 He then served as chief investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, headed by Martin Dies Jr., consultant on Communist affairs for the Hearst Corporation, and by June 1953 research director for Joseph McCarthy's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the United States Senate.When Matthews published claims that the Protestant clergy comprised a base of support of the American Communist movement, he was forced to resign.Joseph Brown Matthews was born on June 28, 1894, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, of French Huguenot, Scottish, and English ancestry.