TRUMAN: RED SCARE

Question 1

What is the Red Scare?

Answer 1

• The rounding up and deportation of several hundred immigrants of radical political views by the federal government in 1919/20
• Caused by fears of subversion by communists after the Russian Revolution
• Fear of communism already existed in the USA. After WW2, certain factors increased this fear. However, McCarthyism raised these fears to a new level of hysteria

Question 2

Significance of the Red Scare

Answer 2

• influenced US foreign & defence policy
• Little serious attempt to relax tensions with the Soviets after Stalin’s death
• Damaged American ideals of freedom of thought and expression

Question 3

Communist Successes 1949-50

Answer 3

• Explosion of first Soviet atomic bomb, fall of China, Korean War
• High profile spy scandals: Klaus Fuche, worked on atomic bomb; Alger Hiss, State Department offical
• Ethel & Julius Rosenburg, only AMericans to be executed fot espionage in the Cold War - antisemitism may have played a part, betrayed by Ethel’s brother David, who admitted he lied

Question 4

HUAC

Answer 4

• Set up in the Depression to investigate left wingers
• Congressman John Rankin suggested they broaden powers to deal with ‘domestic subversion’
• 1947 - investigated the Hollywood 10 & a political plot by writers and directors who were part of the American Communist Party - jailed for a year
• Moved on to Broadway and federal government employees
• Politicians would use HUAC as a platform to become more widely known to voters, eg Nixon rose to fame over Alger Hiss case

Question 5

Republican Party

Answer 5

• need issues with which to beat Democrats
• Accused them of being too soft on communists – poll in spring 1948 found 73% agreed
• Strategy worked - won 1946 midterms

Question 6

Truman

Answer 6

• Advised to ‘scare the hell’ out of people to gain support for the Truman Doctrine
• Issued an executive order to investigate federal employees - stole Republican thunder
• Tried to Veto 1950 Internal Security Act, which forced members of communist-affiliated organisations to register with the government over the desire to defend civil liberties as people could be deported over it, but was overridden
• Didn’t stop FBI & Hoover investiagting anyone over trivial leads - estimates say between 1947-52, over 3 million investigations, several thousands resignations and over 1000 dismissals
• Privately Truman described the FBI’s actions akin to the Gestapo

Question 7

McCarthy

Answer 7

• Entered senate in 1946 - lied about war record
• 1949 poll of Washingtin correspondents voted him worst US senator - needed good publicity
• Claimed he had a list of communists in the State Department
• Tydings Committee ruled his claims were a fraud and a hoax - McCarthy supporters circulated a fake photo of Tydings talking to US communist party leader. He lost the next election
• 1952 - Headed congressional committees investigating communists
• By 1953, covered media, entertainment, colleges and universities
• Around 500 gov. employees, 600 teachers & 150 professors lost their jobs

Question 8

McCarthism

Answer 8

• Attacked US Information Agency libraries for exhibiting works of ‘radicals’ - stifling freedom of speech and censoring books
• McCarthy ensure the defeat of many Democrats in 1952 presidential election, including candidate Adlai Stevenson
• Lavender Scare
• Nixon mocked Stevenson as being part of Truman’s ‘Cowardly College of Communist Containment’ and had defeated Helen Douglas in the 1950 California Senate race by calling her ‘pink down to her knickers’

Question 9

How did McCarthy get away with it?

Answer 9

• Republican relucatnce to challenge him and ambitions to regain control of congress
• Democrat fears that defending the accused would make them a target
• Hysterical anti-communism
• Fear of communist expansion
• Mindless, timid conformity that characterised Cold War Americans (David Riesman, sociologist)
• McCarthy;s good relationship with the press