthy, a US Senator from Wisconsin from 1946 to 1958. McCarthyism is characterized by vehement anti-communism and the use of tactics involving publicizing unsubstantiated accusations about individuals thought to be subversive.

2) The persecution of communists and suspected communists in the U.S. after the Second World War. When used in this broader sense, McCarthyism is a synonym for Red Scare.

Nazi-Soviet Pact (proper noun) – A treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union signed in August 1939. The two nations promised not to attack one another and agreed to cooperate in a simultaneous invasion of Poland. This invasion triggered the start of the Second World War. The Nazis broke the Pact by invading the Soviet Union in July 1941. The American Communist Party was very unpopular while the Pact was in effect because communists were seen as allies of Hitler. The Nazi-Soviet Pact is also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

New Deal (proper noun) – The program of reforms advocated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. These reforms included the construction of federally-owned hydroelectric dams as well as the creation of social security, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, the forty-hour work week, and many other programs of economic security.

Pinks or Pinkos (noun; slang) – Derogatory terms for communists and socialists.

radical (adjective) – Extreme; outside the mainstream; favoring sweeping political or social changes. When used in regard to American politics from the 1930s to the 1960s, radical most often refers to extreme left-wing views.

radical (noun) – A person who holds radical views. In the United States, communists, socialists, and anarchists are generally thought of as radicals.

Red (adjective; slang) – A slang term for communist ideas or policies.

Reds (noun; slang) – A derogatory term for communists.

socialism (noun) – A theory or policy which advocates or aims at public ownership of land, factories, and a few other types of property. Most forms of socialism rely on a government to manage and distribute the property in the common interest of the community. American socialists have generally favored giving democratically-elected governments greater control over major industries. Socialism differs from communism in its willingness to allow more forms of private property and in its greater commitment to achieving economic change through democratic means.

Stalinism (proper noun)

1) Support for the policies of Josef Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s until 1953. Stalin was known for absolute intolerance for internal political opposition. Many thousands of Soviet citizens who opposed Stalin’s policies were killed in “purges” during the 1930s and 1940s.

2) A particularly ruthless form of communist theory or practice.

United Front (proper noun)-  An alliance of communists, socialists, and liberals during the late 1930s and early 1940s. These groups formed a United Front in order to oppose the spread of fascism and to attempt to pass economic reforms to end the Great Depression. The American Communist Party supported the New Deal and reached the peak of its popularity during the United Front period. The United Front is also referred to as the Popular Front.

The materials in this packet can stand alone, but they can also be used fruitfully in conjunction with many other resources—books, videos, or field trips. Teachers could use the suggestions in this bibliography either to expand upon the materials in this packet or to study a particular topic or theme in greater depth.

A. Other Collections of Primary Documents

Although this packet is currently the only collection of primary documents about the Red Scare and Cold War in Washington state, there are number of good compilations of primary sources about the Red Scare on the national level. Teachers of U.S. history could photocopy some documents from these compilations (although many of the documents in these books are subject to copyright restrictions). The books listed below generally cover the demise of McCarthyism in the late 1950s and 1960s more completely than this packet. In addition, documents from these works illustrate that the fear associated with the Cold War and the persecution of communists were not local, but national, phenomena.

Fariello, Griffin. Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition: An Oral History. New York: Norton, 1995. 575 pages.

A compilation of 75 interviews with victims of the Red Scare.

Fried, Albert, ed. McCarthyism: The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 234 pages.

A first-rate collection of documents covering all aspects of the Red Scare.

King, Lisa, ed. The Origins of the Cold War: A Unit of Study for Grades 9-12. Los Angeles: National Center for History in the Schools, 1991. 55 pages.

An excellent collection of nine important primary documents about US foreign policy in the late 1940s with detailed suggestions for lesson plans.

Paterson, Thomas, ed. Major Problems in American Foreign Policy: Documents and Essays, vol. 2. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Co., 1978. 478 pages.

Contains primary sources about U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, as well as essays by historians with conflicting interpretations of U.S. foreign policy.

Schrecker, Ellen, ed. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1994. 274 pages.

Contains fewer documents than Albert Fried’s book, but the lengthier introductions to each section provide more historical context.

B. Books on Related Topics

Teachers wishing to pursue topics in greater depth can use the following books. All of these works, except possibly Gaddis’s, are accessible to high school students writing research papers. However, all the books, except Ingalls’s and Warren’s, are probably too advanced for middle school students.

