The Cold War at Home

Fear of Communist Influence:

• The Loyalty Review Board (1947) was set up to investigate government employees and to dismiss them if they were found to be disloyal to the U.S. government

• From 1947-1951 government loyalty boards investigated 3.2 million federal employees and dismissed 212 as security risks (2,900 resigned on the principle that it violated their constitutional rights

The Loyalty Review Board hearings

Fear of Communist Influence:

• Other agencies investigated possible Communist influence, such as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

• The committee believed that communists were sneaking in propaganda in films

• HUAC subpoenaed many Hollywood actors and directors in the film industry

The 1947 HUAC hearings in session. On the right, standing with his hand raised, is committee chairman J. Parnell Thomas; 34-year-old congressman Richard Nixon is seated immediately to Thomas's left.

Fear of Communist Influence:

• The Hollywood Ten were witnesses called by the committee to testify against their fellow actors, but they refused to cooperate (thought the hearings were unconstitutional)

• In response to the hearings Hollywood executives instituted a blacklist (affected an estimated 500 actors, writers, producers, and directors)

Members of the Hollywood Ten and their families in 1950, protesting the impending incarceration of the ten

Fear of Communist Influence:• Many in the Congress, especially

Republicans, felt that Truman’s Loyalty Boards did not go far enough

• Congress passed the McCarran Internal Security Act which made it unlawful to plan any action that might lead to the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship in the U.S.

• President Truman vetoed the bill, but Congress enacted the law over Truman’s veto The consequences of the ISA are such that the

general public was made aware that their civil liberties were at risk.

Spy Cases Stun the Nation:

• Two spy cases added fear that the United States was being infiltrated by the Communists

• Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, was accused of passing secrets to the Soviets on microfilm

• Too many years had passed to charge Hiss with espionage, but he was convicted of perjury and sent to jail

Alger Hiss in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary

Spy Cases Stun the Nation:

• The Rosenbergs, another spy case, charged Ethel and Julius Rosenberg with handing over Atomic secrets to the Soviets

• The evidence came from a German-born physicist named Klaus Fuchs who implicated the Rosenbergs

• Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were minor activists in the American Communist Party and denied they took part in treasonous activities

• The Rosenbergs were found guilty and sentenced to death

• They became the first U.S. civilians executed for espionage

McCarthy Launches His “Witch Hunt”

• The most famous anti-Communist activist was Senator Joseph McCarthy (R) Wisconsin

• McCarthy charged that Communists were taking over the government

• he would often accuse people of disloyalty without evidence

• these attacks on suspected Communists in the early 1950s became known as McCarthyism

Herbert Block (aka Herblock) coined the term McCarthyism in this Washington Post cartoon of March 29, 1950.

McCarthyism

• McCarthy finally met his demise after a series of nationally televised Senate investigations which made him look like a bully to witnesses-public support waivered U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, right,

speaks to his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, during a hearing of the Senate Investigations Subcommittee in Washington