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{{Infobox Person | name =Annie Lee Moss | image =AnnieLeeMoss2.jpg | image_size =250px | caption =Annie Lee Moss testifying before ] on ], ] | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | residence = | nationality = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | employer = | occupation = Communications clerk in the ]| title = | salary = | networth = | height = | weight = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | religion = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} {{Infobox Person | name =Annie Lee Moss | image =AnnieLeeMoss2.jpg | image_size =250px | caption =Annie Lee Moss testifying before ] on ], ] | birth_name = | birth_date = 1905 | birth_place = | death_date = 1996| death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | residence = | nationality = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | employer = | occupation = Communications clerk in the ]| title = | salary = | networth = | height = | weight = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | religion = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}

'''Annie Lee Moss''' was a communications clerk in the ] in ] who was accused by the ], the ] (FBI), and ] ] of being a member of the ], and therefore a security risk.<ref name=mary>{{cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Pointing the Way in the Hunt for Communists. |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/2000/markward070599.htm |quote=Mary Stalcup Markward appeared nervous as she made her way into the cramped hearing room on the morning of July 11, 1951. A battery of photographers snapped away while she quietly took her seat. Behind her, the gallery was jammed with reporters and spectators who had come to hear one of the most prolific spies ever to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. |publisher=] |date=Monday, ], ] |accessdate=2007-09-25 }}</ref> <ref>{{cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=McCarthy Says Red Decodes Secrets, But Army Denies It. Senator Charges Woman Is Still In Key Job. She Says She Never Was Communist. FBI Ex-Aide Testifies. Asserts Accused Was In Party. Pentagon Insists She Had No Access To Vital Room McCarthy Accuses Employee Of Army. |url= |quote=], ], ]. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy engaged the Army today in another verbal duel over an alleged Communist in the Pentagon's Signal Corps communications center. |publisher=] |date=], ] |accessdate=2007-09-25 }}</ref>


'''Annie Lee Moss''' was a communications clerk in the ] in ] who was accused by ] ] of being a member of the ], and therefore a security risk. The highly publicized case was damaging to McCarthy's popularity and influence, although ironically many current scholars of the case now believe that Moss had in fact been a member of the Communist Party.


==Career== ==Career==
Moss began her career in the Federal government as a dessert cook in government cafeterias. In 1945, she moved to a job as a clerk in the ] (GAO).<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007| pp= 445-468}}</ref> In accord with the new ] announced by President ] in 1947,<ref>], "," November 14, 1947</ref> the ] (FBI) forwarded to the GAO Loyalty Board evidence that Moss had belonged to the ] in the mid-1940s.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007| p=448}}</ref> Moss began her career in the Federal government as a dessert cook in government cafeterias. In 1945, she moved to a job as a clerk in the ] and in 1949 secured a civil service position as an ] communications clerk at the Pentagon. A widowed mother, Moss had steadily improved her position since moving to Washington in the early 1940s. She bought a home in 1950 and by 1954 had an annual income of $3,300 a year, well above the median for black women at the time.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p= 447}}</ref>


In accordance with a ] introduced by President ] in 1947, Moss was investigated by the loyalty board of the General Accounting Office in October 1949.<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XV}}</ref> The next year, when Moss was promoted to communications clerk at the Pentagon, she was reinvestigated by the Army’s Loyalty-Security Screening Board. The result of this investigation was that Moss was suspended from her position with the recommendation that she be discharged. She appealed this decision and was cleared by the Army board in January 1951.<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XV}}</ref>
From 1943 to 1949, FBI informant ] held such positions in the Communist Party as membership director and treasurer, reporting regularly to the FBI, providing copies of party documents, membership lists, and detailed accounts of meetings and activities.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p=459}}</ref>


