The Red Scare in two minutes
- In 1947 Truman ordered loyalty reviews of federal workers; ten Hollywood figures who refused to answer the House Un-American Activities Committee went to prison, and studios blacklisted suspected Communists.
- Whittaker Chambers accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of being a Communist in 1948, and a jury convicted Hiss of perjury in 1950; Venona cables later confirmed Soviet espionage.
- The Soviet bomb and China's Communist victory in 1949 made many Americans fear spies at home, and in February 1950 Senator McCarthy claimed Communists held State Department jobs.
- Congress passed the McCarran Internal Security Act, which required Communist groups to register, over Truman's veto in 1950; McCarthyism came to mean accusing people without evidence.
- The government executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage, and Eisenhower's 1953 order cost thousands of gay federal workers their jobs, a purge called the Lavender Scare.
- In 1954 Edward R. Murrow's broadcast and the televised Army–McCarthy hearings turned opinion against McCarthy, and the Senate condemned him 67 to 22 in December for how he treated Senate committees.
- On the exam: Questions on anticommunism ask you to link it to containment abroad, compare it with the Red Scare of 1919 and 1920, and weigh national security against civil liberties.
Topic 8.3 key terms
- Soviet espionage
Spying for the USSR. Soviet intelligence really did run networks of American sources in the 1930s and 1940s, and later evidence, like the Venona decrypts, confirmed many of the cases.
- Communist Party USA
The legal American Communist Party, founded in 1919. Most members never spied, but Soviet intelligence recruited some of them.
- Sourcing
Judging a source by who made it, when, why and for whom (the HIPP questions). A claim nobody can check is weaker evidence than a document you can hold.
- Anticommunism
Opposition to communism, at home and abroad. After 1945 it shaped foreign policy (containment) and domestic politics (loyalty checks, investigations, blacklists).
- Second Red Scare
A wave of fear that Communists had infiltrated American government and culture, peaking in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The first Red Scare followed World War I.
- Executive Order 9835 (1947)
Truman's loyalty program for federal workers. Agencies investigated employees and applicants, and a Loyalty Review Board heard appeals. The test was 'reasonable grounds' to doubt a worker's loyalty, and informants could stay secret.
- Attorney General's list
A list of groups the Justice Department called subversive, first issued in December 1947. Belonging to one, or 'sympathetic association' with it, could count against a federal worker.
- HUAC
The House Un-American Activities Committee. Created in 1938 and made a standing committee in 1945, it investigated suspected Communists in government, unions and Hollywood.
- Hollywood Ten
Ten men from the film industry who refused to answer HUAC's questions in 1947, citing the First Amendment. Convicted of contempt of Congress, they served six months to a year in prison.
- Blacklist
An unofficial list of people the studios, and later radio and TV, would not hire over suspected Communist ties. The studios started it by firing the Hollywood Ten and pledging not to hire Communists.
- Whittaker Chambers
A former Communist and courier for a Soviet spy ring who became a senior editor at Time. In 1948 he told HUAC that Alger Hiss had been part of a Communist group in Washington, and he became the key witness against Hiss.
- Alger Hiss
A State Department official who advised at the Yalta conference in 1945. Accused by Whittaker Chambers in 1948, he denied ever being a Communist and was convicted of perjury in 1950. His case convinced many Americans that Communists had reached high places in the government.
- Perjury
Lying under oath. The time limit for charging Hiss with spying had run out, so prosecutors charged him with swearing falsely that he had not passed documents to Chambers.
- Venona
The U.S. Army's secret project, begun in 1943, to decode Soviet intelligence cables. The decrypts stayed secret until 1995. They showed that hundreds of people in the United States had helped Soviet intelligence.
- Declaration of Conscience (1950)
Senator Margaret Chase Smith's speech, signed by six other Republican senators, condemning McCarthy's smear tactics without naming him.
- McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)
Required Communist organizations to register, barred their members from passports and government jobs, and allowed detention of suspected spies and saboteurs in an emergency.
- Smith Act (1940)
Made it a crime to advocate overthrowing the U.S. government by force; used to prosecute Communist Party leaders.
- McCarthyism
Making public accusations of disloyalty without evidence. The cartoonist Herblock coined the word in March 1950.
- Executive Order 10450 (1953)
Eisenhower's security order for federal workers. It replaced Truman's loyalty program with a broader test of whether keeping a worker was consistent with national security, and it named “sexual perversion” among the grounds for firing.