Ambrose, Stephen E. and Douglas G. Brinkley. Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, 8th rev. ed. New York: Penguin, 1997. 464 pages.

A very readable overview of the evolution of U.S. foreign policy.

Brands, H. W. The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. 243 pages.

An interpretative essay about the causes and effects of the Cold War. Brands is such as good writer that this is enjoyable reading.

Caute, David. The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. 697 pages.

An encyclopedic description of virtually every aspect of the Red Scare. This book is admirable for its scope, but it treats very few topics in detail.

Countryman, Vern. Un-American Activities in the State of Washington: The Work of the Canwell Committee. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1951. 405 pages.

The most detailed secondary source about the Canwell hearings. Countryman, a Yale law professor, carefully hides his own opinion in the first six chapters, which meticulously describe the anti-communist crusade in Washington state. In the final chapter, Countryman offers an insightful and stinging analysis, concluding that the only “un-American activities in Washington” were “those of the Canwell Committee and some of its allies.”

Fried, Richard. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 243 pages.

Probably the single best book about the history of American anti-communism. In addition to its first-rate analysis, this work contains a number of anecdotes about how the Red Scare affected American culture. For example, the Cincinnati Reds temporarily changed their name to the Redlegs to avoid confusion with other Reds.

Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American Security Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. 432 pages.

A well-researched, but rather dense, analysis of the evolution of America’s containment policies. This would be a good book to give to students writing a research paper about an aspect of the Cold War.

Ingalls, Robert P. Point of Order: A Profile of Senator Joe McCarthy. New York: Putnam, 1981. 159 pages.

A biography of McCarthy written for high school students.

Klingaman, William K. Encyclopedia of the McCarthy Era. New York: Facts on File, 1996. 502 pages.

An excellent resource for both teachers of U.S. history and students writing research papers. Contains topical entries, as well as biographies of Red hunters and targets of McCarthyism. Each entry concludes with a short bibliography. An appendix contains several important primary documents about the Red Scare.

Oshinsky, David M. A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy. New York: Macmillan, 1983. 597 pages.

An excellent biography of McCarthy.

Rader, Melvin. False Witness. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969; reprint, 1998. 229 pages.

Rader’s memoir of his fight to clear his reputation from the smears of a Canwell Committee witness. Portions of this book appear as document #24 in this packet, but these excerpts do not do full justice to Rader’s compelling story.

Sanders, Jane. Cold War on the Campus: Academic Freedom at the University of Washington, 1949-1964. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979. 243 pages.

A first-rate work about how the anti-communist crusade affected the UW. Covers the Canwell hearings, the UW tenure hearings, the fight against loyalty oaths, and the struggle to allow left-wing professors to speak at the university.

Schrecker, Ellen. No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 436 pages.

Documents fights about the meaning of academic freedom on campuses across the nation.

Steinberg, Peter L. The Great “Red Menace”: United States Prosecution of American Communists, 1947-1952. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984. 311 pages.

A history of the Justice Department’s campaign to break the American Communist Party by repeatedly prosecuting its leaders for conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Warren, James A. Cold War: The American Crusade Against World Communism. New York: Lothop, Lee & Shepard, 1996. 288 pages.

An overview of the Cold War written for high school students. This work primarily deals with American foreign policy, but devotes one chapter to the Red Scare.

C. Videos

Videos offer another way to engage students with the history of the Cold War and Red Scare. All of the following videos are suitable for middle and high school students, although The Atomic Cafe does contain graphic footage of the aftermath of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.

Are We Winning, Mommy? America and the Cold War. Produced and directed by Barbara Margolis. New York: Cinema Guild, 1986. 86 minutes.

An informative and interesting overview of the origins of the Cold War that also does a very good job placing the Red Scare into historical context. Teachers may wish to skip the annoying video montage in the first four minutes of the film. In addition, teachers could edit out the last 20-25 minutes of the film, which are devoted to a tirade against the Reagan era defense build-up.

The Atomic Cafe. Produced and directed by Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty. Irvington, NY: Voyager Company, 1984; re-released 1995. 82 minutes.

An alternately funny and frightening documentary history of the atomic bomb, compiled from newsreels, television programs, US Army training films, and similar sources. The best documentary available on the history of nuclear weapons. This film does a good job conveying the fear of atomic attack felt by Americans during the Cold War. It also has a handful of brief references to “Reds in Washington state” and thus may be more suitable for Pacific Northwest history classes than the other videos.