==Charges, appearance before McCarthy==
In addition to updates from Markward, the FBI had also obtained "copies of the membership, dues, and other records of the D.C. Communist Party via highly 'confidential sources,' which in Bureau lingo meant some variant of a bag job."<ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'' (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN 978-1400081059, p. 532</ref> Many of these included the address 72 R St.
In September 1951, the ] notified the General Accounting Office that they had evidence that Moss had been a member of the Communist Party in the mid-1940s, but at that time the army did not reopen the case. This evidence came from ], who, working as an informant for the FBI, had joined the Communist Party from 1943 to 1949. Markward held such positions as membership director and treasurer for the Party. She reported regularly to the FBI, gave them copies of party documents, membership lists, and detailed accounts of meetings and activities.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p=459}}</ref> In February 1954, Markward testified before the ]. Although she could not and identify Moss personally, she testified that she had seen Annie Lee Moss's name and address on the Communist Party’s membership rolls in 1944.<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XIV}}</ref>


At this point Moss came to the attention of ]. McCarthy, in his capacity as chairman of the ], was then looking into charges of Communist infiltration of the army, specifically at the Army Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth.
In October 1949, the GAO board cleared Moss,<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XV}}</ref>
determining that there were “no reasonable grounds” to believe that Moss was disloyal.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007| p=448}}</ref> The next year, Moss moved to the Army Signal Corps as a communications clerk at the Pentagon,<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XV}}</ref> bringing her under the Army’s tighter loyalty-security regulations. Reinvestigated, Moss was suspended from her position on grounds that her removal was “necessary and desirable in the interest of national security,” and the Army’s Loyalty-Security Screening Board recommended that she be discharged. She appealed<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007| p=448}}</ref> and was cleared by the Army board in January 1951.<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XV}}</ref>


Moss and her attorney, ], appeared before McCarthy's committee on March 11, 1954, at a session that was open to the public. McCarthy had made headlines with the case, claiming that Moss was "handling the encoding and decoding of confidential and top-secret messages..."<ref>{{Harv|Reeves|1982|p=549}}</ref> This was incorrect, as the army pointed out: Moss handled only unreadable, encrypted messages, and had no access to the Pentagon code room.<ref>{{Harv|Reeves|1982|p=549}}</ref>
That September,<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XV}}</ref> FBI Director ] informed the Army board that Markward was available to testify as to Moss’s Communist connections, but the Army did not follow up.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p=459}}</ref> That year, with the FBI's approval, Markward began talking to investigators of the ] (HUAC).<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007| p=457}}</ref> The following year, HUAC received a tip that Moss was a former member of the Communist Party employed by the Pentagon, but declined to pursue it.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007| p=459}}</ref>


McCarthy left the hearing room shortly after Moss's testimony began, leaving his chief counsel ] to handle the rest of the questioning. Moss was a small, soft-spoken and seemingly timid woman who appeared to be a far cry from the intellectuals and political activists who were usually the target of McCarthy's investigations. She stated that she rarely read newspapers and hadn't even heard of Communism until 1948. She had difficulty with multi-syllable words when asked to read a document before the committee, and responded "Who's that?" when asked if she knew who ] was. She denied the charges, saying "Never at any time have I been a member of the Communist Party and I have never seen a Communist Party card," and "I didn't subscribe to the ] and I wouldn't pay for it."<ref>{{Harv|Doherty|2005|p=181}}</ref>
At an executive session of HUAC on February 22, 1954, Markward identified Annie Lee Moss as a former cafeteria worker whose name had appeared on the Communist Party’s membership rolls in 1944. Immediately following this executive session, Markward testified in a public hearing that, as treasurer of the Northeast Club of the Communist Party, she had seen “a woman by the name of Annie Lee Moss on the list of card-carrying, dues-paying members” of the Communist Party membership rolls.<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XIV}}</ref>