- Lavender Scare
The purge of gay men and lesbians from federal jobs, beginning in the late 1940s and lasting for decades, on the claim that they were security risks. Historians estimate thousands lost their jobs.
- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
A New York couple convicted in 1951 of conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The charge was conspiracy to commit espionage, not treason. They were executed on June 19, 1953.
- Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
A standing Senate panel that looks into waste, fraud and wrongdoing in the government. McCarthy chaired it in 1953–54 and ran his hearings on Communists in government through it.
- See It Now (1954)
Edward R. Murrow’s CBS news program. Its March 9, 1954 report on McCarthy ran his own speeches and film clips and helped turn public opinion against him.
- Army–McCarthy hearings (1954)
Senate hearings, April 22 to June 17, 1954, on the Army’s charges against McCarthy and Cohn and McCarthy’s charges against the Army. An estimated 20 million watched on television, and the hearings hurt his standing.
- Censure
A formal vote of disapproval of a member of Congress. The Senate’s 1954 resolution used the word “condemned,” and McCarthy kept his seat until he died.
- Kent v. Dulles (1958)
The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that, without a clear law from Congress, the State Department could not deny passports over a person's beliefs or associations. Robeson got his passport back after it.
- Executive Order 12968 (1995)
President Clinton's order on access to classified information. It barred discrimination in security clearances on the basis of race, religion, sex, disability and, for the first time, sexual orientation.
- Containment
The Cold War policy of stopping Communism from spreading, rather than trying to roll it back. Most Republicans and Democrats backed it. They argued over how far to pursue Communists at home.
- Civil liberties
Individual freedoms that protect people from government power: speech, belief, association, due process. The Red Scare made Americans ask how far government could go to fight Communism and still protect them.
Transcript
Quotes are from the historical record and name their source. Lines marked Dramatized are reconstructions.
The Pumpkin and the Paper
1948 / 1950
Key terms: Soviet espionage, Communist Party USA, Sourcing, Anticommunism
December 1948. Two investigators from Congress drive out to a farm in Maryland. The owner walks them to his pumpkin patch.
Film of confidential State Department papers, hidden by a man who once carried secrets for Soviet intelligence. Soviet spies were real.
Fourteen months later, a first-term senator, Joseph McCarthy, gave a dinner speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.
He held up a sheet of paper. Communists, he said, in the State Department.
A reporter wrote down 205.
In Denver the next day, he told reporters the list was in his other bag.
That night, it was 57.
The radio station erased its tape. He never made the list public.
Film you could hold up to the light. A list nobody saw. How far should a free country go to catch the enemies inside it?
Loyalty
1947
Key terms: Second Red Scare, Executive Order 9835 (1947), Attorney General's list, HUAC, Hollywood Ten, Blacklist
Truman asked Congress to help contain Communism abroad. Nine days later, he ordered loyalty checks on every federal worker.
Dorothy Bailey, a government training officer, lost her job in 1949. She was never told who had accused her.
The loyalty program checked more than 4.7 million people by 1953. About 560 were removed or refused a job. Its own chairman said in 1950 it had found no case of espionage.
In October 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee called Hollywood to Washington.
Robert E. Stripling
Mr. Lardner, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
The chairman kept pressing. Ring Lardner Jr., a screenwriter, answered.
Ring Lardner Jr.
I could answer it, but if I did I would hate myself in the morning.
Ten men from the movie business refused to answer. Prison followed, for contempt of Congress. All had been Communist Party members. Joining wasn't a crime.
The studios had already promised not to knowingly hire a Communist. They admitted “the danger of hurting innocent people.” That was the blacklist.
The Pumpkin Papers
1948–1950
Key terms: Whittaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Perjury, Venona
In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, an editor at Time, told the committee he'd been a Communist. He named Alger Hiss, a former State Department official.
Alger Hiss
I am not and never have been a member of the Communist Party.
Most of the committee believed him. A first-term congressman from California, Richard Nixon, didn't.
Hiss sued him for libel. Chambers answered with typed copies of State Department papers.
Then came the pumpkin film. Kodak said it was made in 1945, too late for Chambers's story. Hours later, Kodak reversed itself. That type of film was on sale in 1938.
The FBI matched the typing to the Hiss family's old typewriter. Too much time had passed to charge spying, so Hiss was tried for lying under oath.
A second jury convicted him of perjury.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss.
Army codebreakers had been reading pieces of Soviet cables. Released in 1995, they showed hundreds of people in the United States had helped Soviet intelligence.
