Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, more than perhaps any other work in American literature was written to relate to a very specific and notorious political event. Miller has been forthright and clear about the connection of The Crucible to the McCarthy hearings, and the play is a very well-done, but thinly veiled diatribe against the "witch hunts" for communists in powerful positions. Although Miller's vitriol against McCarthyism is a clear indictment, the differences between the McCarthy hearings and Miller's Salem are quite illuminating.

A girl named Abigail, from the Salem Massachusetts of the late 17th century, leads her community in a hysteric hunt for witches. Her motivation for such lies is jealousy over the wife of a good man that she had an affair with. She manipulates other children and preys on their malleability in order to get anyone she dislikes labeled a witch. In order to save his life, Proctor's wife, Elizabeth, convinces John Proctor, a good and honorable man, to confess to witchcraft. He finally succumbs to temptation and agrees to confess. He does not incriminate any of the others, no matter how much the court pressures him. Finally, he refuses to confess, tears up his confession, and is hanged with the others that were accused.

The first big difference is that In Miller's Salem, there were no real witches. The closest thing to real witchcraft is Tituba, who does know voodoo and performs such for Abigail. Unfortunately, in the 50's there WERE significant infiltrations of communists into the government. After the Cold War, the Rosenburgs and Alger Hiss were both found to conclusively and definitely have been under the pay of the Soviets.

Consider the quote by Abigail at the end of act I. "I want to open myself! . . . I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!" Abigail, because she sees a way to use this association with the confessed witch, Tituba, to get something she wants: power over others, especially Proctor and his faithful wife.

Although Miller and his crowd lionized them as victims of McCarthyism, they were, indeed, communists, paid traitors and subversives with a hidden communist agenda to destroy the United States. Although Miller wants us to see the Rosenbergs and Hiss as victims in the mold

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