Cohn's examination of Moss quickly ran into difficulty. After he noted that a "Communist activist" named Rob Hall was known to have visited Moss's home, it was pointed out (by ], then the minority counsel for the committee) that there were two Rob Halls in Washington: a known Communist, who was white, and a union organizer, who was African-American. Moss said that the Rob Hall she knew was "a man of about my complexion." As the hearing proceeded, it became clear that both the senators and the spectators were favoring Moss over Cohn and McCarthy. When Cohn asserted that he had corroboration of Markward's testimony from a confidential source, Senator ] rebuked him for alluding to evidence he wasn't actually presenting.<ref>
At her first loyalty hearing, Moss admitted attending a meeting, which she claimed she expected would be a “social affair,” only to realize it was a Communist meeting. In 1954, she told HUAC that she had accompanied an acquaintance to yet another meeting, this time at the church down the street that hosted Communist Party meetings. She claimed not to know that the acquaintance was an active member of the Communist party.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p=451}}</ref>
Cohn was probably referring to evidence taken by illegal break-in to offices of the Communist Party; the FBI commonly acquired evidence by such means, though it was legally inadmissible.
{{Citation
| last = Evans
| first = M. Stanton
| year =2007
| title = Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies
| page = 532
| publisher = Crown Forum
| isbn = 9781400081059
}}</ref>
Chairman ] ruled that Cohn's comments be stricken from the record. McClellan responded: "You ''can't'' strike these statements made by counsel here as to evidence that we're having and withholding. You ''cannot'' strike that from the press or from the public mind. That's the--that is the--''evil'' of it. It is ''not'' sworn testimony. It is convicting people by rumor and hearespondrsay and innuendo."<ref>{{Harv|Doherty|2005|p=183}}</ref> As had happened several times already, loud applause erupted from the spectators.


Senator ] then suggested that, as with Rob Hall, the case against Moss might be a matter of mistaken identity. Moss immediately agreed, saying there were three women named 'Annie Lee Moss' in Washington D.C.<ref>
==Case against Moss==
Although Washington city directories from the time list several women with names similar to Moss's, they show only one "Annie Lee Moss".{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p= 461}}</ref>
*Copies of the Communist Party organ '']'' were delivered to Moss's home, addressed to her, but she denied that they were for her, and claimed that “there are three Annie Lee Mosses” in Washington, DC.<ref name=Oshinsky/><ref> The 1930 ] for ], lists an "Annie K. Moss" born in 1891, wife of Otto Moss. There is also an "]" born in ], wife of Benjamin Moss.</ref> At her testimony, Moss stated "We didn't get this Communist paper until after we had moved to Southwest, at 72 R Street."<ref name=Oshinsky/> "he address she gave in getting Government employment was the same as that of an Annie Lee Moss known to FBI Undercover Woman Mary Markward as a Communist."<ref>{{cite news
Symington said, "I may be sticking my neck out and I may be wrong, but I've been listening to you testify this afternoon and I think you're telling the truth."<ref>{{Harv|Doherty|2005|p=183}}</ref> Again there was loud and prolonged applause.
| title =Committee v. Chairman
| publisher=]
| date =], ]
| url =http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819556-1,00.html
| accessdate=2007-10-15 }}</ref> "one of the other Anne Mosses lived at the three addresses contained in the CP records &mdash; but this Annie Lee Moss had lived at all of them."<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p=461}}</ref>


===''See It Now'' and other coverage===
*According to Donald Ritchie, associate historian in the Senate Historical Office, "In 1958 the Subversive Activities Control Board confirmed Markward’s assertion that Moss’ name had appeared on the Communist party rolls in the mid-1940s."<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003|p=XV}}</ref> The SACB report states:
A cameraman from ]'s television show '']'' had filmed the Moss hearing, and the case was the subject of the episode broadcast on March 16. 1954. The previous week's show had been Murrow's famous "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" broadcast, which was deeply critical of McCarthy (and the subject of the the 2005 film '']''). Murrow opened the Annie Lee Moss show saying it would present a "little picture about a little woman", and closed it with a sound recording of a speech by ] in which the President praised the right of Americans to "meet your accuser face to face".<ref>{{Harv|Reeves|1982|p=569}}</ref> The public's response to both shows was highly favorable,<ref>{{Harv|Herman|2005|pp=335-336}}</ref> and because of them Murrow is widely credited with contributing to the eventual downfall of McCarthy. Support for Moss and criticism of McCarthy was widespread. In one of the more famous quotations from the McCarthy era, ] wrote in the ], "The American People fought a revolution to defend, among other things, the right of Annie Lee Moss to earn a living, and Senator McCarthy now decided she has no such right."<ref>{{Harv|Herman|2005|pp=335-336}}</ref> Reporting on public opinion in McCarthy's home state, ] wrote, "Wisconsin folks saw her as a nice old colored lady who wasn't harming anyone and they didn't like their senator picking on her."<ref>{{Harv|Doherty|2005|p=184}}</ref>


