<P> The committee investigated allegations of a fascist plot to seize the White House, known as the "business plot". Although the plot was widely reported as a hoax, the committee confirmed some details of the accusations . </P> <P> It has been reported that while Dickstein served on this committee and the subsequent Special investigation Committee, he was paid $1,250 a month by the Soviet NKVD, which hoped to get secret congressional information on anti-communists and pro-fascists . It is unclear whether he actually passed on any information . </P> <P> On May 26, 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established as a special investigating committee, reorganized from its previous incarnations as the Fish Committee and the McCormack - Dickstein Committee, to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist or fascist ties; however, it concentrated its efforts on communists . It was chaired by Martin Dies Jr . (D - Tex .), and therefore known as the Dies Committee . </P> <P> In 1938, Hallie Flanagan, the head of the Federal Theatre Project, was subpoenaed to appear before the committee to answer the charge the project was overrun with communists . Flanagan was called to testify for only a part of one day, while a clerk from the project was called in for two entire days . It was during this investigation that one of the committee members, Joe Starnes (D - Ala .), famously asked Flanagan whether the Elizabethan era playwright Christopher Marlowe was a member of the Communist Party, and mused "Mr. Euripides" preached class warfare . </P>

Who led the house un american activities committee