Love in the Cold War, an episode of the television series The American Experience. Produced and directed by Eric Strange and David Dugan. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1991. 58 minutes.

The story of Peggy and Eugene Dennis and their struggles as a family and as leaders of the American Communist Party. Eugene Dennis was the chairman of the American CP during much of the McCarthy era. In addition to telling a moving story about one family, this film also provides a good overview of the history of the CP during the Great Depression and the Red Scare.

McCarthy: Death of a Witch Hunter. Produced and directed by Emile de Antonio. Oak Forest, IL: MPI Home Video, 1986. 50 minutes.

Excerpts from the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings. These hearings revealed McCarthy’s excesses to a national television audience and thus helped bring about his downfall. This film does an excellent job documenting McCarthy’s brutal anti-communist tactics. It is unaccompanied by narration, aside from a brief introduction by Paul Newman. This film was originally released in 1964 as a longer motion picture under the title Point of Order.

Post-war Hopes, Cold War Fears, episode 12 of the television program A Walk Through the 20th Century With Bill Moyers. Produced by Imre Horvath. Directed by Imre Horvath and Bill Moyers. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1983. 60 minutes.

A history of American foreign policy from the end of the Second World War to the Vietnam War. The film also briefly discusses the Red hunts of the McCarthy era. This film is generally less complex and analytical than Are We Winning, Mommy?, but it may be more suitable for middle school students.

Seeing Red. Produced and directed by James Klein and Julia Reichert. Chicago: Facets Video, 1984. 96 minutes.

A series of interviews with former members of the American CP. This film received an Academy Award nomination for best documentary in 1983. While this movie does an excellent job exploring why many Americans joined and left the Communist Party and how the Red Scare affected American communists, it does not discuss the history of the CP or the origins of the Red Scare in any detail. Nonetheless, it succeeds in treating communists as “real people” and debunking stereotypes about the CP. The length of the film may require teachers to do some editing before showing it in class.

The source of each document is provided below. Brief explanations of the documents, and some suggestions for possible discussion questions, accompany the citations. The documents are divided into four units, but teachers may reorganize them as they see fit.

A. The Canwell Committee

Document 1. Excerpt from Albert F. Canwell: An Oral History (Olympia: State of Washington, 1997), 121. Used, with changes, by permission of the Washington State Oral History Program. ©1997 by the Washington State Oral History Program.

Canwell recalls the Seattle Police Department raiding the local Communist Party headquarters in the late 1930s. Canwell, who described himself as a "one-man FBI," spent much of the 1930s infiltrating communist groups for the police and for large employers such as Boeing and Washington Water Power. Indeed, Canwell was working for the Spokane police when he was elected to the state legislature in 1946.

What did the police hope to accomplish with this raid? How was this kind of persecution of communists different from the anti-communism of the late 1940s and 1950s?

Document 2. Bill Creating the Canwell Committee. "House Concurrent Resolution, No. 10" from Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), v-vii and Washington State Legislature, Journal of the House: 30th Session (Olympia, 1947), 572-73.

This bill created the Canwell Committee. Canwell adroitly presented his proposal in the form of a concurrent resolution since such resolutions could not be vetoed by the governor, nor repealed by the citizens through the referendum process. This precaution was probably unnecessary because anti-communism was very popular at this time, as indicated by the wide margin by which Canwell's resolution passed.

Why did Canwell believe that communists posed such a threat to Washington state? What powers did the legislature grant to the Canwell Committee?

Document 3. Members of the Canwell Committee examine evidence. Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under A. L. Canwell, 1/15/48).

Document 4. The State Patrol ejects E. L. Pettus, vice president of the Washington Pension Union. Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under E. L. Pettus, 3/26/48).

Document 5. Interview with James Sullivan. Albert Canwell, First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State. ([Olympia]: Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities,1948), 61-69.

James Sullivan, the first president of the Washington Pension Union (WPU), offered fairly convincing proof that many of the leaders of the WPU were communists. Sullivan's testimony demonstrated that not all of the accusations made to the Canwell Committee were hearsay. However, note that Sullivan's responses did not show that the WPU was interested in overthrowing the U.S. government. Instead, he described how the communist and non-communist members of the Pension Union cooperated to pass Initiative 141, which granted more generous social security checks to Washington's senior citizens.

