Containment
&
Anti-Communist
Hysteria
Communist Expansion Overseas &
(Later) Into Space Brings fear of
Communist “menace” to America
Countries that have been
communist at one point in time
The Ideological Struggle
Soviet &
Eastern Bloc
Nations
[“Iron Curtain”]
GOAL  spread worldwide Communism
US & the
Western
Democracies
GOAL  “Containment”
of Communism & the
eventual collapse of the
Communist world.
[George Kennan]
METHODOLOGIES:
 Espionage [KGB vs. CIA]
 Arms Race [nuclear escalation]
 Competition for the minds and hearts of Third
World peoples
“proxy wars”
 Bi-Polarization of Europe [NATO vs. Warsaw Pact]
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1949)
 United States
 Luxemburg
 Belgium
 Netherlands
 Britain
 Norway
 Canada
 Portugal
 Denmark
 1952: Greece &
Turkey
 France
 Iceland
 Italy
 1955: West Germany
 1982: Spain
Warsaw Pact (1955)
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U. S. S. R.
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East Germany
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Albania
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Hungary
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Bulgaria
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Poland
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Czechoslovakia
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Rumania
The Arms Race:
A “Missile Gap?”
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The Soviet Union
exploded its first
A-bomb in 1949.
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Now there were
two nuclear
superpowers!
NSC-68
• April 1950 report by the National
Security Council:
“The U.S. should use military force to
‘contain’ communist expansion
anywhere it seemed to be occurring,
regardless of the intrinsic strategic or
economic value of the lands in question.”
Politicians seeks to “root out subversives” – Ex.: House
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Hearings - 1947
The Hollwood Ten
Screenwriters and directors
denied employment in the
entertainment industry
because of their political
beliefs, real or suspected.
Domestic Anti-Communist Hysteria during the Early Cold War Era
Government Promotes “Civil
Defense” Ex:“Duck & Cover”
Drills in schools
“Loyalty
Oaths”
Required for
all
Federal
Workers
Executive
Order 9835
Pres. Truman
March 1947
McCarran Internal Security Act - 1950
Required members of the Communist Party and other “subversive”
groups to register with the federal government. They had to provide
personal information about their members to the federal government.
Congress eventually repealed most aspects of the law in 1968 as a result
of a number of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that declared
certain aspects of the law unconstitutional.
Julius & Ethel Rosenberg
On Trial - 1951
Executed - 1953
EXCERPTS FROM OFFICIAL SENATE
CENSURE OF JOSEPH MCCARTHY
FOLLOWING THE 1954 HEARINGS MCCARHY
ORGAINZED TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGED
COMMUNIST INFLUENCES
IN THE US ARMY
Resolved, That the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, obstructed the constitutional
processes of the Senate, and that this conduct of the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy,
is contrary to senatorial traditions and is hereby condemned.
Sec 2. The Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy … acted contrary to senatorial ethics and
tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional
processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity; and such conduct is hereby condemned.
“McCarthyism”
Unfairly accusing
people of disloyalty
made possible by
a climate of fear
WW2 Review
#1: At the Yalta Conference, what did
Churchill, FDR, and Stalin agree to do with
Germany, Poland and the countries of
Eastern Europe after World War II?
a) To divide Germany into 4 parts, occupied by each
of the victorious countries
b) To hold “free and fair elections” in Poland and
Eastern Europe