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Operation Abolition: Defending the Civil Liberties of the “Un-American,” 1957–1961

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2013

RUTH MARTIN
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Abstract

In response to the House Un-American Activities Committee's attacks on legal defenders of political nonconformists, the six-year-old Emergency Civil Liberties Committee organized a publicity and test-case campaign to highlight the dubious constitutionality of HUAC's methods. Their drive to abolish HUAC helped to transform the defence of the constitutional rights of suspected subversives or “un-Americans” by undermining the governmental structures of the Second Red Scare. The ECLC's activity also prompted a shift in the policy of the nation's largest civil liberties group, the American Civil Liberties Union, in favour of abolition. HUAC's response of a mass propaganda campaign represented the culmination of a period when they sought to crush “un-American” dissent, inadvertently elevating the ECLC to a position of national prominence in the struggle for Cold War civil liberties.

Type
Un-American Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 4: The “Un-American” , November 2013 , pp. 1043 - 1063
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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