III. The Assault on Culture and Labor: The Suppression of Salt of the Earth

The intersection of anti-communist hysteria, anti-labor sentiment, and patriarchal anxiety is nowhere more visible than in the history of the 1954 film Salt of the Earth. It stands as a unique artifact in American cultural history: a film that was not merely criticized or boycotted, but actively suppressed by a coalition of federal politicians, film industry executives, and labor union leaders. It is widely considered the only film in the United States to be blacklisted as a production, rather than simply having its creators blacklisted.   

A. The Genesis of Subversion

The production of Salt of the Earth was a direct act of defiance against the blacklist. The film’s creative triumvirate—director Herbert J. Biberman, writer Michael Wilson, and producer Paul Jarrico—were all blacklistees. Biberman was one of the original Hollywood Ten who had served six months in a federal prison in Texarkana for contempt of Congress after refusing to cooperate with HUAC in 1947.   

Barred from the major studios, these men formed the Independent Productions Corporation with a specific ideological goal: to commit a “crime to fit the punishment.” If they were to be ostracized for alleged subversion, they resolved to create a film that was truly subversive by the standards of 1950s America—a work that was unequivocally pro-labor, pro-minority, and pro-feminist.   

The subject matter was drawn from the 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico (fictionalized as “Delaware Zinc” in “Zinc Town”). The strike was notable for its racial dynamics—Mexican-American miners were demanding pay parity with Anglo workers and safety regulations—but it became revolutionary due to its gender dynamics. When a Taft-Hartley injunction forbade the male miners from picketing, their wives took over the line. The film depicted this shift in power, showing men forced to stay home and perform domestic labor while women faced police brutality on the picket line.   

B. The Mechanics of Suppression

The establishment’s response to Salt of the Earth was a coordinated effort to strangle the film before it could be completed. This suppression occurred on three distinct fronts: legislative threat, industrial blockade, and physical force.

1. Legislative and Executive Interference While the film was still in principal photography in early 1953, California Representative Donald Jackson, a fierce anti-communist, took to the floor of Congress to denounce it. He labeled the production a “Communist-made film” and declared, “I shall do everything in my power to prevent the showing of this Communist-made film in the theaters of America”. Jackson argued that if the film were shown in Latin America or Asia, it would do “incalculable harm” to the image of the United States.   

This rhetoric was matched by executive action. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) targeted the film’s lead actress, Rosaura Revueltas, a celebrated Mexican star. In the middle of filming, Revueltas was arrested on visa technicalities and deported to Mexico. The filmmakers were forced to shoot the remaining scenes using a double, underscoring the government’s willingness to use immigration enforcement as a tool of political censorship.   

2. Industrial Collusion: The Howard Hughes Blockade The most effective suppression came from within the film industry itself. Representative Jackson telegrammed Howard Hughes, the eccentric mogul of RKO Pictures, asking for industry support in stopping the film. Hughes responded with a detailed blueprint for sabotage. He advised that the industry should deny the filmmakers access to essential technical services, stating that “an extensive application of certain technical skills and use of a great deal of specialized equipment is absolutely necessary—film laboratories, suppliers of film, musicians and recording technicians”.   

Hughes’s advice was heeded. Laboratories refused to process the film. The production team had to work in secrecy, labeling the film canisters “Vaya Con Dios” to trick labs into developing the footage. Editors were afraid to work on the project for fear of being blacklisted themselves, and at least one cutter who did work on the film was found to be reporting to the FBI.   

3. The Union Blockade Perhaps the most damaging blow came from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union representing projectionists. Roy Brewer, the staunchly anti-communist head of IATSE, ordered his members not to project the film. In January 1954, the union notified its membership that “before handling or projecting the film entitled SALT OF THE EARTH, you are hereby instructed to contact the general office.” This effectively barred the film from commercial theaters across the United States, as union projectionists would face expulsion for showing it.   

