McCarthyism, Whitaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Paul Robeson, House Un-American Activities Committee, the Smith Act, the Hollywood 10, the Joint Anti-Fascist Committee, the Truman Loyalty Program, the Blacklist, book burning, and communism – all subjects of controversy during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s here in the United States. Clay Risen, a reporter and editor at the New York Times, has a fresh look at all this in his book, "Red Scare." Mr. Risen writes in his preface that his grandfather was a career FBI agent who joined the Bureau during World War II, and he recounted stories of implementing loyalty tests for the federal government in the late 1940s.
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