==Aftermath of the hearing==
{{cquote|"The situation that has resulted on the Annie Lee Moss question is that copies of the Communist party's own records, the authenticity of which the party has at no time disputed, were produced to it (Exhibits 499 to 511 inclusive), and show that one Annie Lee Moss, 72 R Street, S.W., Washington, D.C., was a party member in the mid-1940's. Yet, on several occasions before the Court of Appeals and the Board the party charged that witness Markward had committed perjury before the Defense Department in the Moss Security Hearing in testifying to what the party's own records showed to be fact.
McCarthy's popularity was on the wane at the time of the Moss hearing, and the publicity around the case accelerated this. He would soon be embroiled in the ] which also significantly eroded standing with the public and in the Senate. In December of 1954 he was ]d by the Senate, and spent the rest of his career in relative obscurity. He died in 1957.


Moss had been suspended from her position when McCarthy announced his interest in the case. In January 1955 she was rehired to a non-sensitive position in the army's finance and accounts office, and she remained an army clerk until her retirement in 1975 at age sixty-nine. She died in 1996.
"We conclude that upon production of the documents demanded by respondent, the Communist party's charge that Markward gave perjurious testimony was not sustained. Consequently, Mrs. Markward's testimony is in no way impaired by the Annie Lee Moss matter."<ref>Subversive Activities Control Board, Docket No. 51-101, William P. Rogers, Attorney General of the U.S. v. The Communist Party of the U.S., modified report of the board on second remand, January 15, 1959 (1 SACB Reports, p. 94)</ref>}}


==Later evidence against Moss==
*In the landmark ] decision of ''Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board'', 367 U.S. 1, 86 (1961)<ref></ref>, Justice ], writing for the majority, noted in response to allegations by the Communist Party that Markward had committed perjury, “On December 18, 1956, the Board issued its 240-page Modified Report. It found that Mrs. Markward was a credible witness....”
Since Markward’s information included an address for Annie Lee Moss, and Moss confirmed this address in her testimony, the possibility of mistaken identity was never a very realistic one.<ref>{{Harv|Reeves|1982|p=549}}</ref><ref>{{Harv|Oshinsky|2005|p=403}} </ref>
In 1958 the ] investigated a related case and confirmed Markward’s testimony that Moss’ name and address had appeared on the Communist party rolls in the mid-1940s. Several sources have reported this as "proving" that Moss had been a Communist.<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p=467}}</ref> More substantive is the evidence contained in Moss's FBI file, some of which which wasn't revealed until the file was released through a ] request. Andrea Friedman describes this evidence as "perhaps a dozen pieces of paper—included a list of 'party recruits' that identified Moss by name, race, age, and occupation; membership lists from two Communist party branches, the Communist Political Association, and various ad hoc committees containing Moss’s name and address, as well as the number of her Communist Party membership book; and receipt records from 1945 for Daily Worker subscriptions." Freedman concludes that Moss was probably a "casual recruit to the Communist Party, attracted by its social and economic justice politics."<ref>{{Harv|Friedman|2007|p=451}}</ref>


==Current views==
*The ] charged Moss with being card number 37269 in the ], saying she was issued the card in 1943.<ref>{{cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Mrs. Moss Is Accused As Card-Carrying Red. |url= |quote=], ], ] (]) A report that Annie Lee Moss was given a Communist party membership book for 1943 resulted in her suspension for a second time from her job with the ]. |publisher=] |date=], ] |accessdate=2007-09-25 }}</ref>
Among some revisionist authors, the evidence of Moss's Communist Party membership has been used as part of an attempted vindication of McCarthy.<ref>See Arthur Herman, ''Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator'',<BR>