One cable describes an agent code-named ALES. An analyst's footnote says, “Probably Alger Hiss.” Most historians agree. A few still dispute it.
The Soviets had the bomb. China was Communist. Hiss was convicted.
Then a British scientist confessed he'd given Moscow atomic secrets. Six days after that news, McCarthy went to Wheeling.
The Number
1950
Key terms: Declaration of Conscience (1950), McCarran Internal Security Act (1950), Smith Act (1940), McCarthyism
Republicans kept asking who lost China. At Wheeling, McCarthy said he knew.
Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy
The bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been the worst.
The 205 came, by his own account, from a 1946 letter: 284 employees flagged, minus 79 already gone. The letter never called any of them Communists.
A Senate committee under Millard Tydings investigated. Its Democrats called the charges “a fraud and a hoax.”
The first Republican to stand up to him was the Senate's only woman, Margaret Chase Smith.
Sen. Margaret Chase Smith
But I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.
McCarthy, two rows behind her, left without a word. Smith recalled he called her and her cosigners Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. There were six.
In September, Congress passed the McCarran Internal Security Act.
President Harry S. Truman
In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have.
Both parties overrode his veto within a day.
In 1952, the government readied six camps for an emergency. One was Tule Lake, where Japanese Americans had been held. None was ever used.
After his staff helped beat Tydings in November 1950, few senators dared cross him.
Who Paid
1950–1953
Key terms: Executive Order 10450 (1953), Lavender Scare, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Nineteen days after Wheeling, the State Department told senators it had forced out 91 employees as security risks. Most were gay men.
Officials said gay workers could be blackmailed. The only example senators heard was an Austrian officer from before World War I.
In 1953, Eisenhower made “sexual perversion” grounds for firing federal workers. Thousands of gay men and lesbians lost their jobs. Historians call it the Lavender Scare.
In 1950, the FBI arrested Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, New Yorkers with two small sons. They were convicted of conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviets.
Judge Irving R. Kaufman
I consider your crime worse than murder.
He blamed them for the Korean War’s casualties. Then he sentenced both to die.
People around the world asked for mercy. Eisenhower refused.
They were executed on June 19, 1953. Their sons were ten and six.
Venona later showed Julius had run a spy ring. The case against Ethel was thin, and her brother later admitted lying about her.
In 1952, Paul Robeson sang to thousands across the Canadian border, because he wasn’t allowed to cross it.
McCarthy’s aides toured Europe purging American libraries. A few books were burned.
Eisenhower refused to attack McCarthy by name.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Don’t join the book burners.
Point of Order
1953–1954
Key terms: Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, See It Now (1954), Army–McCarthy hearings (1954), Censure
By 1953, McCarthy chaired the Senate’s investigations subcommittee. His chief counsel, Roy Cohn, was 26.
Then the Army drafted Cohn’s friend and unpaid consultant, David Schine. The Army said Cohn bullied it for favors. McCarthy said the Army held Schine hostage to stop his investigations.
In March, Edward R. Murrow of CBS let McCarthy’s own film clips make the case against him.
Edward R. Murrow
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.
In April, the Senate opened hearings on the Army’s fight with McCarthy. Television carried them live. For 36 days, millions of Americans watched.
Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy
Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy
…a young man named Fisher… who has been for a number of years a member of an organization…
Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy
…which was named, oh, years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party.
Joseph N. Welch
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.
Joseph N. Welch
Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
His ratings fell through the spring.
In December the Senate condemned him, 67 to 22. Every Democrat voting said yes. Republicans split evenly. It condemned how he treated Senate committees, not how he hunted Communists.
Later evidence suggests a few people on his lists had helped Soviet intelligence. He never proved a single case. Reporters stopped listening. He died in 1957, at 48.
Have You Ever Been
1954–1995
Key terms: Kent v. Dulles (1958), Executive Order 12968 (1995), Containment, Civil liberties
McCarthy fell. The fear he'd ridden outlasted him.
Paul Robeson, the singer and actor, had praised the Soviet Union. In 1950, the government canceled his passport.
In 1956, a congressman asked him why he didn't stay in Russia.
Paul Robeson
Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.
In 1957, the Army Map Service fired an astronomer, Frank Kameny, for being gay. He fought back.
In 1995, the government released the Venona cables. The spies had been real.
Both parties had wanted to contain Communism. They fought over how far to go at home. In 1950, Margaret Chase Smith had put her answer in writing.
Sen. Margaret Chase Smith
The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought.