Difference between revisions of "Annie Lee Moss"

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Annie Lee Moss was a a code clerk in the US Army Signal Corps in the Pentagon who was accused by United States Senator Joseph McCarthy of being a Communist.

Career

Moss began her career as a US Army cafeteria worker and was promoted to a code clerk in the Pentagon. Mary Stalcup Markward, Moss' accuser, had been working undercover for the FBI for seven years as a member of the Washington, D.C. American Communist Party, and she had worked as the director of the party's membership. Markward testified before a Senate committee that the name "Annie Lee Moss" of Washington had been listed on the Communist Party membership rolls. Markward's testimony was the only evidence presented that Moss was a member of the American Communist Party, and she was not accused of being an active spy for Russia.[1] The FBI had passed this information on to the Army and the Civil Service Commission, yet the Army had still hired Moss as a code clerk, and she was given clearance to do this work.[2] McCarthy’s chief purpose was to find out how Moss, with her Red background, had been promoted from a cafeteria worker to a Pentagon code clerk with access to classified information.[3]

The case

  • Moss acknowledged that one of the top three Washington, D.C., Communists had visited her home and that she had lived, briefly, with an active party member who hosted Communist meetings at her house.[4]
  • Copies of the communist newspaper Daily Worker were delivered to her address under her name, but she denied that they were for her, and claimed that there was another "Anne Moss" in the Washington, DC phone book.[5][6] At her testimony, Moss stated "We didn't get this Communist paper until after we had moved to Southwest, at 72 R Street."[5]
  • The Subversive Activities Control Board found in 1958 that the former street address Moss had given in her testimony matched the address on the list the Board had acquired from the American Communist Party. The address was "72 R Street S.W."[7][8] The SACB verdict was that the Communist Party membership rolls “corroborate Markward’s testimony in the Moss security hearings.”[9] In its September 19, 1958, report, the SACB concluded, “the Communist Party’s charge that Markward gave perjurious testimony was not substantiated. Consequently, Mrs. Markward’s credibility is in no way impaired by the Annie Lee Moss matter.” [10]
  • Andrea Friedman, associate professor of history and of women and gender studies at Washington University in St. Louis, reports finding a variety of evidence that Moss was "most likely a member, briefly, of the Communist party." This included a list of ‘party recruits’ that identified Moss, membership lists from two Communist party branches and various party committees containing Moss’s name and address, the number of her Communist Party membership book, and receipts for Daily Worker subscriptions. [12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Committee v. Chairman", Time magazine, March 22, 1954. “Early in his public feud with the Army last month, Joe McCarthy triumphantly charged that the Signal Corps had a Communist named Annie Lee Moss encoding and decoding "top-secret" messages in its Pentagon headquarters. Proof? He had the sworn testimony of a woman FBI agent. As usual, there were some pertinent facts that McCarthy did not mention: 1) Mrs. Moss, a 49-year-old Negro widow, had appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in closed session and under oath denied that she had ever been a member of the Communist Party, or had ever engaged in espionage; 2) she did not encode or decode anything, had no access to the Pentagon code room, and handled top-secret messages only in the form of scrambled and unreadable Teletype tape; 3) the FBI agent, while identifying her by name and address, had admittedly never seen her. When Mrs. Moss appeared to testify publicly, McCarthy waved her away. "We do have ... two witnesses who know that she had been ... a Communist ... a long time," he said. "[This] witness is of no importance." ... Three Annie Lees. The Democratic Senators managed to draw from Mrs. Moss the suggestion that her own identification as a Communist might be the result of the same sort of mix up. She testified that there were three Annie Lee Mosses living in the District of Columbia. But in the furor, no one questioned her on a pertinent point: the 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.” 
  2. ↑ M. Stanton Evans, “How Senate Historian Botched Data on McCarthy,” Human Events’’, May 23, 2003
  3. ↑ Allan H. Ryskind, “George Clooney's Clueless Movie,” October 14, 2005
  4. ↑ Allan H. Ryskind, “George Clooney's Clueless Movie,” October 14, 2005
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Oshinsky
  6. ↑ The 1930 US Census for Washington, DC, lists an "Annie K. Moss" born in 1891, wife of Otto Moss. There is also an "Anne Moss (1910-?) of Connecticut Avenue" born in 1910, wife of Benjamin Moss.
  7. ↑ Vernon, Wes. "Looney Clooney Smears Senator McCarthy", Accuracy in Media, January 13, 2006. “Not only had the Army ignored an FBI warning that one of its employees, Annie Lee Moss, was a Communist, but also compounded the offense by reassigning Moss, a Signal Corps cafeteria worker, to the far more sensitive position of Pentagon code clerk. By any standard, that was an unusually huge promotion. Who did it? And why?.... Four years later, after McCarthy had died, the Subversive Activities Control Board presented solid evidence that Markward's testimony was true and that the Annie Lee Moss who appeared before the McCarthy committee was in fact a member of the Communist Party.” 
  8. ↑ Herman, Arthur (1999). Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator. Free Press, pp 333+. ISBN 0-684-83625-4. 
  9. ↑ Allan H. Ryskind, “George Clooney's Clueless Movie,” October 14, 2005
  10. ↑ M. Stanton Evans, “How Senate Historian Botched Data on McCarthy,” Human Events’’, May 23, 2003
  11. ↑ "Mrs. Moss Is Accused As Card-Carrying Red.", New York Times, August 6, 1954. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. “Washington, DC, August 5, 1954 (Associated Press) 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 Army Signal Corps.” 
  12. ↑ Friedman, Andrea. "The Strange Career of Annie Lee Moss: Rethinking Race, Gender, and McCarthyism", The Journal of American History. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. “Annie Lee Moss is hardly a household name. She had her fifteen minutes (or so) of fame in March 1954, when Edward R. Murrow dedicated an episode of his television news show, See It Now, to her appearance before Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. McCarthy had charged that Moss, an African American civilian Pentagon employee who allegedly had access to top-secret coded messages, was a card-carrying member of the Communist party (CP). Murrow's broadcast went a long way toward discrediting those claims; ultimately, Moss remained an army clerk, laboring in obscurity until her retirement in 1975, at age sixty-nine. When she reappeared in George Clooney's 2005 paean to Murrow, Good Night, and Good Luck, she had been long forgotten by all but a coterie of McCarthy scholars and right-wing apologists for McCarthyism.” 

