Communism became a central concern of the Supreme Court during the most frigid phase of the international confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The cold war arose out of American unwillingness to accept Russian domination of Central and Eastern Europe after World War II. By 1947 the United States had committed itself to the containment of the Soviet Union. Because American policy makers equated communism with Soviet imperialism, implementation of this strategy involved not only the erection of a military fence around the USSR but also efforts to reduce the appeal of domestic Communist parties in European, and later Third World, nations by providing them with economic assistance. The anticommunist rhetoric of government leaders, such as President Harry Truman, aroused concern about communism in this country. Although American Communists were few in number and posed little real threat to national security, political demagogues such as Senator Joseph R. McCarthy exploited this issue relentlessly, thereby creating a Red Scare.
This anticommunist hysteria inspired a variety of governmental actions intended to thwart espionage and subversion. These included congressional enactment of the Internal Security Act of 1950 and the Communist Control Act of 1954, criminal prosecutions and deportations of radicals, development of loyalty‐security programs, official designation of certain organizations as subversive, loyalty oath requirements, and free‐wheeling investigations by several congressional committees, the most notorious of which was the House Committee on Un‐American Activities (known by the acronym HUAC). Many of these governmental actions imperiled individual rights, generating issues that eventually came before the Supreme Court.
In cases of this type the Vinson Court generally upheld the challenged governmental action. Thus, in American Communications Association v. Douds (1950), it affirmed the constitutionality of a provision of the Taft‐Hartley Act that required labor union officials to file affidavits disavowing membership in the Communist party. In Dennis v. United States (1951), it rejected a First Amendment attack on the Smith Act by Communist leaders convicted of violating that law.
At about the time that Vinson died in 1953, international tensions began to ease. An armistice brought an end to the Korean War. In 1955 President Eisenhower met with the new Soviet leadership at a Geneva summit conference. At home, anticommunist hysteria abated. Indicative of the changing atmosphere was the Senate's censure of McCarthy in December 1954.
By 1956 the decisions of the Warren Court were also beginning to reflect the country's new mood. In Peters v. Hobby (1955) and Cole v. Young (1956), the Court reinstated federal employees discharged under the loyalty‐security program. It also overturned the conviction of a Communist leader for violation of a state sedition law and threw out an order requiring the Communist party to register with the Subversive Activities Control Board. On “Red Monday” (17 June 1957), the Court, in Watkins v. United States (1957), overturned the contempt conviction of a man who had refused to answer some questions asked him by HUAC and, in Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957), imposed constitutional constraints on investigations conducted by state legislatures. In Service v. Dulles (1957) it ordered the federal government to reinstate an alleged security risk, and in Yates v. United States (1957) it reversed the Smith Act convictions of California Communist leaders.
These decisions outraged many conservative members of Congress, who mounted a drive to negate their effects through legislation. Senator William Jenner introduced a bill to take away the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction in five types of loyalty and subversion cases. His proposal failed, in considerable part because the Supreme Court retreated from the positions it had taken on Red Monday. In Barenblatt v. United States (1959) and Uphaus v. Wyman (1959), it rendered decisions on similar issues that contrasted sharply with Watkins and Sweezy, and in Scales v. United States (1961), it upheld a Smith Act conviction for membership in the Communist party. The Court's change of direction occurred because Justices Felix Frankfurter and John M. Harlan switched from supporting civil liberties claims to backing governmental actions taken to combat communism. This reversal proved to be only temporary, for after Frankfurter's retirement in 1962, the Court proceeded to invalidate a host of legal leftovers from the cold war era.
See also Assembly and Association, Citizenship, Freedom of; Speech and the Press.
Bibliography
- Michal R. Belknap, Cold War Political Justice: The Smith Act, the Communist Party and American Civil Liberties (1977).
- David Caute, The Great Fear: The Anti‐Communist Purge under Truman and Eisenhower (1978)
— Michal R. Belknap