C. Themes as Threat: Feminism and Racial Equity

The ferocity of the backlash cannot be explained solely by the communist affiliations of the filmmakers. The content of Salt of the Earth was itself viewed as a threat to the social order. In the conservative landscape of 1954, a film that centered on Mexican-Americans fighting white corporate power was radical; a film that centered on a woman’s emancipation from her husband’s dominance was revolutionary.   

The character of Esperanza evolves from a passive housewife to a strike leader, eventually confronting her husband, Ramon, about his hypocrisy in fighting for equality at work while acting as a boss at home. This feminist subtext challenged the entrenched gender norms of the post-war era. As noted in historical analysis, the sight of men taking on domestic roles while women engaged in political violence was profoundly destabilizing to the patriarchal status quo.   

Despite the suppression, the film found an audience abroad, winning the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in Czechoslovakia. However, in the U.S., it remained largely unseen for decades. It was only in 1992 that the Library of Congress selected Salt of the Earth for preservation in the National Film Registry, a belated acknowledgement of its artistic and historical significance.   

IV. The Lavender Scare: The Purge of the “Innocent”

While the “Red Scare” dominated headlines, a parallel and arguably more pervasive purge was taking place within the federal government: the “Lavender Scare.” This campaign targeted LGBTQ+ individuals, conflating homosexual acts with subversive activities and creating a climate of terror that destroyed thousands of lives.   

A. The Logic of Persecution

The persecution of homosexuals was institutionalized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450, signed on April 27, 1953. This order overhauled the federal security program, explicitly listing “sexual perversion” as a disqualifying factor for federal employment, alongside criminal conduct and sabotage.   

The rationale provided by McCarthy and his allies was that homosexuals posed a “security risk.” The logic was circular: because homosexuality was stigmatized and illegal, gay employees were vulnerable to blackmail by Soviet agents who could threaten to expose them. Therefore, to protect national security, they had to be fired. This ignored the reality that the vulnerability to blackmail was created entirely by the government’s own punitive policies.   

McCarthy frequently linked homosexuality with communism in his rhetoric, suggesting that both were deviations from American norms. In a discussion regarding a specific case, McCarthy stated that “practically every active Communist is twisted mentally or physically in some way,” implying that the “peculiar mental twists” of homosexuality made individuals susceptible to communist recruitment.   

B. The Scale of the Purge

The Lavender Scare began even before McCarthy’s ascent, with the United States Park Police initiating a “Sex Perversion Elimination Act” in 1947, targeting gay cruising areas in Washington D.C.. However, under the pressure of McCarthyism, the purge accelerated. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 gay and lesbian federal workers lost their jobs during the 1950s and 60s.   

Unlike the Hollywood blacklist, which played out in public, the Lavender Scare operated in the shadows. Employees were called into interrogation rooms and asked intrusive questions such as, “Do you identify as a homosexual?” or “Have you ever had same-sex sexual relations?”. Many resigned quietly to avoid public scandal, leaving no record of their dismissal other than a ruined career. The State Department, in particular, was aggressive in rooting out gay employees, with officials like Deputy Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy testifying about the removal of employees deemed “security risks” due to their sexuality.   

V. Case Studies in Cruelty: The Human Cost of McCarthyism

The true toll of McCarthyism is best understood not through statistics, but through the individual stories of those who were caught in its dragnet. These victims were often not spies or saboteurs, but ordinary citizens—and sometimes distinguished figures—who became convenient props in McCarthy’s political theater.

A. Annie Lee Moss: The Wrong Woman

The case of Annie Lee Moss remains one of the most glaring examples of McCarthy’s recklessness. Moss was a middle-aged, African-American widow working as a code clerk in the Pentagon. In 1954, McCarthy summoned her before his committee, accusing her of being a dues-paying member of the Communist Party who had access to top-secret codes.   

