Robert E. Lee (FCC)

[1][2] In 1938 through 1941, Lee served as a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and worked in Washington, Newark, New York City, and Chicago.

Domestic suspicion about China Hands undermined mission members such as State Department official John S. Service (who, in an August 3, 1944, report The Communist Policy Towards the Kuomintang stated "impressive personal qualities of the Communist leaders, their seeming sincerity, and the coherence and logical nature of their program leads me, at least, toward general acceptance of the first explanation – that the Communists base their policy toward the Kuomintang on a real desire for democracy in China under which there can be orderly economic growth through a stage of private enterprise to eventual socialism without the need of violent social upheaval and revolution.").

In November 1944, U.S. General Joseph Stilwell was recalled from China amidst controversy about American support for nationalist and communist Chinese forces that made the cover of TIME magazine.

"[5] Fueling debate was the best-selling book Thunder Out of China by former TIME magazine correspondent Theodore White and Annalee Jacoby.

(Historian John Earl Haynes has stated, "Robert E. Lee was the committee's lead investigator and supervised preparation of the list."

[11]) During a congressional hearing on March 10, 1948, Assistant Secretary of State John E. Peurifoy claimed the number had dropped from 108 to 57 names.

[5][12] On February 9, 1950, McCarthy gave a Lincoln Day "Enemies Within" speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia.

However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department.

Senator Joseph McCarthy and so faced some opposition in the American press when Eisenhower appointed him FCC commissioner.