Bring back HUAC

Dear Editor,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) recent announcement of a forthcoming select committee to oversee the federal government’s multitrillion-dollar coronavirus mitigation effort has prompted praise and scorn from the usual suspects. Pelosi also endorsed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) call for the creation of an outside panel modeled on the 9/11 Commission to evaluate the nation’s pandemic preparedness and response. Both proposals would duplicate the existing oversight functions of various congressional committees, the Government Accountability Office, the $45 million allocated for oversight in the recently-passed CARES Act (including the establishment of an Inspector General to monitor stimulus spending), and the obligatory studies forthcoming from private-sector watchdogs, universities, and think tanks. However, if the House of Representatives wants to establish a committee with a unique utility for this moment in history, it should consider reviving the long-dead-but-never-forgotten House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

Established in the 1930s as the successor to various temporary committees dealing with the problem of internal subversion, HUAC’s mandate was to investigate fascist and communist influence in both the public and private sectors. HUAC’s effectiveness increased after its status graduated to that of a permanent standing committee in 1945 and the outbreak of the Cold War focused America’s attention on the threat of communist infiltration of key institutions. During its post-World War II heyday, HUAC served as the forum in which former Soviet secret agents such as Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley exposed the shocking espionage activities of prominent government officials such the State Department’s Alger Hiss, the Treasury Department’s Harry Dexter White, and the Commerce Department’s William Remington. HUAC investigations also shed light on the slavish adherence to the Communist Party line of motion picture screenwriters such as Dalton Trumbo, whose work promoted messages that whipsawed between opposition to and support of the Axis Powers depending on the ever-changing allegiances of the Soviet Union.

Today, the free world finds itself engaged in a new multigenerational cold war with the surviving communist colossus of the last century, China. While Rust Belt states have long suffered from China’s predatory trade practices, the immense human and economic cost of the coronavirus has alerted America’s collective consciousness to the Middle Kingdom’s malign manipulations and its apologists in this country. Most alarming is the extent to which China has used its immense wealth and market access to influence American institutions. Movie studios regularly censor their films at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. Last year’s Hong Kong protests exposed the National Basketball Association’s shameful willingness to police criticism of the Chinese police state. Media and technology conglomerates have subordinated the free flow of information to the dissemination of Chinese propaganda in a way that would embarrass Walter Duranty, Herbert Matthews, and the other “journalists” of yesteryear who sought to conform Western opinion to a narrative convenient to communist advancement.

China’s corruption of the media and entertainment industries operates alongside its overt espionage activities. Chinese state actors are responsible for cyberattacks resulting in the theft of personal information belonging to millions of civilians and government employees. Chinese agents have posed as foreign exchange students on the campuses of America’s research universities. Even Congress is not immune. A 20-year veteran of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) staff was revealed to be a spy for the Chinese government during a time in which Feinstein chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Despite all of this, many of our nation’s political leaders have displayed a disturbing nonchalance toward the threat from Communist China. In a statement reminiscent of President Gerald Ford’s embarrassing denial of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden declared that China was not a competitor of the United States. Similarly, former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg insisted that Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping was not a dictator. Unfortunately, Bloomberg is not the only New Yorker to fail to appreciate the true nature of the Chinese regime. The management of the Empire State Building illuminated the edifice in the colors of the Chinese flag on October 1, 2009 in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Revolution.

America would not have prevailed over the Soviet Union if it had permitted the treachery uncovered by HUAC to continue unimpeded. The China challenge must likewise be confronted through investigation, exposure, and education. Today, HUAC’s reputation suffers from a mass tendency to conflate its operations with the excesses of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy’s (R-WI) Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (a committee of the U.S. Senate) and what is known as the “Hollywood Blacklist” (a private sector attempt at self-policing the entertainment industry). But the historical record is clear and the time to act is now. Otherwise, the primary debate among those studying Sino-American relations since 1949 may change from “Who lost China?” to “Who lost to China?”

Paul F. Petrick,

Cleveland, Ohio

Petrick is an attorney in Cleveland, Ohio.