Further reading

  • New York Times; February 24, 1954. 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. Washington, D.C., February 24, 1954. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy engaged the Army today in another verbal duel over an alleged Communist in the Pentagon's Signal Corps communications center.
  • New York Times; March 12, 1954. 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. Washington, DC, March 11, 1954. Mrs. Annie Lee Moss, suspended Army Signal Corps employee, softly but flatly denied all Communist party activities or membership today.
  • New York Times; August 5, 1954. Mrs. Moss ousted by Army again. Pentagon Reports New Data on Case of Employee Called Communist by McCarthy. Washington, DC, August 4, 1954 (United Press). The Army suspended Mrs. Annie Lee Moss from her Pentagon job for the second time today pending final settlement of her security case.
  • New York Times; August 25, 1954. Denial by Mrs. Moss; She Asks That Army Produce Those Who Called Her Red. Washington, DC, August 24, 1954. Mrs. Annie Lee Moss, again denying Communist ties, has asked the Army to produce her accusers at a security screening board hearing.
  • New York Times; January 20, 1955. Mrs. Moss Restored To a Job by Wilson. Charles E. Wilson restored Annie Lee Moss to an Army job today, but transferred her from the Pentagon.
  • New York Times; May 3, 1957. 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.
  • In the landmark United States Supreme Court case of Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 382 U.S. 70, 86 S.Ct. 194, 15 L.Ed.2d 165 (1965), the Court struck down a federal statute requiring individuals to register as members of the American Communist Party as unconstitutional for violating the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Later, in the companion US Supreme Court cases of Baird v. State Bar of Arizona, 401 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 702, 27 L.Ed.2d 639 (1971), and Application of Stolar, 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 Arizona State Bar that applicants for state bar membership could be denied admission for failure to list membership in the Communist Party on their applications. In a plurality opinion in which three other justices joined, Justice Hugo Black opined that such a requirement violated the principle of Freedom of Association guaranteed under the First Amendment.


External links

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