The Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Impact of the Cold War

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The Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Impact of the
Cold War
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Context

• Following the Second World War, the combatant
  nations largely separated into armed camps
  defined by ideology.
• The Cold War began nearly as soon as the fighting
  stopped.
• The twelve Western democracies, dominated by the
  United States, founded NATO as a mutual defense
  organization in 1949.
• In response, the communist nations, dominated by
  the Soviet Union, formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955.
  
• This alignment would serve as the basic framework
  of the Cold War over the next fifty years.

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Communist Expansion in Asia

• Shortly after the defeat of Japan in the Second
  World War, China resumed its civil war.
• In 1949, communist forces, led by Mao Zedong,
  expelled the government of Chiang Kai-Shek to the
  island of Taiwan and formed the Peoples Republic
  of China.
• In the United States, the adoption of communism
  in China was viewed as evidence of Soviet
  expansionism, though later documents showed that
  the Soviets had little to do with it.
• Trumans unwillingness to fight a larger war
  with China fueled attacks from the right that he
  was soft on communism.

Chairman Mao
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The Rosenbergs

• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a young couple living
  in New York, were arrested for conspiracy to
  commit treason in helping Soviet agents ferret
  atomic secrets out of the United States.
• While they were both members of the Communist
  Party, the espionage charge was far more dubious.
  
• All the same, they were convicted of treason,
  largely on the strength of the vigorous
  prosecution presented by Roy Cohn.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in the
  electric chair on 19 June 1953.

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Alger Hiss

• Alger Hiss was a bright up and coming State
  Department attaché.
• Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers accused
  him of passing secrets to the Soviets.
• At trial, Hiss was twice acquitted of treason,
  though he was convicted of perjury.
• This distinction did not matter to many of Hiss
  critics on the right, who continued to label him
  a traitor.

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House Un-American Activities Committee

• HUAC was an investigative committee of the US
  Senate.
• In 1947 HUAC investigated alleged communist
  infiltration of the motion picture industry.
• Hearsay, innuendo, and rumor were perfectly
  acceptable forms of evidence.
• HUAC decided the Fifth Amendment did not apply in
  its hearings so those refusing to testify,
  branded the Hollywood Ten, were imprisoned for
  contempt.
• Through pressing witnesses to name names, HUAC
  claimed to have identified 324 communists working
  in the motion picture industry.

Ronald Reagan testifies to HUAC.
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Senator Joseph McCarthy

• Elected to the Senate from Wisconsin in 1946.
• Rabid anti-communist and alleged communist
  infiltration into the American government.
• On 20 February 1950, McCarthy made a six hour
  Senate speech claiming that the Democratic Party
  had been engaged in twenty years of treason.
• In 1952, the Republicans gained control of the
  Senate.
• The Republicans named McCarthy as Chairman of the
  Senate Sub-Committee on Investigations.

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McCarthy Hearings

• In the Senate Sub-Committee for Investigations,
  Senator McCarthy applied the methods of HUAC to
  the American government, military, and defense
  industry.
• According to McCarthys own numbers, his
  investigations drove 400 suspected communists
  from the American government, though, in reality,
  few were guilty of anything more than liberal
  politics or associations

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Opposition to McCarthyism

• Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from
  Maine, criticized his tactics as being
  detrimental to individual freedom.
• In March 1954, McCarthy began to investigate
  Annie Lee Moss, a middle aged African American
  woman who worked for the Army Signal Corps.
• For this, Moss lost her job with the Army, was
  dragged before McCarthys hearings, and publicly
  interrogated on national television.
• Senator Symington pointed out that there were
  four Annie Lee Mosses listed in the Washington
  D.C. phonebook and that there was no indication
  that this was the proper one.

Margaret Chase Smith
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"See it Now"

• The downfall of Senator McCarthy would begin on
  20 October 1953 on Edward R. Murrows CBS
  television newsmagazine See it Now.
• After See It Now exposed the Air Force for
  using secret evidence and guilt by association in
  the firing of an officer whose father and sister
  were suspected communists, Murrow and Friendlys
  next attack on McCarthy was not nearly as
  oblique.
• On 9 March 1954, See it Now took on McCarthy
  directly. Using his own words against him, Murrow
  and Friendly demonstrated McCarthys
  inconsistencies and fabrications.
• CBS News offered McCarthy equal airtime to refute
  the charges, an offer the Senator took advantage
  of on 6 April 1954.
• McCarthys rambling, incoherent diatribe-like
  defense of himself was devastating.

Edward R. Murrow
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Army McCarthy Hearings

• In 1953, McCarthy began an investigation of the
  automatic promotion of an Army dentist with
  leftist political views.
• On 11 March 1954, the Army released a memo
  detailing the efforts that McCarthy and Cohn made
  to secure an Army commission for drafted McCarthy
  staffer David Schine.
• With such an allegation of improper use of his
  office, the Senate Sub-Committee on
  Investigations was now turned onto McCarthy.
• McCarthy now alleged that the investigation was a
  conspiracy to protect communists including FBI
  Director J. Edgar Hoover and President
  Eisenhower.

McCarthy at the Army Hearings
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Censure

• On 2 December 1954 the Senate voted 67-22 to
  censure Senator McCarthy.
• The Republican leadership stripped McCarthy of
  his committee chairmanship.
• When the Democrats took control, McCarthy was
  marginalized further when McCarthy would enter a
  room, any other Senators present would leave.
• McCarthy continued to serve in the Senate until
  his death in 1957 at the age of 49 from
  complications of alcoholism.

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• Multimedia Citations
• Slide 3 http//flatrock.org.nz/topics/history/ass
  ets/cold_war_map.jpg
• Slide 4 http//i.cnn.net/cnn/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/0
  3/04/facts.china.reut/vstory.mao.army.afp.jpg
• Slide 5 http//cache.eb.com/eb/image?id71333
• Slide 6 http//www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/rev
  iews/hiss-obit.1.jpg
• Slide 7 http//www.authentichistory.com/1950s/spe
  eches/images/19471023_Reagan_HUAC.jpg
• Slide 8 http//chawedrosin.files.wordpress.com/20
  07/03/mccarthy.jpg
• Slide 9 http//www.yale.edu/yale300/democracy/may
  1text/images/McCarthyandCohen.jpg
• Slide 10 http//www.senate.gov/artandhistory/hist
  ory/resources/graphic/large/MargaretCSmith.jpg
• Slide 11 http//www.newsdesk.umd.edu/images/LAB/M
  urrow/Full/SeeItNow2.jpg
• Slide 12 http//www.apl.org/history/mccarthy/phot
  os/CommitteeHearing.jpg