The California state legislature, which had its own Un-American Activities Committee, soon branded the Committee as a Communist front organization. Ronald Reagan, who was the president of the Screen Actors Guild during the post-World War II Hollywood Red Scare and a dedicated anti-Communist as well as a liberal Democrat at the time, claimed that his fellow liberals had been the victims of "one of the most successful operation in Communists' domestic history", terming them "suckers". Ira Gershwin later testified before the California State Senate's un-American activities subcommittee that he was appalled to have been involved with the group.