Cold War / McCarthyism DBQ

1. Historical Context: The Post WWII era rapidly became immersed in American fears of growing Communist expansion in Europe, Asia, and around the world. Cold War / McCarthyism DBQ Essay Challenge: For the period 1945-1960, analyze the effects of the Cold War and the McCarthyism Red Scare on American politics, society, and culture.

2. Mr. Warner. That picture was made when our country was fighting for its existence, with Russia as one of our allies. It was made to fulfill the same wartime purpose for which we made such other pictures as Air Force, This Is the Army, Objective Burma, Destination Tokyo, Action in the North Atlantic, and a great many more. If making Mission to Moscow in 1942 was a subversive activity, then the American Liberty ships which carried food and guns to Russian allies and the American naval vessels which convoyed them were likewise engaged in subversive activities. The picture was made only to help a desperate war effort and not for posterity. . . . Mr. STRIPLING. Well, is it your opinion now, Mr. Warner, that Mission to Moscow was a factually correct picture, and you made it as such? Mr. WARNER. I can’t remember. Mr. STRIPLING. Would you consider it a propaganda picture? Mr. WARNER. A propaganda picture— Mr. STRIPLING. Yes. Mr. WARNER. In what sense? Mr. STRIPLING. In the sense that it portrayed Russia and communism in an entirely different light from what it actually was? Mr. WARNER. I am on record about 40 times or more that I have never been in Russia. I don’t know what Russia was like in 1937 or 1944 or 1947, so how can I tell you if it was right or wrong? Testimony of Jack Warner (Warner Bros.) before House Committee On Un-American Activities (HUAC) 1947 Outside Information: …following the testimonies to HUAC 10 Hollywood screen- writers and directors were blacklisted and imprisoned for failing to fully cooperate with HUAC…but not Jack Warner

3. 1947 HUAC TESTIMONY OF RONALD REAGAN Mr. STRIPLING: As a member of the board of directors, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and as an active member, have you at any time observed or noted within the organization a clique of either Communists or Fascists who were attempting to exert influence or pressure on the guild? Mr. REAGAN: Well, sir, my testimony must be very similar to that of Mr. (George) Murphy and Mr. (Robert) Montgomery. There has been a small group within the Screen Actors Guild which has consistently opposed the policy of the guild board and officers of the guild, as evidenced by the vote on various issues. That small clique referred to has been suspected of more or less following the tactics that we associate with the Communist Party. Mr. STRIPLING: Would you refer to them as a disruptive influence within the guild? Mr. REAGAN: I would say that at times they have attempted to be a disruptive influence. Mr. STRIPLING: You have no knowledge yourself as to whether or not any of them are members of the Communist Party? Mr. REAGAN: No, sir; I have no investigative force, or anything, and I do not know. Mr. STRIPLING: Has it ever been reported to you that certain members of the guild were Communists? Mr. REAGAN: Yes, sir; I have heard different discussions and some of them tagged as Communists. . . . Source: Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Hearings Regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry, 80th Congress, 1st Session, October 23–24, 1947 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947). Outside Information…Walt Disney studios were summoned to testify before HUAC…Labor Union activities were being scrutinized for Loyalty and/or connections to organized crime…Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney were adamant their own activities and intentions were honorable, but were distrustful of others… Reagan would soon leave the Democratic Party and enroll in the Republican Party Document Inferences…

4. Document Inferences… Outside Information… October 31, 1947

5. Document Inferences… Outside Information… June 17, 1949

6. Wheeling West Virginia Speech February 9, 1950 US Senator Joseph McCarthy (R) Wisconsin “I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. . . . “ “As you know, very recently the Secretary of State proclaimed his loyalty to a man guilty of what has always been considered as the most abominable of all crimes—being a traitor to the people who gave him a position of great trust—high treason. . . .” “He has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted, warped thinkers are swept from the national scene so that we may have a new birth of honesty and decency in government. “ Document Inferences… Outside Information…

7. US Senator Joseph McCarthy to President Harry Truman, February 11, 1950 “In the Lincoln Day speech at Wheeling Thursday night I stated that the State Department harbors a nest of Communists and Communist sympathizers who are helping to shape our foreign policy. I further stated that I have in my possession the names of 57 Communists who are in the State Department at present. A State Department spokesman promptly denied this, claiming that there is not a single Communist in the Department.”… “Despite this State Department black-out, we have been able to compile a list of 57 Communists in the State Department. This list is available to you but you can get a much longer list by ordering Secretary Acheson to give you a list of those whom your own board listed as being disloyal and who are still working in the State Department. I believe the following is the minimum which can be expected of you in this case.”… “Failure on your part will label the Democratic Party of being the bedfellow of international communism. Certainly this label is not deserved by the hundreds of thousands of loyal American Democrats throughout the Nation, and by the sizable number of able loyal Democrats in both the Senate and the House.” Source: U.S. Senate, State Department Loyalty Investigation Committee on Foreign Relations, 81st Congress; Joseph McCarthy to President Harry Truman February 11, 1950, Congressional Record, 81st Congress Document Inferences… Outside Information…

