The Committee and its Critics; A Calm Review of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, by William F. Buckley, Jr., and the Editors of National Review. New York: c. P. Putnarn’s Sons, 1962. 352 pp. $4.95.
The conservative is constantly amazed at the intensity of the opposition to the work of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. One expects communists to be opposed because of the long and unrelenting exposure of their members and sympathizers. But that there should be a similar intensity among liberals and the followers of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty is something that rightists have difficulty in understanding.
During the spring of 1953 I attended nearly all of the public meetings of the Committee held in Washington, which is perhaps as much as any of the academics who have expressed themselves on the sub. ject of the Committee have done. While I am a defender of the Committee with no great intensity of feeling, I have a firm conviction that the work of the Committee deserves the support of the American people.
The present volume is a convincing performance. It is a carefully organized encyclopaedia of information on the history of the Committee. William Buckley begins with an analysis of the liberal and professorial arguments against the Committee ; James Burnham follows with an analysis and history of the investigating powers of Congress ; Willmoore Kendall dissects the theory of subversion in the twentieth century; William F. Rickenbacker writes a chronological account of the Committee; Karl Hess examines in detail the work of the Committee in a single year, 1958; Ralph de Toledano relates the drama of Modern Age 325 the exposure of Alger Hiss; M. Stanton Evans deals with the San Francisco riots and the film “Operation Abolition”; C. Dickerman Williams examines the improvements in the procedure of the Committee and the rough and effective Canadian method of dealing with subversives, while Irving Ferman, a critic of the Committee, discusses the problem of improvements in procedure; George N. Crocker presents a convincing picture of the impact of the Committee on legislation on the books; and at the end Ross D. Mackenzie gives a remarkable summary of the Committee’s total work.
It is, no doubt, too much to hope that the Committee’s critics will read this book with a profound existential commitment to seek and to respect the facts of life here made available. But those who favor the Committee, or those who simply and honestly want information, are under a clear obligation to read this book. Such people are constantly up against the allegation of mendacity on the part of the members of Congress, and more especially of the Committee members and its staff. Granting present legislation and Supreme Court decisions, civil liberty does not extend to the conspiratorial advocacy and activism of the class struggle. Assuming that Congress represents a widespread and permanent public judgment in its annual continuation of the Committee, we have a profound popular decision against the liberty of the communist conspiracy.
The determination of the communists and their sympathizers to discredit the film “Operation Abolition” knows no bounds. None can deny that the San Francisco riots took place, or that there wcrc riots in which a certain number of students marred their claim to true citizenship. There is an inexpugnable candor in this film which shows students serving the purposes of the communists. The attack on the film has become the classic case of nit-picking for our time. Does it really matter whether Harry Bridges was carried out before or after certain events? What of the proved distortions of those who are determined to discredit all investigations of communists, as well as the film and the House Committee?
Communism inevitably divides men as religious wars once did. The members of Congress know this, and they will not accept the idea that Marxism is a mere myth compared with the force of nationalism in Russia or China. For them and for the authors of this book, communism is both an ideology and a worldwide conspiracy.
