The Cold War at Home

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The Cold War at Home
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Government loyalty checks

• 1946 President Truman order investigation of
  government workers
• 1947-1951 3 million investigated as security
  risks by FBI
• Smith Act Prohibited advocating or teaching the
  violent overthrow of the U.S. government

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House Un-American Activities Committee (late
1940s)

• Held public hearings on disloyalty
• Some refused to testify about themselves or
  others
• Watkins v. U.S. (1957) witness may refuse to
  testify if questions do not relate to lawmaking
  task

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Hiss Case 1948

• Alger Hiss, former State Department member,
  accused of being a communist by Whitaker
  Chambers, an editor and former Communist
• Hiss accused of lying about spying
• Hiss convicted of perjury, sentenced to five
  years served 44 months

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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 1950

• Accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet
  Union
• Executed, 1953, despite little evidence against
  them

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Robert Oppenheimer

• Worked on Manhattan project
• Spoke out against the H-bomb
• Government revokes security clearance

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McCarthyism 1950-1953 (Korean War years)

• Joseph McCarthy senator from Wisconsin
• Held committee hearings in the Senate on the
  influence of Communism in government
• Prominent citizens called to testify about their
  sympathies and the sympathies of others
• Writer, actors, filmmakers, professors,
  entertainers

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McCarthyism 1950-1953 (Korean War years)

• Many falsely accused some refused to testify and
  faced contempt charges
• The blacklist many were fired or not hired
  because of testimony
• Public turned against McCarthy in 1954 as
  hearings televised

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President Eisenhower (1953-1961)

• The Domino Theory
• Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
• Once one country became communist, others would
  follow
• Strategy do not allow any foreign nation to
  fall to the communists

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Southeast Asian Treaty Organization

• Britain, France, U.S., New Zealand, Pakistan,
  Thailand, Philipines
• 1954-1977

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SEATO Countries
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Eisenhower Doctrine (1957-1958)

• Middle Eastern countries come under Soviet
  influence
• US would send troops to make sure that
  governments did not fall to Communists in civil
  war
• US sends troops to Lebanon, 1958

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Kennedy (1961-1963)

• Space Race the New Frontier
• Peace Corps - volunteerism
• CUBA
• 1959 Fidel Castro defeats government
• Soviet Union aids new nation
• Castro leads country towards communism
• Exiles and refugees agitate for counterrevolution
  in the US

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The Bay of Pigs 1961

• Invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles
• CIA plans and supports
• American military does not support
• Invasion fails embarassing episode for Kennedy

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Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

• Spy planes detect Soviet missiles on Soviet
  territory
• Should Kennedy strike first?
• Soviet ships on their way to Cuba
• US Navy blockades island Soviets turn back
• Khrushchev agrees to take missiles back to USSR

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Berlin Wall - 1961

• 1950s mass emigration out of East Germany
• East German government constructs a wire fence,
  and later a concrete wall, to prevent citizens
  from escapingto West Germany through Berlin
• Berlin Wall symbolized East German oppression for
  28 years

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