The Cold War at Home

1. The Cold War at Home Section 16.4

2. Cold War and Culture • Fighting in Korea • “lost” of China • “Space Race” • Threat of nuclear weapons • Spread of Communism into Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Cuba • Add it all up = US vs. Them

3. Another Red Scare? • FEDERAL EMPLOYEE LOYALTY PROGRAM (March 1947) • Permitted the FBI (and other agencies) to screen federal employees for political disloyalty • Attorney General made lists of “totalitarian, fascist, or subversive organizations” • 3,000 people fired or laid off from the gov’t

4. The Smith Act • Made it illegal to teach the violent overthrow of the US gov’t • 11 found guilty in NY and imprisoned • Crippled the Communist Party

5. House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC) - 1938 • Created in WWII to find Nazis, re-tasked to find communists in the Red Scare • Investigated gov’t, military, unions, schools, media, science

6. The Hollywood 10 • HUAC accuses 10 in Hollywood of being communists • They claim 5th Amendment rights – you are not able to say something that will incriminate yourself • Prison and Blacklisting

7. Watkins vs. United States (1957) • Supreme Court decided witnesses before HUAC could not be forced to name radicals they knew

8. The Case of Oppenheimer • Manhattan Project Planner • Head of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission • But…his wife and brother were members of the communist party • He was denied access to classified information • No evidence

9. Let the Spy Games Begin • Alger Hiss • Educated at Johns Hopkins University • Important gov’t official • Worked on New Deal, helped organize UN • Accused by converted agent (Whittaker Chambers) • Hiss denied he knew Chambers • Richard Nixon leads the case against him • Convicted to 5 years in prison

10. The Rosenbergs • Convicted for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets during WWII • Contact was British physicist Klaus Fuchs • Fuchs confessed that Harry Gold was the courier he passes his information to • Gold turned in David Greenglass • Greenglass then confessed and turned in his sister and brother-in-law Ethel and Julius Rosenberg • Some claimed they were scapegoats; others that they got what they deserved

11. 1947 & American Espionage • 1947 - CIA and NSA (National Security Council) created to spy on the Soviets • FBI created in 1935

12. The Media’s Response • Wave of Anti-Red movies and books released • Like “Is This Tomorrow”, “Red Planet Mars”, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”

13. McCarthyism • February 1950 – Joseph R. McCarthy from Wisconsin claimed he had a list of communist members of the gov’t • Hundreds imprisoned, 10-12 thousand lost their jobs • Accuses those who complain • Fear in the US • Ruthless in his tracking down of “communists”

14. McCarran Act of 1950 • Forced communist political groups to register with gov’t • Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB) investigated membership • No foreign members • Citizens found could lose citizenship • Allowed for detention of dangerous, disloyal, or subversive persons

15. The Army Hearings • Using Korean War, McCarthy goes after the army for being “infiltrated” • Televised bullying • Eisenhower angry • McCarthy censured • End of Korean War 1953 and McCarthy’s downfall in 1954 signaled the end of the Red Scare