Robert E. Stripling (circa 1910–1991) was a 20th-century civil servant, best known as chief investigator of the

House A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

Dies Committee and its successor the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

(HUAC), particularly for collaboration with junior congressman

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

and for testimony gleaned from witness

Elizabeth Bentley Elizabeth Terrill Bentley (January 1, 1908 – December 3, 1963) was an American spy and member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). She served the Soviet Union from 1938 to 1945 until she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligenc ...

and

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...

, the latter of whose allegations led indirectly to indictment and conviction of

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

official

Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...

in January 1950.

Background

Robert E. Stripling Jr., was born around 1910 in

San Augustine, Texas San Augustine is the county seat city of San Augustine County, Texas, in East Texas, United States. The population was at the 2020 census. History The first European settlement in the area began in 1717 with the establishment of Mission Nuestra ...

. He attended the University of Texas.

Career

In 1932, before Stripling had finished college, U.S. Representative

Martin Dies Jr. Martin Dies Jr. (November 5, 1900 – November 14, 1972), also known as Martin Dies Sr., was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. He was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-second and after ...

, a Democrat from the

Texas's 2nd congressional district Texas's 2nd congressional district of the United States House of Representatives is in the southeastern portion of the state of Texas. It encompasses parts of northern and western Harris County and southern Montgomery County, Texas. From 2002 ...

, brought him to Washington, DC. Stripling had received what he himself called a "patronage job" in the "folding room" of the Old House Office Building at $120 per month while he attended night school. When the Dies Committee ran out of funding, Stripling helped persuade Dies to continue by offering to serve as secretary without wages. For the next decade, the committee recovered and grew to a staff of 75 and more than one million names, records, and data related to

subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

, among which Stripling named the

Pumpkin Papers The Pumpkin Papers are a set of typewritten, handwritten, and microfilmed documents, stolen from the US federal government (thus information leaks) by members of the Ware Group and other Soviet spy networks in Washington, DC, during 1937-1938, wi ...

. The cover of the original print run of Stripling's memoir ''The Red Plot Against America'' cites his title as "Chief Investigator, House Un-American Activities Committee, 1938–1948." However, some sources call him "permanent counsel" and "chief of staff." HUAC investigations in which Stripling participated include: testimony of alleged Soviet spy

Gerhart Eisler Gerhart Eisler (20 February 1897 – 21 March 1968) was a German politician, editor and publicist. Along with his sister Ruth Fischer, he was a very early member of the Austrian German Communist Party (KPDÖ) and then a prominent member of the ...

, the

Hollywood Trials ''Hollywood Trials'' was an observational documentary series which ran on RTÉ Two Ireland, in 2008. The series followed ten Irish actors trying to break into Hollywood. The participants lived together as a group for four weeks as they were groo ...

(which derived from Eisler through his brother Hanns Eisler, a Hollywood composer at the time, and their friend

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

), testimony by writer

Ring Lardner Jr. Ringgold Wilmer Lardner Jr. (August 19, 1915 – October 31, 2000) was an American screenwriter. A member of the "Hollywood Ten", he was blacklisted by the Hollywood film studios during the late 1940s and 1950s after his appearance as an " ...

, testimony by

, and testimony by

and members of his Ware Group –

Donald Hiss Donald Hiss (December 15, 1906 – May 18, 1989), also known as "Donie" and "Donnie", was the younger brother of Alger Hiss. Donald Hiss's name was mentioned during the 1948 hearings wherein his more famous and older brother, Alger, was ac ...

Harry Dexter White Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was a senior U.S. Treasury department official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World W ...

Lee Pressman Lee Pressman (July 1, 1906 – November 20, 1969) was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s (as a member of the Ware Group), following hi ...

, John Abt,

Nathan Witt Nathan Witt (February 11, 1903 – February 16, 1982), born Nathan Wittowsky, was an American lawyer who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. He resigned from the NLRB after his commun ...

, Charles Kramer, studio mogul

Jack L. Warner Jack Leonard Warner (born Jacob Warner; August 2, 1892 – September 9, 1978) was a Canadian-American film executive, who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Warner's career spanned some ...

, and others. On December 7, 1948, Stripling testified before HUAC in the Hiss Case.

Personal and death

In 1971, Stripling married Louisa Fowler Shankland (previously married to Robert J. Zonne in 1948). Stripling died in 1991.

Legacy

Stripling's collaboration with first-term U.S. Representative Nixon and their success in 1948 that lead to the Hiss Case (1949) proved the stepping stone to Nixon's rise to U.S. Senator (1950), U.S. Vice President (1952), and later U.S. President (1968). Stripling appears in film in at least two documentaries regarding HUAC investigations.

Works

One of the few mentions (much less reviews) of Stripling's book lumps it with several others about the House Un-American Activities Committee and states "They weren’t good books." * ''The Red Plot Against America'', edited by Bob Considine (Drexel Hill, PA: Bell Publishing: 1949)

References

External links

Library of Congress
Photo -

J. Parnell Thomas John Parnell Thomas (January 16, 1895 – November 19, 1970) was a stockbroker and politician. He was elected to seven terms as a United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from New Jersey as a Republican Party (United States), Re ...

, chairman of House Un-American Activities Committee, (right) and Robert E. Stripling, committee investigator (1947)
Getty Images
Photos of Robert E. Stripling
Getty Images
Photo of Stripling with Richard Nixon in December 1948
Visit the Capitol
Photo of Richard Nixon (right) and staff investigator Robert Stripling pose for photographs with the “Pumpkin Papers” (December 1948)
New York
Photo of Stripling with

on August 5, 1948
Nixon Foundation
Congressman Richard Nixon (right) and Congressional Investigator Robert Stripling examine microfilm (December 1948) {{DEFAULTSORT:Stripling, Robert E. Year of birth uncertain 1991 deaths People from San Augustine, Texas University of Texas alumni American anti-communists