ABSTRACT
The real significance of the Hollywood investigations was that the public debate surrounding the measures which permitted the Federal Government an increasingly larger in the administration of people's lives was continuing even after the death of Franklin Roosevelt. The notorious hearings, enshrined by the passage of the years as Hollywood's time of martyrdom, should be seen against the wider background of the political onset of the Cold War. When the hearings started the liberal community in Hollywood and other branches of the arts saw a chance to make a stand against the possible incursion of censorship into their professional lives. The Hollywood trials were only a small proportion of the work of the Un-American Activities Committee. The members clearly felt the need for a little publicity and positively gloried in the stir these inquiries made, in contrast to their thankless investigations into the influence of Communism in the Fur Workers union.
