McCarthyism/Red Scare

Question 1

What was the Red Scare?

Answer 1

• -Steady build-up of anti-Communism in America since Communist Revolution of 1917
• -Fear that US government was infiltrated by Communists

Question 2

What were some incidents of the Red Scare?

Answer 2

• -600 US government documents found in the office of a Communist magazine in America
• -Canada announced it had caught a network of Soviet spies
• -Truman played up fear of Communism to get support for Truman Doctrine, Marshall and Plan, and to set up the NSC
• -Executive Order 9853 (Truman): federal Loyalty Boards could remove employees if they were thought to be disloyal to the US
• -Employees had to take loyalty oaths or lose their jobs
• -Soviet atomic bomb: 1949
• -Communist China in 1949
• -Korean War
• -Main newspapers: Time, Newsweek, NY Times, Washington Post all strongly anti-Communist
• -Evangelical preachers and Catholic church were strongly anti-Communist
• -International Security Act 1950: all Communist organisations had to register, no Communist could be employed in defence projects

Question 3

What was the HUAC?

Answer 3

• -House Un-American Activities Committee
• -Began hearings in 1946
• -“Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist part?”
• -Expected to name names
• -Couldn’t plead the fifth
• -Constitutional rights gradually whittled away

Question 4

What happened between the HUAC and Hollywood?

Answer 4

• -1947, 1951-4
• -Disliked the influence movies had over public opinion
• -Actors blacklisted or jailed: Lucille Ball, Orson Welles
• -1947: Hollywood Ten: refused to discuss their political views, jailed for 4-10 months for contempt of Congress
• -Committee for the First Amendment
• -Public backlash against actors
• -Looked with suspicion on anyone with liberal views
• -300+ cited as Communists

Question 5

What was the Hiss case?

Answer 5

• -Alger Hiss
• -Graduate of 2 famous universities
• -One of Roosevelt’s closest advisers
• -Nixon supplied with information by the FBI

Question 6

Who were Ethel and Julius Rosenberg?

Answer 6

• -Part of a spy ring passing atomic secrets to USSR

- -Tried and executed in 1953

Question 7

What were the effects of the Red Scare?

Answer 7

• -600 high school teachers blacklisted, lost jobs
• -University lecturers fired
• -HUAC demanded university reading lists
• -Movies and books began to attack Communism
• -Civil liberties suffered, particularly free speech
• -Loyalty tests
• -FBI was virulently anti-Communist; spied on people, tapped their phones, leaked information to the press
• -Atmosphere of fear

Question 8

Who was Joe McCarthy?

Answer 8

• -Democrat, turned Republican
• -Needed to contest election, chose to go for subversives
• -1950: said he had a list of 200 Communists working in the State Department
• -Catholic
• -Resented State Department for being white, well-educated, Protestant, wealthy

Question 9

How did McCarthyism spread?

Answer 9

• -HUAC
• -Loyalty Programme: blacklisted people
• -Sensational spy trials
• -Fueled Red Scare
• -Tyding Committee: looked into charges made by him
• -Controlled mindset: made Cold War a simple concept
• -Drove support for Korean War
• -Unsubstantiated claims

Question 10

How did McCarthy’s downfall come about?

Answer 10

• -1952: Chairman of the Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on Investigations
• -Began hearings on Communist infiltration of government, didn’t uncover anything
• -400+ writers banned by State Department
• -Accused the army of harbouring Communists
• -Army-McCarthy hearings televised April-June 1954
• -Public could see what a bully he was; shouted at and interrupted witnesses
• -Support dropped from 50% to 34%, 45% disapproving of him
• -Senate censored him in 1954 for bringing it into disrepute

Question 11

What was the influence of McCarthyism on US foreign policy?

Answer 11

• -Set the tone for foreign policy 1940s-1970s
• -Clouded much of US thinking on Communism
• -Contributed to making the Cold War more extreme
• -Reinforced the view that all events everywhere should be viewed as part of the Cold War
• -Brought US into supporting corrupt anti-Communist governments: Diem, Rhee, Chiang Kai-shek (Taiwan)
• -State Department lost many fine people, particularly the Far East and Asia department
• -Some link that to failure in Vietnam
• -Undermined respect for US foreign policy in Europe
• -Damaged US reputation abroad