Two developments in the post-World War II years coincided to shape the zeitgeist of the entire era. The two factors were the emergence of the Soviet Union as a world power with its aggressive doctrine of the expansion of international communism along with the availability of nuclear weapons. These factors lead to a paranoia that molded the American personality and…

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The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a result of the atomic bombs was beyond imagination. (See Hiroshima, by John Hersey, for his description of the lives of six survivors before, during and after the bombing. “… [T]heir faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks…”; See also,…

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One of the earliest Cold War confrontations involved the divided city of Berlin. In June 1948, in an effort to squeeze the Western countries out of the city, Russia cut off road access to Berlin, preventing American aid from reaching the city. America decided to defeat this Russian blockade by flying supplies into the city’s airports. For months, American and…

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Western satisfaction over “winning” the Berlin Blockade was short-lived. After the end of WW II, there was a civil war in China between the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek, who were supported by the United States, and the communist forces of Mao Zedong, who were supported by Russia. In October 1949, Mao’s forces defeated the Nationalist forces causing the Chinese…

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In keeping with the New Deal, there was more tolerance of liberalism in the United States during the 1930s. Sometimes based on altruistic ideas of common good, improvement of the working class or other acceptable intellectual concepts such as anti-fascism, and sometimes based on more pragmatic considerations, such as a solution to the perceived failures of the capitalist economic system,…

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Although there was tolerance of liberal and progressive causes in the 1930s, fear of Communist subversion dated back to post-World War I days and the Palmer raids: “… [P]ersecution of ‘Reds’ had plenty of precedents in this nation’s history. As early as 1798, [the Alien and Sedition] laws were enacted that defined ‘enemy aliens’ and the 1918 Sedition Act made…

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Between 1950 and 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator from Wisconsin and a member of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), unleashed one of the most notorious witch hunts in American history. It started with a speech to the Republican Women’s Club in Wheeling, West Virginia in January 1950. He told those in attendance that he had a list of…

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Public personalities, who were alleged to be associated with anything or anyone suspected to be sympathetic to communism, were likely to be blacklisted and banned from their performing jobs. The “Hollywood 10” was a group of writers and artists in the entertainment industry, who were supposed to be communists, who were using movies to create pro-Russian propaganda. “The Ten” were:…

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In the late 1950s, America faced Communist expansion in its southern sphere of influence—the Caribbean and Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine established that the United States considered the Caribbean area as an area of special security interest. The Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers not to try to expand their interest into that area. If such a thing were to happen,…

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The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion caused Khrushchev to question Kennedy’s capabilities. Khrushchev, with Castro’s consent and assistance, decided to test Kennedy by placing Russian nuclear missiles that could threaten major American cities in Cuba. (Jennings and Brewster, pp. 373-375.) In October 1962, American spy planes took pictures of Cuba that revealed missile installations. Kennedy decided to confront…

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