USA and the Red Menace

COMMUNISM

That scary enemy…

Prof Ernesto Correa. Colegio Seminario

3 SIMPLE WAYS TO HANDLE COMMUNISM

1. Do nothing.

2. Direct attack.

3. CONTAINMENT.

CONTAINMENT. What is it?

It is a policy that is based in preventing communism from spreading.

It does NOT mean that capitalism attempts to spread itself.

It means finding strategies to strenghten capitalist positions in strategic countries.

Strategies used…• Intervention in conflicts. • KOREA • VIETNAM

• CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

• BERLIN BLOCKADE

• GREECE

• Alliances. • NATO • SEATO • CENTO

• Arms race.

• DETERRENCE

• MAD

Mutually Assured Destruction BRINKMANSHIP

Now in 1949 all of China fell to the Communists. We saw red almost everywhere. And the Russians got the bomb. We leaped from what we knew to what we dreaded to think. Somehow, somewhere, possibly right here at home, we were being betrayed. Who gave the Russians the secret of the A-bomb? Who lost China to the Communists? Suspicions fell on fertile ground.

Extract from the commentary of a 1984American TV documentary called A WalkThrough The Twentieth Century with Bill

Myers. Myers was (and still is) adistinguished political journalist

WORKING WITH SOURCES

Briefly describe what you see.

DENOTATION

CONNOTATION

Which is the intention of the author?

Internal political developments• The Federal Bureau of Investigations. FBI

• The House Un-American Activities Committee.

• The Hiss case.

• The Rosenbergs.

• The McCarran Act.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations. FBI

J. Edgar Hoover receives the National Security Medal from President Eisenhower.

Some facts about him…

• Strongly anti communist

• Federal Employee Loyalty Program.

• loyalty boards to investigate government employees.

• around 3 million were investigated.

• Nobody was charged with spying.

• ‘security risks’

The House Un-American Activities Committee.

• The Hollywood Ten being accused of anti american/ pro communist.• From the 1930s, the US Congress had a House Un-American ActivitiesCommittee.• It was not illegal to be a Communist in a free democratic country such

as the USA.• First Amendment of the US Constitution

The Hiss case.

• Hiss was a high-ranking member of the US State Department

• Accused by Whittaker Chambers in front of the HUAC

• Hiss accused Chambers of lyingand Truman dismissed the case.

• Hiss was never tried for spying, although he was convicted for perjury.

• It´s not clear whether he was a spy or not.

In front of the HUAC…

The Rosenbergs.

• Klaus Fuchs German-born British physicist convicted of spying.

• The investigation also led to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

• They were convicted in 1951 and executed in 1953.

• At the time, evidence was not strong.

The McCarran Act.

• This was also called the Internal Security Act of 1950.

• President Truman opposed it because the Act was opposed to the Bill of Rights.

• The main measures were:• All Communist organisations had to be registered• No Communist could carry a US passport or work in the

defence industries.• It allowed for the setting up of detention camps in

emergency situations.

Hysteria! Name Names

Suspects were asked to “name names”. If don´t they became suspects.

Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy saw this as an opportunity to gain power and popularity.

Joseph McCarthy McCarthyism

Ike appointed him as head of a White House Commitee to investigate communist.

The ‘witch hunts’• General George Marshall was at the centre of a gigantic

conspiracy against the USA.

• Thousands of people found their lives and careers ruined.

• 100 university lecturers were fired.

• The HUAC ‘blacklisted’ 324 Hollywood personalities.

• Walt Disney, Jack Warner and Louis Mayer supported HUAC.

His methods…

“The technique apparently used by Senator McCarthy against me is apparently typical. He first announced at a press conference that he had discovered the top Russian agent in the United States. At first he withheld my name, but later, after the drama of his announcement was intensified by delay, he then whispered my name to a group of newspaper reporters with full knowledge that my name would be bandied about by rumour and gossip and eventually published. I say to you that this was unworthy of a Senator or an American.”

Professor Owen Lattimore at the HUAC hearings in 1952.

The legacy of McCarthyism• McCarthyism has become an example of how

fundamental American values were violated.

• Looking for an issue that would get him re-elected, he seized on the fears of millions, and launched the squalid campaign that became known as McCarthyism. Its tactic: reckless and undocumented accusation against government employees. Intimidation bred audacity and audacity fed upon itself. McCarthy soon had the celebrity he sought. The stage was his alone to command. An extract from the commentary of a 1984 American TV documentary called A

Walk Through The Twentieth Century with Bill Myers