The hearing was a spectacle of confusion and bullying. It became apparent that the committee’s intelligence was flawed; there were three different women named “Annie Lee Moss” in the D.C. area, and the committee had failed to verify they had the right person. When asked if she knew who Karl Marx was, Moss replied that she did not. McCarthy asked, “Who in the military, knowing that this lady was a Communist, promoted her from a waitress to a code clerk?”.   

Despite the Army’s testimony that Moss had no access to cryptographic keys and worked merely in the supply room for the code section, McCarthy berated her. The image of a powerful U.S. Senator attacking a bewildered, working-class Black woman on national television struck a chord with the public. Edward R. Murrow later used footage of this hearing in his broadcast to highlight the cruelty of McCarthy’s methods. Although later evidence suggested that an “Annie Lee Moss” did appear on party rolls, the lack of due process and the bullying nature of the hearing made Moss a symbol of the innocent victim.   

B. Reed Harris: The Ghost of Youthful Writing

Reed Harris served as the deputy director of the International Information Administration, which oversaw the Voice of America. In 1953, he was hauled before McCarthy’s committee not for any action taken during his government service, but for a book he had written twenty-one years earlier as a college student. The book, King Football (1932), was a critique of the commercialization of college athletics and the conformity of the education system.   

McCarthy treated this forgotten text as a manifesto of treason. In a tense televised exchange, McCarthy grilled Harris on passages where he had discussed academic freedom and “collectivism.” McCarthy asked: “Have you always been anti-Communist?” Harris replied: “Not as long as that word is defined as it was in those days [meaning] collectivist philosophy even as applied in convents and monasteries.” McCarthy snapped back: “We are not talking about Communism in monasteries and convents”.   

Harris attempted to explain that his views had evolved since he was a 22-year-old student during the Great Depression, but McCarthy was uninterested in nuance. The hearings forced Harris to resign, destroying the career of a dedicated public servant because of a youthful literary endeavor. This case illustrated the anti-intellectualism of the movement, where a person’s entire life history could be mined for “evidence” of disloyalty.

C. Val Lorwin: The Fabricated Case

Val Lorwin, a State Department economist, holds the distinction of being “Case 54” on McCarthy’s infamous list of 81 alleged security risks. He was the only one of the group to be indicted for perjury, accused of lying about Communist Party membership. The reality was that Lorwin was a Socialist who had actively fought against communist influence in labor unions.   

The case against Lorwin collapsed in spectacular fashion when it was revealed that the Justice Department attorney who secured the indictment had misrepresented the testimony of FBI informants to the grand jury. The attorney told the grand jury that the FBI had two reliable witnesses who could identify Lorwin as a communist, when in fact the FBI had stated the witnesses were unreliable or could not make a positive identification. The Justice Department was forced to ask for the dismissal of the indictment, admitting there was no competent evidence. Lorwin was cleared, but only after years of financial ruin and suspension. His ordeal exposed the pressure prosecutors felt to produce “scalps” for McCarthy, leading to the fabrication of cases against innocent men.   

D. Owen Lattimore: The “Top Spy” Who Wasn’t

Owen Lattimore was a scholar of Mongolian and Chinese studies at Johns Hopkins University. In 1950, McCarthy named him the “top Russian espionage agent in the United States,” staking his reputation on Lattimore’s guilt. McCarthy claimed Lattimore was the “boss” of Alger Hiss and the architect of the policy that “lost” China to communism.   

Lattimore was not a government employee but an academic advisor. Despite years of hearings and FBI investigations—which included a desperate search for evidence that Lattimore had used the pseudonym “Pacificus”—no evidence of espionage was ever found. The FBI’s own files failed to corroborate McCarthy’s charges. Lattimore was eventually indicted for perjury on technical grounds related to his memory of events from the 1930s, but these charges were dismissed by federal courts. The attack on Lattimore sent a chill through American academia, discouraging scholars from studying or teaching about communist nations for fear of being labeled sympathizers.   