Document 6. Interview with Howard Costigan. Albert Canwell, First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State. ([Olympia]: Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities,1948), 359-67.

During the late 1930s and early 1940s popular radio announcer Howard Costigan was the "voice of the Roosevelt wing of the Democratic Party in Washington state." Between 1936 and 1939, Costigan also served as the president of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, a Communist Party "front." In this selection, Costigan explains his reasons for joining and then exiting the Party. Costigan was so embittered by his experiences in the Party that he became militantly anti-communist. In 1944 and 1946 he challenged communist Hugh DeLacy for the Democratic Party nomination for Seattle's U.S. House seat; Costigan narrowly lost both times. Costigan's relationship to the Canwell Committee was complex: the Committee paid Costigan to testify as an "expert witness," but the testimony of several witnesses who named Costigan as an ex-communist cost him his job as radio broadcaster. Costigan thus hated the Canwell Committee almost as much as the Communist Party.

What were the political goals of the Communist Party in the late 1930s? Why did Costigan come to detest the Communist Party? What is Costigan's opinion about the fairness of the Canwell Committee's hearings?

Document 7. Interview with H. C. Armstrong. First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State. ([Olympia]: Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, 1948), 415-39.

H. C. "Army" Armstrong was a six-term state legislator when he testified before the Canwell Committee. He had initially been elected with the assistance of the CP. Disgusted with the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Armstrong left the Party in 1940. Here, he describes the working of the communist "cell" in the Washington state legislature in the late 1930s.

How much power did the Communist Party really have in Washington State?

Document 8. Testimony of J. B. Matthews. Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 34-90.

J. B. Matthews was one of the many professional anti-communist witnesses hired by the Canwell Committee. Matthews worked as research director for HUAC from 1938 to 1945. Like most professional anti-communist witnesses, Matthews used selective and limited evidence to make sweeping generalizations about the goals and tactics of the CP. Matthews's testimony was rather unusual, however, since he made explicit what other witnesses merely assumed: "guilt by association" was a valid method of judging communists and "fellow travelers." Matthews made it clear that he believed anyone who cooperated with communists should be publicly branded a "fellow traveler."

What evidence does Matthews present to prove his contention that Albert Einstein was a subversive? Why does Matthews believe that communism and "free societies" cannot co-exist? What evidence does Matthews present that communists have "poisoned" the minds of American children?

Document 9. Testimony of Professor Sophus K. Winther, English Dept., University of Washington. Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 18-26.

University of Washington English Professor Sophus Winther was the only professor to "name names" at the Canwell hearings. Pressured by Canwell investigators, Winther believed that he would lose his job if he did not testify against his fellow professors. Winther's testimony also provided the best look at the actual activities of local communist groups.

Compare Winther's testimony to Matthews's [document 8]. What did communist professors actually do, according to Winther? Does Winther's testimony support or undermine Matthews's depiction of the Communist Party as a ruthlessly efficient propaganda machine?

Document 10. Testimony of Professor Garland Ethel, English Dept., University of Washington. Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 130-44.

Garland Ethel was a colleague of Winther's in the UW English Department. Ethel's refusal to name other members of the Communist Party set a courageous precedent, which other professors followed when they took the stand.

Why did Ethel refuse to "name names"? Why did members of the audience clap when Ethel finished testifying?

Document 11. Protesters Outside the Canwell Hearings. Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, negative P121683.

Anti-Canwell protesters march outside the Washington State Armory, where the Canwell hearings were held.

Document 12. Testimony of Professor Joseph Butterworth, English Dept., University of Washington. Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 233-36.

English Professor Joseph Butterworth was a member of the Communist Party when he came before the Committee. Rightfully frightened of losing his job, he refused to answer the Committee's questions. This did not save Butterworth: the UW fired him six months later.

Why did Canwell refuse to allow Butterworth or his lawyer to speak freely? Why might Butterworth have been reluctant to testify?

Document 13. Testimony of Isabel H. Costigan. Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 120-24.

Isabel Costigan cooperated with the Canwell Committee to a much greater extent than her husband, Howard Costigan. Isabel and Howard had separated some time before the hearings and divorced the following year. Isabel spoke to the Committee at both sets of hearings. During the February hearings, she said she had never attended a communist meeting with Ralph Gundlach. In this selection from the July hearings, she said that she had. In addition, notice how investigator William Houston puts words in Isabel Costigan's mouth.

