In 1948, the year Alger Hiss was accused before the House Un-American Activities Committee of being a Communist, the law was split in two.

FORBES: It's a Fib Thing

Richard Collins, a writer and producer who was blacklisted during the 1940s communist witch-hunts and later "named names" before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), has died.

BBC: Richard Collins: Blacklisted Hollywood writer dies

Perhaps the most startling news of all is that little of this enormous contribution to culture would have existed if Kazan had not testified, in 1952, as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

NEWYORKER: Method Man

As chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, King is set to launch hearings this week before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to ferret out what he tells us is the great Muslim-American extremist threat working to destroy our country from within.

FORBES: Pete King Set To Begin Anti-Muslim Witch Hunt In HUAC - The Return Of The Red Scare

That distinction belongs to Martin Dies, a congressman from East Texas who invented the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1938.

ECONOMIST: McCarthyism

Mr Seldes's book is a masterpiece of concision, romping through background accounts of the machinations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the collapse of post-war efforts to revive the liberal political philosophies of the New Deal generation.

ECONOMIST: Leonard Bernstein

Instead it focuses on Kazan as a theatre and film director, starting from the reasonable premise that this important career was obscured by the opprobrium cast upon Kazan after he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952.

ECONOMIST: American film: Big little man | The