E. Paul Robeson: The Voice Silenced

Paul Robeson, the world-renowned African-American singer, actor, and activist, was a primary target of the anti-communist crusade due to his vocal admiration for the Soviet Union and his aggressive stance on civil rights. In 1950, the State Department revoked his passport, effectively ending his international career and cutting off his income.   

Robeson was summoned before HUAC in 1956. In a defiant testimony, he refused to answer questions about his political affiliations, invoking the Fifth Amendment not as an admission of guilt, but as a rebuke to the committee’s authority. When asked why he did not stay in Russia if he liked it so much, Robeson famously replied: “Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you”.   

The committee also utilized Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball player, to testify against Robeson. Robinson was pressured to denounce Robeson’s statement that African Americans would not fight in a war against the Soviet Union. Robinson’s testimony was used to drive a wedge between Black leadership and the leftist movement, a tactical victory for HUAC.   

VI. The Intellectual Siege: Libraries and the Freedom to Read

The paranoia of the era extended to the printed word. McCarthy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover viewed libraries and schools as breeding grounds for subversion. Hoover famously stated that “Communists are everywhere—in factories, offices, butcher shops… and each carries with him the germs of death for society”.   

In 1953, McCarthy’s chief aides, Roy Cohn and David Schine, embarked on a tour of U.S. Information Service libraries in Europe. They scrutinized the card catalogs, demanding the removal of books by “subversive” authors. This led to the removal of thousands of volumes, including works by Dashiell Hammett, Langston Hughes, and even seemingly apolitical writers. In some instances, books were literally burned, evoking uncomfortable parallels with Nazi Germany.   

Domestically, the fever spread to local communities. In Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, a citizen named Kathryn Mitchell demanded to know why the public library stocked books sympathetic to communism but few by Senator McCarthy. Such inquiries forced librarians onto the defensive, leading to a “soft censorship” where controversial titles were simply not purchased to avoid trouble.   

VII. Satire as Resistance: Walt Kelly and Pogo

In an era when major newspapers and broadcasters were often cowed into silence, one of the most effective voices of dissent came from the “funny pages.” Walt Kelly, a former Disney animator, used his daily comic strip Pogo to launch a sustained satirical attack on McCarthyism, reaching millions of American households with a message of resistance.   

A. Simple J. Malarkey: The Caricature

In 1953, Kelly introduced a character named “Simple J. Malarkey.” The character was a bobcat with the unmistakable jowly face and heavy eyebrows of Senator McCarthy. Malarkey was depicted as a dangerous, paranoid bully who terrorized the inhabitants of the Okefenokee Swamp. He was often accompanied by a shotgun and a sidekick named “Mole MacCarony” (a play on Senator Pat McCarran), who was obsessed with “sanitizing” the swamp and sprayed everyone with disinfectant to kill “foreign germs”.   

Kelly’s satire exposed the absurdity of the witch hunts. In one storyline, Malarkey takes over a birdwatching club. Upon finding no birds, he decides the members must tar and feather each other so they have something to watch—a brilliant metaphor for the self-destructive nature of the loyalty investigations.   

B. Battling Censorship

Kelly’s defiance drew the ire of pro-McCarthy editors. When the Providence Bulletin threatened to drop the strip if Malarkey’s face appeared again, Kelly responded with malicious compliance. He drew Malarkey with a bag over his head, having the character declare, “Nobody from Providence should see me!”. This move not only circumvented the censorship but mocked the censors themselves, turning their threat into a punchline.   

Kelly also introduced an “Indian Charlie” character, a caricature of Richard Nixon, and later lampooned communist leaders like Nikita Khrushchev (as a pig) and Fidel Castro (as a goat), maintaining a consistent stance against authoritarianism of all stripes. Pogo demonstrated that humor could pierce the armor of fear in ways that solemn editorials could not, providing a daily reminder that the emperor had no clothes.   