Document 14. Testimony of Mrs. Sarah Eldredge. Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 207-17.

Sarah Eldredge worked in the Communist Party from 1937 to 1939. She was also vice chair of the King County Democratic Party during this period. Eldredge willingly assisted the Canwell Committee during both sets of hearings, although her testimony was not always entirely coherent.

How credible is Eldredge's testimony?

Document 15. Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 248-89.

George Hewitt quit the Communist Party in 1944 and soon discovered that being an anti-communist witness paid far better than being a communist union organizer. Despite Hewitt's tendency to contradict himself on the stand, his accusations seriously besmirched the reputations of Melvin Rader, Ralph Gundlach, and Florence James. One year after speaking to the Canwell Committee, Hewitt experienced several psychotic episodes and was hospitalized. Melvin Rader's struggle to clear his name is explored further in document 24.

How credible is Hewitt's testimony? Why might paid anti-communist witnesses be untrustworthy?

Document 16. George Hewitt testifies before the Canwell Committee. Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, negative P121665.

Document 17. Florence James calls George Hewitt a "liar." Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under Mrs. Burton James, 1948).

Florence James, co-director of the Seattle Repertory Theater, leaps to her feet and calls witness George Hewitt a "liar" and a "perjurer." Hewitt claimed that he had met Florence James in Moscow. He also said the communist leaders in Moscow considered James to be a "spearhead of cultural infiltration."

Document 18. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 July 1948 and 8 August 1948.

Most newspapers in Washington state took the same position as the P-I enunciated in "Are they Ashamed?" "Communist Espionage" explains the Hearst newspaper chain's long-time campaign against communism.

Document 19. Canwell Probe One-Color Presentation of Red Case. Seattle Times, 22 July 1948.

UW English Professor Joseph Harrison consistently spoke out in favor of civil liberties during the Red Scare. He strongly protested the dismissal of his colleague, Professor Joseph Butterworth. Harrison was also active in the later campaigns to invalidate Washington's loyalty oaths. (See document #42.)

Why does Harrison think the Canwell hearings "violate the spirit of fair play"? Why would this editorial appear in the Seattle Times but not the Seattle Post-Intelligencer?

Document 20. Some of the Pinks are Asking for It. Snohomish County Tribune, 21 July 1948.

Document 21. Mr. and Mrs. James Tell Why They Refused to Answer. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27 July 1948.

Florence and Burton James's explanation of their refusal to answer the Committee's questions did not revive the Seattle Repertory Theater's fortunes. Ticket sales continued to decline sharply despite the Jameses' insistence that their theater did not do the bidding of the CP.

Why did Florence and Burton James refuse to answer questions about their political beliefs?

Document 22. The Broadcast that the Radio Stations Said Was "Too Hot!" Pension Builder, February 1948, Washington Pension Union Papers, University of Washington Manuscripts and Archives, Accession 185-1.

Pennock's denunciation of Canwell was credible to most of the members of the WPU. The Pension Union thus survived the Canwell hearings with only minor damage.

Why does Pennock say that people should not believe the testimony given at the Canwell hearings? Why did many people trust Pennock more than Canwell?

Document 23. Cartoons from UE News, 7 August 1952 and 14 March 1950.

UE News was the official publication of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, one of the largest unions in the nation in the 1950s. This union was one of the few to openly defy the McCarthyist crusade against communists in the American labor movement.

What images do the cartoonists use to criticize anti-communist investigations? Are these images effective?

Document 24. Melvin Rader, False Witness (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969).

Rader's efforts to repudiate Hewitt's accusations discredited the work of the Canwell Committee in the minds of many Washingtonians. The publication of Seattle Times reporter Ed Guthman's Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles in mid-1949 helped ensure that the Washington legislature did not renew the Canwell Committee.

Why does Rader claim that the "false witness" was "a symbol of the age"? Why did Canwell try to thwart Rader's attempt to clear his name? How did his experiences with the Canwell Committee affect Rader?

B. The University of Washington Tenure Hearings

Document 25. Jane Sanders, Cold War on the Campus: Academic Freedom at the University of Washington, 1946-64 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979), vi-vii.

Sanders offers an excellent, succinct definition of academic freedom.

