Red channels

• John J. Kinnan
• Kenneth M. Beerley
• Theodore S. Kirkpatrick
• Francis Jay McNamara
• Vincent Hartnett
• Phillips Lord

In May 1947, American Business Consultants Inc., the founders and employees of which were former employees of the FBI , began publishing the first "reports" about the "red influence" in the magazine Counterattack. The main purpose of such reports was declared by the authors as "weekly showing the most important aspects of communist activity in the United States." By 1950, the final version of the “report” was formed, which was released in a magazine called Red Channels: The Red Channels: A Report on the Communist Influence on Television and Radio.

On June 22, 1950, the magazine Counterattack publishes the Red Canals. The work contains an alleged report on how the Communists since the time of V.I. Lenin's influence on the processes in the economy, politics and the entertainment industry in the United States, thereby undermining the viability of the American state. They pointed out people who were somehow connected with the communists or shared communist views. The term "pink" was introduced there - sympathizing with the communists.

This work received the unofficial approval of the then head of the FBI, Edgar Hoover, and, as a medieval "Hammer of Witches", was the basis for the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) established in 1934. At the time of the publication of the Red Channels, the Commission was strongly influenced by Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy and his supporters.

The lists of people collaborating with the Communists included actresses Lee Grant and Gene Muir , playwright Lilian Helman , filmmakers Stanley Kramer and Orson Welles , creators of the atomic bomb Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein , writer George Orwell . All of them have suffered to some extent for possible sympathy for the left. Virtually the entire creative intelligentsia was accused of having connections with the Communists; in times of anti-communist persecution, Charlie Chaplin had to leave the United States.

In general, the report indicated 151 names of artists, sciences who were demanded to either quit their jobs or confess pro-communist activities and abandon their views.

• See the Red Channels list.

• Bernhard, Nancy E. US Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960 . Cambridge University Press, 2003
• "By Appointment", Time , September 11, 1950 (available online , subscription required).
• Cogley, John (1956). “Report on Blacklisting.” Collected in Blacklisting: An Original Anthology (1971), Merle Miller and John Cogley. New York: Arno Press / New York Times. ISBN 0-405-03579-9
• Doherty, Thomas (2003). Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture . New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12952-1
• Faulk, John Henry and Don Gardner. Fear on Trial (1964) University of Texas Press, 1983 .
• Miller, Merle (1952). "The Judges and the Judged." Collected in Blacklisting: An Original Anthology (1971), Merle Miller and John Cogley. New York: Arno Press / New York Times. ISBN 0-405-03579-9
• Nizer, Louis. (1966). The Jury Returns. New York: Doubleday & Co. ISBN 978-0-671-12505-9
• "Who's Blacklisted?" Time , August 22, 1949 (available online , subscription required).