Nuclear Paranoia in America

1. Nuclear Paranoia in America 1953 – 1961

2. Background: FDR & TRUMAN, 1945 - 1952 America Everyone Else All-encompassing obsession security, the Communist threat, and nuclear weapons. From 1945 until 1949, America was the only nation that had nuclear weapons.

3. X-Article/”Long Telegram” • Report published by diplomat George Kennan in 1946. Basis of containment. 3 points: • US and USSR are at war econ., soc. and poli. • USSR is a crazy, threatening, bear-like nation that must be taken seriously and only understands force, not logic. • America must fight back by educating the public, stopping the spread of Communism, and making Americans “wealthy, happy and free” AT ALL COSTS

4. “The first time I was called a Communist, I was four years old…I’ll never forget the look in our neighbors’ eyes when I walked by. I thought it was hate. I was too young to realize it was fear.” Tony Kahn, whose family was blacklisted. Communist Paranoia

5. Government response • National Security Act of 1947 created: several federal-level government organizations: • CIA (international covert intelligence gathering) • National Security Council (federal-level agency that provides policy advice to the president on issues regarding national security)

6. America’s Response • Department of Defense Formed • American Civil Defense program grows • Organized non-military (propaganda) effort to prepare Americans for military attack. • Goal is invoke 2 feelings in Americans: • Terror of Soviets, nukes, and communism • Complete, unquestioning trust in the American way of life and the ability of the government and our economy to protect it

7. Propaganda

8. NSC-68: 1950, Truman National Security Council document that said military had to defend itself and allies while developing “war-making capabilities” to fight against the Soviets. Caused defense budget to jump from 5% of GDP to 20%. Beginning of intense nuclear weapons development in America (including first H bomb in 1952 near the Marshall Islands) and nuclear arms race with the Soviets. We mistakenly believed in the missile gap (perception that the Soviets had more nuclear power than we did).

9. Defense Budget

10. Actual Missile gap

11. The 2nd Red Scare • Eisenhower elected in 1952; continues Truman’s Loyalty Review Board (these boards worked with HUAC). • Leads to the era of McCarthyism/The Second Red Scare: • 1940s and 1950s • Government unconstitutionally investigates and punishes suspected communists • Worked with Attorney General; created a “List of Subversive Organizations” • Many trials led by Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator, in tandem with J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI!

12. “McCarthyism” Witch-hunt for suspected communists and anti-communist hysteria during 1940s and 1950s. Investigated 3 million people; thousands resign; 212 dismissed; no actual evidence of espionage/treason. Targeted at Democrats associated with FDR’s New Deal policies. Even the man credited with convincing Americans that Ho Chi Minh was a communist was investigated. Suspects: suspected Communists AND fascists, alcoholics, librarians, military officials and sexual deviants. McCarthy himself would have been on the list had he not been running the trials. Once he accused Eisenhower’s Secretary of the Army of communism, the Army passed information to journalists about McCarthy’s crazies. Discredited by 1954, dead by 1957.

13. In 1954 the U.S. tested the largest H-Bomb yet in the South Pacific The blast rained deadly ash on 7,000 square miles of ocean water and islands. Ash fell on 23 Japanese fishermen nearly 80 miles from the blast; they all suffered from radiation burns and one died.

14. Massive Retaliation (MR) – 1954, Eisenhower: Why? Proposed by Sec. of State John Foster Dulles in response to perceived imbalance of power in conventional forces (troops). America could reduce conventional forces by relying nukes for deterrence and still defend ourselves and our allies. How? If an aggressor attacks, you massively retaliate by using force disproportionate to the size of the attack to deter your adversary from attacking you in the first place.

15. 2 Requirements: • policy is public; 2. aggressors believe you could and would do it • Significance: even a minor conventional attack on a nuclear nation could result in all-out nuclear retaliation • Also called “brinkmanship” (would be at brink of war any time the Soviets act) • 2 flaws: • limits our responses to nukes or nothing; 2. USSR would never allow US to win in the arms race and developed even more nukes

16. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Theory: • Nuclear weapons made another war unthinkable (any retaliation would escalate to nuclear war); a “hot war” could never occur, so we had “proxy wars” • battle that results when two powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly, with the goal that the substitutes can knock out one of the powers without leading to full-scale war • Based on premise that countries don’t develop nukes to use them, but to threaten with them.

17. NASA and the Space Race: • NASA developed by Eisenhower in response to 1957 USSR testing of first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and launch of Sputnik (first space craft). • Billions of dollars spent on educating American scientists and engineers. 1st goal: Send an American to the moon!

18. “At the present moment, with little or no detail to hand, it is difficult for me to make any comment, beyond the expression of horror at the shameless haste with which the government appears to be pressing for our liquidation.” • Actual Spies: • Alger Hiss: Former communist spy who was sent to jail for spying; heightened fear of Communist spies in America. • Ethel and Julis Rosenberg: Minor Communist Party activists accused of selling secrets about nukes. Plead the Fifth in court, but were Jewish radicals and were found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death.

19. Francis Gary Powers/U2 Spy Incident – • Fear of Sputnik/H-Bomb made Eisenhower paranoid, so CIA conducted secret spying missions over Soviet Union. • F.G.P. was a CIA spy shot down in his U2 over Soviet territory; forced to parachute into Soviet territory where he was questioned by the KGB and sentenced to 10 years in USSR. • Released after 2 years in exchange for another Soviet spy.

20. Some covert CIA Actions 1953, Iran: We overthrew democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh(because he nationalized Iran’s oil reserves) and installed authoritarian Shah Pahlavi. 1954, Guatemala: We overthrow President Arbenzbecause his land appropriation policies (he gave more land to peasants) took land away from the United Fruit Company. We installed a military juntainstead. 1960, Congo: We overthrow and execute democratically-elected President Patrice Lumumba because he sought aid from the Soviets when the United Nations refused. Replaced with an authoritarian military dictator.

21. At the end of his presidency Eisenhower warned the American public to be wary of the military-industrial complex which he felt could threaten freedom in the United States.