Document 26. Communism and Academic Freedom (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1949), 23-26.

Compare the Tenure Committee's rules to the Canwell Committee's. Which were more fair? Why?

Document 27. University of Washington Faculty Senate, Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee, Hearings, vol. 1, pp. 41-45 and vol. 32, pp. 3908-11, University of Washington Manuscripts and Archives, Accession 70-30.

This document excerpts UW lawyer Tracy Griffin's opening and closing arguments to the tenure committee.

Why does Griffin contend that communist professors should be fired? How does Griffin interpret the UW Tenure Code?

Document 28. Ralph Gundlach's statement to the Tenure Committee, 16 September 1948. Ralph H. Gundlach Papers, UW Manuscripts and Archives, Accession 686-70-21, folder 1/11.

Professor Gundlach's arguments here clearly display his training in psychology.

What does Gundlach mean by saying that he has been a victim of "stereotyped thinking"? Why does Gundlach think that the UW administration is trying to fire him?

Document 29. University of Washington Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee, Hearings, vol. 16, pp. 1616-44.

Professor Everett Nelson was the chair of the UW Philosophy Department and thus Herbert Phillips's supervisor. Most of the six accused professors' defense rested on testimony similar to this. Nelson and other witnesses made a strong case that the professors' were good teachers who did not try to "convert" students to communism.

How effective is this testimony in proving Phillips's "fitness" to teach? Why did Nelson tell Phillips not to reveal his political affiliations?

Document 30. Closing Statements. University of Washington Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee, Hearings, vol. 32, pp. 3801-83.

Attorney John Caughlan defended Professors Phillips and Butterworth, while attorney Ed Henry represented Professors Eby and Jacobs. This document excerpts their closing arguments.

Compare this document to Griffin's position in document #27. Whose arguments are more convincing—the UW lawyers' or the defense lawyers'? Why? How do the defense attorneys interpret the UW Tenure Code?

Document 31. Report of the Tenure Committee and Recommendations of UW President Raymond Allen, Communism and Academic Freedom, 29-54, 85-109.

Teachers may wish to divide students into small groups to analyze this complex document. Each group could explain and evaluate the logic of each of the five arguments presented here.

Document 32. Communists have a right to teach in American Universities. Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under University of Washington-Communist Hearing, 2/16/49).

Philosophy Professor Herbert Phillips addresses the University of Washington Regents, arguing that communists have a right to teach in American Universities. Phillips's speech did him little good: the Regents voted unanimously to fire Phillips and two other professors Just minutes after this photo was taken.

Document 33. Dave Beck on Communists in the Labor Movement. Washington Teamster, 28 January 1949.

Dave Beck began his career as a laundry delivery driver in Seattle, but he quickly rose to become one of the most powerful figures in the American labor movement. After winning the presidency of his Teamsters' local in the early 1920s, Beck proceeded to organize tens of thousands of workers in dozens of industries across the West Coast. Beck offered employers an attractive bargain: if they would recognize the Teamsters, he would help put their non-union competitors out of business and fend off more radical unions. Beck, a conservative Democrat, was a major player in Washington state politics from the late 1920s until the late 1950s, when he was convicted of income tax evasion and accused of loaning money to the mafia.

Why was Beck so hostile toward communists in the labor movement?

Document 34. New York Times, 30 January 1949.

Most American newspapers were even more fervent in their praise of the UW Regents' actions than the New York Times.

How did the UW's dismissal of the three professors "set a precedent"? Why might the UW firings be an important event in American history?

Document 35. Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 24 January 1949.

Even most liberals failed to defend the dismissed UW faculty.

Document 36. An open letter. University of Washington Daily, 7 April 1949.

Over 100 UW faculty signed this eloquent letter protesting the dismissals and probations.

Why did these professors claim that firing communist professors would weaken the US in its struggle with the Soviet Union?

Document 37. Letters from fired professor to his wife. Ralph H. Gundlach Papers, University of Washington Archives, folder 1/13.

This document is excerpts from two letters that Ralph wrote to his wife, Bonnie Bird Gundlach, a few days after he had been fired. Bonnie, a dancer, was working with her ballet troupe in New York City when the Regents made their decision.

Document 38. Psychology Professor Ralph Gundlach goes to court. Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under Ralph Gundlach, 3/23/49).

