Karl Mundt
Karl Mundt was born in Humboldt, South Dakota, on 3rd June, 1900. After graduating from Columbia University he became a high school teacher in Bryant (1923-27) before moving to the General Beadle State Teachers College (1927-36). Mundt was also involved in real estate and the insurance business.
A member of the Republican Party, Mundt was elected to Congress in January 1939. Mundt was a member of House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and remained in Congress until 1973. Karl Mundt died on 16th August, 1974.
Primary Sources
(1) Karl Mundt, speech (30th April, 1948)
The need for legislation to Control Communist activities in the United States cannot be questioned. Ten years of investigation by the Committee on Un-American Activities and by its predecessors have established: (1) that
the Communist movement in the United States is foreign-controlled; (2) that its ultimate objective with respect to the United States is to overthrow our free American institutions in favor of a Communist totalitarian dictatorship to be controlled from abroad; (3) that its activities are carried on by secret and conspiratorial methods; and (4) that its activities, both because of the alarming march of Communist forces abroad and because of the scope and nature
of Communist activities here in the United States, constitute an immediate and powerful threat to the security of the United States and to the American way of life. The conclusion that the Communist movement constitutes a threat to the security of the United States and to the American way of life is not the cry of alarmists.
The Communist program of conquest through treachery, deceit, infiltration, espionage, sabotage, corruption, and terrorism has been carried out in country after country and is an ever growing threat in other countries. There is ample evidence that one of the primary objectives of the world Communist movement, directed from within the most powerful existing Communist totalitarian dictatorship, is to repeat this pattern in the United States.
There is incontrovertible evidence of the fact that the Communist Party of the United States is dominated by such totalitarian dictatorship and that it is one of the principal instrumentalities used by the world Communist movement, directed from within that totalitarian dictatorship, in its ruthless and tireless endeavor to advance the world march of communism.
The findings, which support these conclusions, and the vast quantity of evidence on which they are based, are set forth in detail in the numerous reports which this committee and its predecessors have printed and circulated. Corroboration has been supplied by independent and exhaustive research by other committees of Congress.