M. Stanton Evans, ''Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'', and<BR>
*Andrea Friedman, associate professor of history and of women and gender studies at Washington University in St. Louis, reported "substantial, if contested, evidence possessed by the U.S. government of her involvement in the party. That evidence&mdash;consisting of perhaps a dozen pieces of paper&mdash;included a list of “party recruits” that identified Moss by name, race, age, and occupation; membership lists from two Communist party branches, the ], and various ad hoc committees containing Moss’s name and address, as well as the number of her CP membership book; and receipt records from 1945 for ''Daily Worker'' subscriptions that included Moss’s name and amounts paid."<ref>{{Harv|Ritchie|2003}}</ref>
], ''Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism''.</ref>

Historians with a mainstream view of McCarthy have placed little importance on the issue of Moss's guilt. While some have noted it as showing laxity on the part of the army's security review board, it is not seen as having much bearing on the overall picture of McCarthy and his methods.<ref>
==Case for Moss==
{{Harv|Oshinsky|2005|p=403}} notes that it was "clearly not a case of mistaken identity," but does so in a footnote. {{Harv|Friedman|2007|}} refers to Moss's "probable" Communist Party membership as one of the "ironies" of the episode. {{Harv|Doherty|2005|p=184}}, though not a defender of McCarthy, writes with amusement that Moss "donned a ] mask" to fool the gullible Democratic committee members.</ref>
*Although Moss's name appeared on a Communist party membership list, lists compiled by FBI informers were, according to historian ], "often wildly inflated."<ref name=Oshinsky>
{{cite book
| last = Oshinsky
| first = David M.
| authorlink =David Oshinsky
| title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
| publisher = Oxford University Press
| date = 2005
| pages = pg. 403
| id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X}}</ref> (Oshinsky never actually says the Communist Party membership records listing Moss were inflated, or "compiled by an FBI informer," and presents no evidence that they were. As the SACB noted, the party "at no time disputed" them.)

*Moss was never afforded ], specifically the opportunity to confront and cross-examine the witness against her, namely FBI ] Markward. Several senators did confront Markward during her testimony and did speak out in Moss' defense. ("Due process" governs cases in which a person is deprived of "life, liberty, or property"; Moss was deprived of none of these. Moss was not denied the opportunity to cross-examine Markward; McCarthy twice summoned her to confront Markward, and twice her attorney begged off.)<ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'' (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN 978-1400081059, p. 539</ref>

*The evidence alleging Moss' ties to communism was ] and unsubstantiated by testimony from any witness who was subject to cross-examination by the accused. The only person who testified (i.e., Markward) never herself produced the supposed list for public examination. (Hearsay is generally inadmissible in civil or criminal courts, but permitted in congressional testimony. The list was subsequently secured by the SACB.)

*In the landmark ] case of '']'', 382 U.S. 70, 86 S.Ct. 194, 15 L.Ed.2d 165 (1965), the Court struck down a ] requiring individuals to register as members of the ] as unconstitutional for violating the ] of the ] of the ]. Later, in the companion ] cases of '']'', 401 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 702, 27 L.Ed.2d 639 (1971), and '']'', 401 U.S. 23, 91 S.Ct. 713, 27 L.Ed.2d 657 (1971), the Court, in 5-4 decisions, struck down as unconstitutional a requirement of the ] that applicants for ] membership could be denied admission for failure to list membership in the Communist Party on their applications. In a ] in which three other justices joined, Justice ] opined that such a requirement violated the principle of ] guaranteed under the ]. (Moss was never tried for her failure to register; nor did she ever apply for state bar membership.)


==See also== ==See also==
Line 64: Line 59:
==References and notes== ==References and notes==
{{reflist|2}} {{reflist|2}}

*{{Harvard reference

| Surname= Ritchie
<div class="references-small">
| Given= Donald
*{{Citation
| Title=S. Prt. 107-84 &ndash; Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McCarthy Hearings, 1953-54)
| last= Ritchie
| first= Donald
| author-link = Donald A. Ritchie
| title=S. Prt. 107-84 &ndash; Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McCarthy Hearings, 1953-54)
| Publisher=] | Publisher=]
| Year=2003 | year=2003
| URL = http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Volume5.pdf}} | url = http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Volume5.pdf}}


