The Red Scare in the United States During the Cold War Era

25.4 The Cold War at Home

Worrying About Communism at Home Cold War was turning out to be every bit as global as WWII.

Truman Roots Out Communists Red Scare: went deeper at wider then the one in 1919-1920. The term Red Scare is used to describe periods of extreme anti- communism in the United States. "Red" comes from the color of the Soviet Union flag. "Scare" comes from the fact that many people were scared that communism would come to the United States.

The second Red Scare occurred during the start of the Cold War with the Soviet Union after the end of World War II. It lasted around ten years from 1947 to 1957. With the spread of communism in Eastern Europe and China as well as the Korean War, people were scared that communism could infiltrate the United States. Also, the Soviet Union had become a world superpower and had nuclear bombs. People were scared of anyone who may side with the communists and help the Soviets get secret information about the United States.

The US government was heavily involved in the Red Scare. One of the main crusaders against communism was Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy was determined to out communists. However, he used intimidation and gossip to get information. He often had little evidence when he accused people of working for the Soviet Union. He ruined many people's careers and lives before other leaders in the Congress put an end to his ways.

The FBI, led by strident anti-communist J. Edgar Hoover, also got involved. They used wiretaps and spied on suspected communists giving the information to McCarthy and other anti-communist leaders. Also involved in the Red Scare was the House Committee on Un-American Activities. This was a standing committee in the House of Representatives. One area they investigated was Hollywood. They accused some Hollywood executives, screenwriters, and directors of being pro-communist. They wanted the Soviet Union to be portrayed as the enemy in movies and entertainment. Rumor had it that a Blacklist was made of anyone suspected of being associated with the American Communist Party. These people were not hired for work during the Red Scare.

Federal Employee Loyalty Program March 1947 The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government. Smith Act 1940 U.S. federal law passed in 1940 that made it a criminal offense to advocate the violent overthrow of the government or to organize or be a member of any group or society devoted to such advocacy.

Congress Hunts Communists House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist ties. Best known HUAC hearings targeted the movie industry in 1947. Blacklist: of entertainment figures who could not be hired because they were suspected to be tied to communists.

Freedom of Speech Takes a Hit Effort to root out communist influence from American life cut across many levels in society.

Government Investigates Oppenheimer Distinguish loyalty from disloyalty. WWII he led the Manhattan Project developing atomic bomb Chairmen of Committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission. Had ties to people who belonged to the Communist Party.

Spy Cases Worry Americans Alger Hiss educated at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were from the poor lower east side of Manhattan. Their crimes and trials have linked them in publics imagination.

Whittaker Chambers Accuses Alger Hiss In hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Whittaker Chambers accuses former State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. The accusation set into motion a series of events that eventually resulted in the trial and conviction of Hiss for perjury.

Chambers was a little known figure prior to his 1948 appearance before HUAC. He was a self-professed former member of the Communist Party. He left the Communist Party in 1938 and offered his services to the FBI as an informant on communist activities in the United States. By 1948, he was serving as an editor for Time magazine. At that time, HUAC was involved in a series of hearings investigating communist machinations in the United States. Chambers was called as a witness, and he appeared before the committee on August 3, 1948. He dropped a bombshell during his testimony. Chambers accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of having been a communist and a spy during the 1930s. Hiss was one of the most respected men in Washington. He had been heavily involved in America s wartime diplomacy and attended the Yalta and Potsdam conferences as an American representative. In 1948, he was serving as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Hiss angrily denied the charges and declared that he did not even know Whittaker Chambers. He later admitted that he knew Chambers, but at the time he had been using a different name George Crosley. In the weeks that followed Chambers appearance before HUAC, the two men exchanged charges and countercharges and their respective stories became more and more muddled. Finally, after Chambers publicly declared that Hiss had been a communist and may be one now, Hiss filed a slander suit. During the course of that trial, Chambers produced microfilmed copies of classified State Department documents from the 1930s, which he had hidden in hollowed-out pumpkins on his farm. The Pumpkin Papers were used as evidence to support his claim that Hiss had passed the papers to him for delivery to the Soviets. Based on this evidence, Hiss was indicted for perjury for lying to HUAC and a federal grand jury about his membership in the Communist Party. The statute of limitations had run out for other charges related to his supposed activities in the 1930s. After the first trial ended with a hung jury, Hiss was convicted in January 1950 and served 44 months in jail. Hiss always maintained his complete innocence. For his part, Chambers remained equally adamant in his accusations about Hiss.

The Rosenbergs are Executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951, are put to death in the electric chair. The execution marked the dramatic finale of the most controversial espionage case of the Cold War.

Julius was arrested in July 1950, and Ethel in August of that same year, on the charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. Specifically, they were accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs vigorously protested their innocence, but after a brief trial in March 1951 they were convicted. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death. The pair was taken to Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, to await execution. During the next two years, the couple became the subject of both national and international debate. Many people believed that the Rosenbergs were the victims of a surge of hysterical anticommunist feeling in the United States, and protested that the death sentence handed down was cruel and unusual punishment.

Most Americans, however, believed that the Rosenbergs had been dealt with justly. President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke for many Americans when he issued a statement declining to invoke executive clemency for the pair. He stated, I can only say that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world. The execution of two human beings is a grave matter. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done. Julius Rosenberg was the first to be executed, at about 8 p.m. on June 19, 1953. Just a few minutes after his body was removed from the chamber containing the electric chair, Ethel Rosenberg was led in and strapped to the chair. She was pronounced dead at 8:16 p.m. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths. Two sons, Michael and Robert, survived them.

McCarthy Makes Accusations Wisconsin senator charged that the state Department was infested with communist agents. Used this tactic to get reelected a second term.

McCarthys Power Increases McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term refers to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1947 to 1956 and characterized by heightened political repression as well as a campaign spreading fear of influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents.

McCarthy Falls from Power Went after army saying they were communist Americans saw him badger witnesses twist the truth and snicker at the suffering of others. The senate formally censored or condemned him for his reckless accusations. Lost support