The University of Washington Regents had fired Gundlach two months before this photo was taken. He then faced prosecution for his refusal to answer the questions of the Canwell Committee. The jury found Gundlach guilty of contempt of the legislature. He was fined $100 and sentenced to 30 days in jail.

Document 39. Jane Sanders, Cold War on the Campus: Academic Freedom at the University of Washington (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979), 96-97.

How did the UW's actions affect the six professors?

C. Other Events in Washington State's Red Scare

Document 40. Laws of the State of Washington, 1951, pp. 793-803 and 1955, pp. 1545-46.

Legal challenges from civil libertarians blocked the enforcement of both these laws. Nonetheless, the laws illustrate how far legislators were willing to go in the fight against communism during the McCarthy era.

What were the legal penalties for someone convicted of being a member of the Communist Party or another "subversive organization"? Do these laws violate the First Amendment or not?

Document 41. Garland O. Ethel loyalty oath. UW Manuscripts and Archives, Garland O. Ethel Papers, folder 11/4.

Document 42. Jane Sanders, Cold War on the Campus: Academic Freedom at the University of Washington (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979), 168-71.

Why did UW professors oppose the loyalty oaths? When and why did the Red Scare end?

Document 43. Initiative 172, Voters' pamphlet for the General Election held Tuesday, November 2, 1948. (Copy from the Washington Pension Union papers, UW Manuscripts and Archives, accession 185-1, folder 7/5.)

What did this measure do? Is it a good idea for the state government to pay for health care for people on public assistance?

Document 44. Initiative 172 petitions. University of Washington Libraries, Manuscripts and University Archives Division (Washington Pension Union papers, accession 185-1, folder 7/4).

Members of the Washington Pension Union (WPU) present signed petitions for initiative 172 at the State Capitol. Despite Canwell's investigation of their organization, the WPU convinced 58% of Washington voters to support Initiative 172, which appeared on the November 1948 ballot. Initiative 172 increased Social Security payments to Washingtonians over 65 years of age and required Washington State to provide free health care to impoverished Washingtonians. Over the next two years, public support for the WPU declined — partly because anti-communist politicians continued to attack the WPU and partly because the WPU took the unpopular position of opposing U.S. involvement in the Korean War. In November 1950, Washington voters repealed Initiative 172. In the early 1950's, the federal government jailed several WPU leaders because they were communists.

How did the Red Scare affect Washington state politics?

Document 45. Cartoon from UE News, 12 December 1953.

What is the cartoonist's message?

D. Cold War Economy/Cold War Places

Document 46. The 1945 population figures are from Calvin Schmid, Population Trends: Towns and Cities of Washington State: April 1, 1940 to February 1, 1945 (Seattle: Washington State Census Board, 1946). All other information is from Calvin Schmid and Stanton Schmid, Growth of Cities and Towns: State of Washington (Olympia: Washington State Planning and Community Affairs Agency, 1971), 3-4, 58-63.

Why did some cities grow much faster than others? What is the relationship between defense spending and population growth?

Document 47. Richard S. Kirkendall, "The Boeing Company and the Military-Metropolitan-Industrial Complex, 1945-1953," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 85 (October 1994), 137-49.

Why did Washington state benefit from defense spending more than other regions of the country? How was Boeing able to build the 707? Why is Boeing important to Washington's history?

Document 48. Boeing employment statistics. Compiled from Eve Dumovich, The Boeing Logbook, 1916-1991 (Seattle: Boeing Historical Archives, 1991), with commentary written by Michael Reese.

How did changes in America's foreign policy affect Washington's economy?

Document 49. Excerpt from NIPSIC to NIMITZ. Louise M. Reh and Helen Lou Ross, NIPSIC to NIMITZ: A Centennial History of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Bremerton: Bremerton Printing Company, 1991).

How did the Cold War affect the Kitsap Peninsula?

Document 50. John Findlay, "The Off-center Seattle Center: Downtown Seattle and the 1962 World's Fair," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 80 (January 1989), 2-8.

Why did the designers of the Century 21 Exposition choose to create a space-themed fair? What was the Space Needle supposed to represent?

Document 51. Michele Gerber, Legend and Legacy: Fifty Years of Defense Production at the Hanford Site (Richland, WA: US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management, 1992).

How did the Second World War and the Cold War transform southeastern Washington? Why is Hanford an important part of American history? What were the benefits and costs of producing plutonium at Hanford?