*{{Citation *{{Citation
| last = Friedman | last = Friedman
| first = Andrea | first = Andrea
| date =September
| year =2007 | year =2007
| title = The Strange Career of Annie Lee Moss: Rethinking Race, Gender, and McCarthyism | title = The Strange Career of Annie Lee Moss: Rethinking Race, Gender, and McCarthyism
Line 84: Line 82:
| accessdate =}} | accessdate =}}


*{{Citation
==Further reading==
| last = Oshinsky
*]; ], ]. Cohn Scored When Woman Denies McCarthy’s Charges; Mrs. Moss Counters Accusation As Red While Senators Decry 'Innuendo'. Crowd Applauds Hearing Scene Red Denial Stirs McCarthy Session. ], ], ]. Mrs. Annie Lee Moss, suspended ] employee, softly but flatly denied all Communist party activities or membership today.
| first = David M.
*]; ], ]. Mrs. Moss ousted by Army again. Pentagon Reports New Data on Case of Employee Called Communist by McCarthy. ], ], ] (]). The Army suspended Mrs. Annie Lee Moss from her Pentagon job for the second time today pending final settlement of her security case.
| author-link = David M. Oshinsky
*]; ], ]. Denial by Mrs. Moss; She Asks That Army Produce Those Who Called Her Red. ], ], 1954. Mrs. Annie Lee Moss, again denying Communist ties, has asked the Army to produce her accusers at a security screening board hearing.
| year =2005
*]; ], ]. Mrs. Moss Restored To a Job by Wilson. ] restored Annie Lee Moss to an Army job today, but transferred her from the Pentagon.
| title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
*]; ], ]. She Lost Job With Army as a Result of McCarthy Charge. Mrs. Annie Lee Moss, who temporarily lost her job because of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, said tonight she was "sorry" to hear of his death.
| volume =94
| publisher = Oxford University Press
| isbn = 0-19-515424-X
}}

*{{Citation
| first = Thomas
| last = Doherty
| title= Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture
| publisher= Columbia University Press
| year= 2005
| isbn = 0-231-12953-X}}

*{{Citation
|last = Reeves
|first = Thomas C.
|title = The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography
|publisher = Madison Books
|year= 1982
|isbn= 1-56833-101-0}}

*{{Citation
|last = Herman
|first = Arthur
|title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
|publisher = Free Press
|year= 2000
|isbn = 0-684-83625-4}}

</div> </div>
==Further reading==
*{{cite news
|first= |last=
|title=Pointing the Way in the Hunt for Communists
|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/2000/markward070599.htm
|publisher=]
|date=Monday, ], ]
|accessdate=2007-09-25 }}
*{{cite news
| title =Committee v. Chairman
| publisher=]
| date =], ]
| url =http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819556-1,00.html
| accessdate=2007-10-15 }}


==External links== ==External links==

Revision as of 00:14, 9 March 2008

Annie Lee Moss
Annie Lee Moss testifying before Joseph McCarthy on March 12, 1954
Born1905
Died1996
OccupationCommunications clerk in the US Army Signal Corps

Annie Lee Moss was a communications clerk in the US Army Signal Corps in the Pentagon who was accused by United States Senator Joseph McCarthy of being a member of the American Communist Party, and therefore a security risk. The highly publicized case was damaging to McCarthy's popularity and influence, although ironically many current scholars of the case now believe that Moss had in fact been a member of the Communist Party.

Career

Moss began her career in the Federal government as a dessert cook in government cafeterias. In 1945, she moved to a job as a clerk in the General Accounting Office and in 1949 secured a civil service position as an Army Signal Corps communications clerk at the Pentagon. A widowed mother, Moss had steadily improved her position since moving to Washington in the early 1940s. She bought a home in 1950 and by 1954 had an annual income of $3,300 a year, well above the median for black women at the time.

In accordance with a loyalty review program introduced by President Harry S. Truman in 1947, Moss was investigated by the loyalty board of the General Accounting Office in October 1949. The next year, when Moss was promoted to communications clerk at the Pentagon, she was reinvestigated by the Army’s Loyalty-Security Screening Board. The result of this investigation was that Moss was suspended from her position with the recommendation that she be discharged. She appealed this decision and was cleared by the Army board in January 1951.

