Chaplin had never applied for United States citizenship. He had lived and worked there for decades, built enormous wealth there, raised families there, and become one of the country’s most commercially successful artists, but he remained a British subject throughout. He was politically vocal in ways that made powerful enemies: he associated with figures who were considered leftist or suspect by the standards of the emerging Cold War, gave speeches that irritated conservative politicians, and in the years after the war attracted serious attention from J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.
The formal investigations dated back at least to the 1940s. The House Un-American Activities Committee had its period of greatest visibility in the late 1940s, and Chaplin’s name appeared in its orbit, though he was never subpoenaed to testify. Representative John E. Rankin called for his deportation in 1947. The accusations centered on his alleged communist sympathies — not on specific evidence of party membership or subversive acts, but on associations, public statements, and a general posture of political criticism that placed him outside the acceptable range, in the view of his critics.
In 1952, Chaplin sailed from New York aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth on September 18, accompanied by his family, bound for the London premiere of his film Limelight. The day after the ship departed, Attorney General James P. McGranery revoked Chaplin’s re-entry permit. McGranery told reporters that Chaplin would be required to submit to an interview about his political views and moral behavior before he could return. He added that he had “a pretty good case” against Chaplin.