8. Document Inferences… Outside Information… March 29, 1950

9. “Arthur Miller has written another powerful play, The Crucible, it is called, and it opened at the Martin Beck last evening in an equally powerful performance. Riffling back the pages of American history, he has written the drama of the witch trials and hangings in Salem in 1692. Neither Mr. Miller nor his audiences are unaware of certain similarities between the perversions of justice then and today. But Mr. Miller is not pleading a cause in dramatic form. For The Crucible, despite its current implications, is a self-contained play about a terrible period in...” Brooks Atkinson’s Review of The Crucible NY Times January 23, 1953 Document Inferences… Outside Information…

10. Mr. WELCH. Mr. Cohn, what is the exact number of Communists or subversives that are loose today in these defense plants? Mr. WELCH. Where are they, sir? Mr. COHN. Schenectady, N.Y.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Rome, N.Y.; Quincy, Mass.; Fitchburg, Mass.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Dunkirk, N.Y.; another at Buffalo, N.Y.; Cambridge, Mass.; New Bedford, Mass.; Boston, Mass.; Quincy, Mass.; Lynn, Mass.; Pittsfield Mass.; Boston, Mass. Mr. WELCH. Mr. Cohn, you not only frighten me, you make me ashamed when there are so many in Massachusetts. [Laughter.] This is not a laughing matter, believe me. Are you alarmed at that situation, Mr. Cohn? Senator MCCARTHY. Yes. Mr. WELCH. Senator McCarthy, I think until this moment— Senator MCCARTHY. Jim, will you get the news story to the effect that this man belonged to this Communist-front organization? Will you get the citations showing that this was the legal arm of the Communist Party, and the length of time that he belonged, and the fact that he was recommended by Mr. Welch? I think that should be in the record. Mr. WELCH. You won’t need anything in the record when I have finished telling you this. Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. Source: "The Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1954," in Robert D. Marcus and Anthony Marcus, eds., On Trail: American History Through Court Proceedings and Hearings, vol. II, (St. James, New York: Brandywine Press, 1998), 136–51. Outside Information: The nationally televised Army-McCarthy Hearings began to turn public opinion against Joseph McCarthy and his Communist “witchhunt” Document Inferences:

11. Document Inferences… Outside Information…Senator McCarthy was discovered to have presented fraudulent evidence at the Army-McCarthy Hearings… and was subsequently censured by his \ US Senate colleagues CBS News Anchor Edward R. Murrow led the Mainstream media criticism of McCarthy’s bullying tactics May 7, 1954

12. Document Inferences… Outside Information: …a branch of the American Legion denounced the Girl Scouts of America …calling their published “One-World” ideas …”Un-American” other “super-patriotic” groups concerned about Communists lurking in mainstream American society included the John Birch Society August 11, 1954

13. Testimony of Musician Pete Seeger. Before House Committee on Un-American Activities August 18, 1955 Chairman WALTER: What is your answer? Mr. SEEGER: I will tell you what my answer is. I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis, or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir. Chairman WALTER: Why don’t you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions? Mr. SEEGER: I feel that my whole life is a contribution. That is why I would like to tell you about it. Chairman WALTER: I don’t want to hear about it. Source: Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Communist Activities, New York Area (Entertainment): Hearings, 84th Congress, August 18, 1955 Outside Information: Pete Seeger was sentenced to one year in prison for non-cooperation with HUAC (never served as he won on appeal)and was blacklisted from network television performances until the late 1960s…His performance of a popular song “If I Had A Hammer” …was part of the concern in this HUAC inquiry … Lyrics…”I’d hammer out love to my brothers and my sisters all over this land…” Document Inferences:

14. Document Inferences Outside Information

15. Outside Information Ideas… Political: FDR, Truman, Marshall, Ike, Nixon, Churchill, Stalin, Kruschev, UN, NATO, Warsaw, “Containment”, Berlin Airlift, Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine, Fall of China, Korean War, Alger Hiss, Rosenberg Trial, Eisenhower Doctrine, MAD, “massive retaliation”, “domino theory”, National Highway Act, “We Will Bury You” speech, National Defense Education Act, U-2 incident, Watkins vs US Supreme Court Decision, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Fidel Castro and the Fall of Cuba, space race, defense spending Social: social critics, beatniks, segregation, cult of domesticity, growth of suburbs, baby boom, resistance to public school integration, Church Attendance, immigration restrictions, impact of Warren Court decisions, theories of Communist ideologies and civic organization responses to propaganda, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights campaigns Cultural: Mass Media…Movies, Television, Radio, Magazines and conformity, Ebony magazine, Sports Illustrated, bomb shelters, duck and cover drills, fall-out shelters, Rock and Roll, integrated Baseball, Football,+ Basketball, Billy Graham evangelical crusades, “In God We Trust”, Norman Rockwell and the Saturday Evening Post, “keeping up with the Joneses”

16. Thesis w/ tension… Although many Americans were compelled to acquiesce to large scale social conformity through the influence of the mainstream media and expectations of continued prosperity in a dominating US economy, the period 1945-1960 was most profoundly impacted by the 2nd Red Scare, as fears of a growing Communist menace signaled an era of unprecedented fear mongering in the interest of political gain and at the expense of basic individual rights and freedoms. • McCarthyism = inciting fear for political /personal gain…”witch hunting” • misrepresenting information / ideas to attack others • Ultra-conformity of 1950s = due to political / social fears …religious, racial, gender • conformity expected • Media used by McCarthy / politicians… until critics utilize rights and talents • to challenge the weighty expectations for conformity