VIII. The Downfall: “Have You No Sense of Decency?”

The unraveling of Joseph McCarthy was not the result of a single event, but of a cumulative overreach. Having exhausted the State Department as a target, McCarthy turned his sights on the United States Army in late 1953, investigating alleged security lapses at the Army Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.   

A. The Army-McCarthy Hearings

McCarthy’s investigation into the Army was sparked by the promotion of a dentist, Irving Peress, who had refused to answer loyalty questions. McCarthy berated Brigadier General Ralph Zwicker, a war hero, telling him he was “not fit to wear that uniform.” This insult turned the military establishment and President Eisenhower against him.   

The conflict culminated in the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, the first nationally televised congressional inquiry. For 36 days, millions of Americans watched McCarthy in action. They saw his bullying tactics, his constant interruptions with “Point of order!”, and his reliance on doctored photographs and memos. The hearings exposed McCarthy not as a crusader, but as a boorish demagogue.

The climax occurred on June 9, 1954. McCarthy, in an attempt to deflect attention, recklessly attacked a young lawyer named Fred Fisher, a junior associate in the firm of Joseph Welch, the Army’s chief counsel. McCarthy revealed that Fisher had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, a leftist organization. Welch, visibly shaking with emotion, delivered the rebuke that would define the era:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness… Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”.   

The gallery erupted in applause. For the first time, McCarthy had been publicly shamed, and he had no response.

B. Edward R. Murrow and “See It Now”

Two months prior to the hearings, journalist Edward R. Murrow had delivered a decisive blow with his See It Now broadcast on March 9, 1954. Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly decided not to debate McCarthy, but to let him destroy himself. The broadcast consisted largely of clips of McCarthy speaking, highlighting his contradictions and lies.

Murrow’s closing monologue became legendary, framing the resistance to McCarthy as a defense of American heritage: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty… We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason… The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”. The broadcast received an overwhelming positive response from the public, signaling that the tide of fear was finally turning.   

C. The Senate Censure

Following the hearings, the Senate moved to discipline its own. A committee led by Senator Arthur Watkins recommended censure. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted 67 to 22 to “censure” McCarthy for conduct “contrary to senatorial traditions.” While censure did not remove him from office, it stripped him of his power and influence. He lost his chairmanship of the Government Operations Committee and, more importantly, he lost the attention of the press. He became a “ghost” in the Senate, ignored by his colleagues and the administration.   

IX. The End of the Man: Alcoholism and Death

Stripped of his power, McCarthy’s personal decline was rapid and tragic. He had long been a heavy drinker, but in the years following his censure, his consumption spiraled out of control. He was frequently hospitalized for ailments listed as “knee injuries” or “sinus problems,” which were often cover stories for detoxification or liver-related issues.   

Friends and colleagues noted his physical deterioration. He became bloated, his hands shook, and he oscillated between manic intensity and deep depression. When a friend, newspaperman George Reedy, urged him to stop drinking, McCarthy reportedly replied, “If you don’t live dangerously, you don’t live at all”.   

On May 2, 1957, Joseph McCarthy died at Bethesda Naval Hospital at the age of 48. The official cause of death was listed as “Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown.” However, it is widely accepted by biographers and medical historians that the underlying cause was cirrhosis of the liver induced by advanced alcoholism. He died as he had lived in his final years: angry, isolated, and physically destroyed by his own excesses.   

X. Conclusion: The Legacy of the Black Silence

The era of McCarthyism left a scar on the American psyche that persisted long after the Senator’s death. It destroyed the careers of thousands of innocent civil servants, artists, and educators. It silenced the American left, destroyed the militant labor movement, and institutionalized the persecution of the LGBTQ+ community for decades to come.

The suppression of Salt of the Earth stands as a testament to how the machinery of the state and industry could be weaponized to silence cultural dissent. The ordeals of Annie Lee Moss, Val Lorwin, and Reed Harris remind us of the fragility of due process in the face of political hysteria. Yet, the resistance offered by figures like the Salt filmmakers, Edward R. Murrow, Paul Robeson, and Walt Kelly proves that even in the darkest periods of repression, the mechanisms of truth and satire can eventually dismantle the machinery of fear.