Charges, appearance before McCarthy

In September 1951, the FBI notified the General Accounting Office that they had evidence that Moss had been a member of the Communist Party in the mid-1940s, but at that time the army did not reopen the case. This evidence came from Mary Stalcup Markward, who, working as an informant for the FBI, had joined the Communist Party from 1943 to 1949. Markward held such positions as membership director and treasurer for the Party. She reported regularly to the FBI, gave them copies of party documents, membership lists, and detailed accounts of meetings and activities. In February 1954, Markward testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Although she could not and identify Moss personally, she testified that she had seen Annie Lee Moss's name and address on the Communist Party’s membership rolls in 1944.

At this point Moss came to the attention of Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy, in his capacity as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was then looking into charges of Communist infiltration of the army, specifically at the Army Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth.

Moss and her attorney, George E. C. Hayes, appeared before McCarthy's committee on March 11, 1954, at a session that was open to the public. McCarthy had made headlines with the case, claiming that Moss was "handling the encoding and decoding of confidential and top-secret messages..." This was incorrect, as the army pointed out: Moss handled only unreadable, encrypted messages, and had no access to the Pentagon code room.

McCarthy left the hearing room shortly after Moss's testimony began, leaving his chief counsel Roy Cohn to handle the rest of the questioning. Moss was a small, soft-spoken and seemingly timid woman who appeared to be a far cry from the intellectuals and political activists who were usually the target of McCarthy's investigations. She stated that she rarely read newspapers and hadn't even heard of Communism until 1948. She had difficulty with multi-syllable words when asked to read a document before the committee, and responded "Who's that?" when asked if she knew who Karl Marx was. She denied the charges, saying "Never at any time have I been a member of the Communist Party and I have never seen a Communist Party card," and "I didn't subscribe to the Daily Worker and I wouldn't pay for it."

Cohn's examination of Moss quickly ran into difficulty. After he noted that a "Communist activist" named Rob Hall was known to have visited Moss's home, it was pointed out (by Robert Kennedy, then the minority counsel for the committee) that there were two Rob Halls in Washington: a known Communist, who was white, and a union organizer, who was African-American. Moss said that the Rob Hall she knew was "a man of about my complexion." As the hearing proceeded, it became clear that both the senators and the spectators were favoring Moss over Cohn and McCarthy. When Cohn asserted that he had corroboration of Markward's testimony from a confidential source, Senator John McClellan rebuked him for alluding to evidence he wasn't actually presenting. Chairman Karl Mundt ruled that Cohn's comments be stricken from the record. McClellan responded: "You can't strike these statements made by counsel here as to evidence that we're having and withholding. You cannot strike that from the press or from the public mind. That's the--that is the--evil of it. It is not sworn testimony. It is convicting people by rumor and hearespondrsay and innuendo." As had happened several times already, loud applause erupted from the spectators.

Senator Stuart Symington then suggested that, as with Rob Hall, the case against Moss might be a matter of mistaken identity. Moss immediately agreed, saying there were three women named 'Annie Lee Moss' in Washington D.C. Symington said, "I may be sticking my neck out and I may be wrong, but I've been listening to you testify this afternoon and I think you're telling the truth." Again there was loud and prolonged applause.

See It Now and other coverage

A cameraman from Edward R. Murrow's television show See It Now had filmed the Moss hearing, and the case was the subject of the episode broadcast on March 16. 1954. The previous week's show had been Murrow's famous "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" broadcast, which was deeply critical of McCarthy (and the subject of the the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck). Murrow opened the Annie Lee Moss show saying it would present a "little picture about a little woman", and closed it with a sound recording of a speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower in which the President praised the right of Americans to "meet your accuser face to face". The public's response to both shows was highly favorable, and because of them Murrow is widely credited with contributing to the eventual downfall of McCarthy. Support for Moss and criticism of McCarthy was widespread. In one of the more famous quotations from the McCarthy era, John Crosby wrote in the New York Herald Tribune, "The American People fought a revolution to defend, among other things, the right of Annie Lee Moss to earn a living, and Senator McCarthy now decided she has no such right." Reporting on public opinion in McCarthy's home state, Drew Pearson wrote, "Wisconsin folks saw her as a nice old colored lady who wasn't harming anyone and they didn't like their senator picking on her."