McCarthyism was not merely about one man; it was a systemic failure of American institutions to protect the rights of the unpopular. As the Red Scare faded, the “black silence of fear” lingered, a cautionary reminder that the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution are not self-enforcing, but must be defended against the demagogues of every age.

General Overviews of McCarthyism & the Red Scare

• McCarthyism / The Red Scare – Eisenhower Presidential Library
• McCarthyism – First Amendment Encyclopedia
• McCarthyism – Wikipedia
• More Than Just a Man – PBS American Experience
• The Loyalty Test – National Archives Foundation

Congressional Hearings, HUAC, and Oversight Abuses

• Army–McCarthy Hearings – U.S. Senate
• McCarthy Hearings – EBSCO Research Starter
• Senator McCarthy’s Oversight Abuses – Levin Center
• The McCarthy Subcommittee: A Case Study – UMSL
• Executive Sessions of Senate Investigations – GovInfo
• Investigation of Army–McCarthy Dispute – CQ Press
• Joseph McCarthy – Spartacus Educational

The Lavender Scare & Anti-LGBT Persecution

• The Lavender Scare – National Archives Foundation
• Lavender Scare – Wikipedia
• “These People Are Frightened to Death” – National Archives
• LGBT History: The Lavender Scare – NGLCC

Hollywood, Blacklists & the Film *Salt of the Earth*

• Maison Française (Columbia) – Film Events
• Salt of the Earth (1954 film) – Wikipedia
• Blacklisted Artists & *Salt of the Earth* – The Forward
• Salt of the Earth – Labor Films
• 70th Anniversary of *Salt of the Earth* – MR Online
• Reflections on Salt of the Earth – People’s World
• Why Suppress *Salt of the Earth*? – Michigan Tech
• How a Blacklisted Film Brought McCarthyism to Canada – Érudit
• Feminist Criticism of *Salt of the Earth* – StudyCorgi

Key Cases: Lorwin, Reed Harris, Annie Lee Moss & Others

• Reed Harris – Wikipedia
• Reed Harris Case – Tripod Archive
• The Man Who Wrote a Book – TIME (Reed Harris)
• Val R. Lorwin – Wikipedia
• Case No. 54 – TIME (Lorwin)
• Good Night, Annie Lee Moss – PopMatters
• Seeing Red – Johns Hopkins Magazine
• Owen Lattimore & the “Loss” of China – UC Press
• Owen Lattimore – Wikipedia

Paul Robeson & Resistance to HUAC

• Paul Robeson Before HUAC – History Matters
• Robeson Testimony (1956) – American Yawp
• Paul Robeson Congressional Hearings – Wikipedia

McCarthyism, Libraries & Book Burning

• McCarthy & Book Burning – L.M. Elliott
• McCarthyism & Libraries – CUNY Academic Works

Pogo, Cartoons & Cultural Satire of McCarthy

• The Most Controversial Comic Strip – JSTOR Daily
• Pogo – New Georgia Encyclopedia
• The U.S. Government vs. a Cartoon Possum – Reddit HobbyDrama
• Pogo – Simple J. Malarkey (McCarthy Caricature)

Edward R. Murrow & the Fall of McCarthy

• Murrow Responds to McCarthy – American Rhetoric
• Transcript: Murrow on CBS (1954)
• Murrow Report on McCarthy – YouTube

Joseph McCarthy: Biography, Censure & Death

• Joseph McCarthy – Wikipedia
• Senate Resolution 301 (Censure of McCarthy, 1954)
• What Killed Joseph McCarthy? – YouTube
• Joseph R. McCarthy (1908–1957) – George Washington University
• McCarthy’s Reign of Terror Ends – People’s World