Aftermath of the hearing

McCarthy's popularity was on the wane at the time of the Moss hearing, and the publicity around the case accelerated this. He would soon be embroiled in the Army-McCarthy Hearings which also significantly eroded standing with the public and in the Senate. In December of 1954 he was censured by the Senate, and spent the rest of his career in relative obscurity. He died in 1957.

Moss had been suspended from her position when McCarthy announced his interest in the case. In January 1955 she was rehired to a non-sensitive position in the army's finance and accounts office, and she remained an army clerk until her retirement in 1975 at age sixty-nine. She died in 1996.

Later evidence against Moss

Since Markward’s information included an address for Annie Lee Moss, and Moss confirmed this address in her testimony, the possibility of mistaken identity was never a very realistic one. In 1958 the Subversive Activities Control Board investigated a related case and confirmed Markward’s testimony that Moss’ name and address had appeared on the Communist party rolls in the mid-1940s. Several sources have reported this as "proving" that Moss had been a Communist. More substantive is the evidence contained in Moss's FBI file, some of which which wasn't revealed until the file was released through a Freedom of Information Act request. Andrea Friedman describes this evidence as "perhaps a dozen pieces of paper—included a list of 'party recruits' that identified Moss by name, race, age, and occupation; membership lists from two Communist party branches, the Communist Political Association, and various ad hoc committees containing Moss’s name and address, as well as the number of her Communist Party membership book; and receipt records from 1945 for Daily Worker subscriptions." Freedman concludes that Moss was probably a "casual recruit to the Communist Party, attracted by its social and economic justice politics."

Current views

Among some revisionist authors, the evidence of Moss's Communist Party membership has been used as part of an attempted vindication of McCarthy. Historians with a mainstream view of McCarthy have placed little importance on the issue of Moss's guilt. While some have noted it as showing laxity on the part of the army's security review board, it is not seen as having much bearing on the overall picture of McCarthy and his methods.

See also

References and notes

  1. (Friedman 2007, p. 447)
  2. (Ritchie 2003, p. XV)
  3. (Ritchie 2003, p. XV)
  4. (Friedman 2007, p. 459)
  5. (Ritchie 2003, p. XIV)
  6. (Reeves 1982, p. 549)
  7. (Reeves 1982, p. 549)
  8. (Doherty 2005, p. 181)
  9. Cohn was probably referring to evidence taken by illegal break-in to offices of the Communist Party; the FBI commonly acquired evidence by such means, though it was legally inadmissible. Evans, M. Stanton (2007), Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, Crown Forum, p. 532, ISBN 9781400081059
  10. (Doherty 2005, p. 183)
  11. Although Washington city directories from the time list several women with names similar to Moss's, they show only one "Annie Lee Moss".(Friedman 2007, p. 461)
  12. (Doherty 2005, p. 183)
  13. (Reeves 1982, p. 569)
  14. (Herman 2005, pp. 335–336) harv error: no target: CITEREFHerman2005 (help)
  15. (Herman 2005, pp. 335–336) harv error: no target: CITEREFHerman2005 (help)
  16. (Doherty 2005, p. 184)
  17. (Reeves 1982, p. 549)
  18. (Oshinsky 2005, p. 403)
  19. (Friedman 2007, p. 467)
  20. (Friedman 2007, p. 451)
  21. See Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator,
    M. Stanton Evans, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, and
    Ann Coulter, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.
  22. (Oshinsky 2005, p. 403) notes that it was "clearly not a case of mistaken identity," but does so in a footnote. (Friedman 2007) refers to Moss's "probable" Communist Party membership as one of the "ironies" of the episode. (Doherty 2005, p. 184), though not a defender of McCarthy, writes with amusement that Moss "donned a Sambo mask" to fool the gullible Democratic committee members.


  • Doherty, Thomas (2005), Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-12953-X
  • Reeves, Thomas C. (1982), The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography, Madison Books, ISBN 1-56833-101-0
  • Herman, Arthur (2000), Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator, Free Press, ISBN 0-684-83625-4

Further reading

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