Introduction
Following the end of the Second World War (1939-1945), the United States was propelled into a Cold War with the Soviet Union and other communist countries around the world. At the root of this political hostility was the ideological struggle between western capitalism and Soviet communism. This era, beginning in the late 1940s and ending in the early 1950s, is characterized by a series of communist ‘witch-hunts’ and nationwide alarm caused by the perceived threat posed by communists within the United States government. Coined as the Second Red Scare, this period of widespread hysteria was largely instigated by Wisconsin junior senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities. During the Second Red Scare, McCarthy …show more content…
Truman continually doubted the existence of communist subversion within the United States government, at least to the extent that McCarthy and his supporters claimed there to be. In a news conference conducted in 1948, Truman declared that McCarthyism and the accompanying spy scare sweeping the nation were simply “red herrings” in that they were intentionally crafted by the Republican party to mislead or divert the public’s attention from the truth. Similarly, in his memoirs Years of Trial and Hope written eight years later, Truman recounted that “The country had reason to be proud and have confidence in our security agencies. They had kept us almost totally free of sabotage and espionage during the …show more content…
As aforementioned, the McCarthyites that relentlessly pushed for stricter legislation and punishment for communist subversive persons simply tended to be written off by the Truman administration as radicalistic propaganda. They were often only partially appeased when the Truman administration was pressured to act by the conservative-leaning FBI and Congress, such was in the cases of the creation of Executive Orders 9806 and 9835. Despite passing these orders (which granted the FBI the authority to investigate federal employees for suspected subversion or espionage), Truman seemed to firmly hold that the United States was not in danger, and often dismissed McCarthyism and its preceding hysteria as nonsense, as seen in a letter written to Pennsylvania Governor George Earle: “People are very much wrought up about the Communist ‘bugaboo’ but I am of the opinion that the country is perfectly safe so far as Communism is concerned – we have too many sane
Following the end of the Second World War (1939-1945), the United States was propelled into a Cold War with the Soviet Union and other communist countries around the world. At the root of this political hostility was the ideological struggle between western capitalism and Soviet communism. This era, beginning in the late 1940s and ending in the early 1950s, is characterized by a series of communist ‘witch-hunts’ and nationwide alarm caused by the perceived threat posed by communists within the United States government. Coined as the Second Red Scare, this period of widespread hysteria was largely instigated by Wisconsin junior senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities. During the Second Red Scare, McCarthy …show more content…
Truman continually doubted the existence of communist subversion within the United States government, at least to the extent that McCarthy and his supporters claimed there to be. In a news conference conducted in 1948, Truman declared that McCarthyism and the accompanying spy scare sweeping the nation were simply “red herrings” in that they were intentionally crafted by the Republican party to mislead or divert the public’s attention from the truth. Similarly, in his memoirs Years of Trial and Hope written eight years later, Truman recounted that “The country had reason to be proud and have confidence in our security agencies. They had kept us almost totally free of sabotage and espionage during the …show more content…
As aforementioned, the McCarthyites that relentlessly pushed for stricter legislation and punishment for communist subversive persons simply tended to be written off by the Truman administration as radicalistic propaganda. They were often only partially appeased when the Truman administration was pressured to act by the conservative-leaning FBI and Congress, such was in the cases of the creation of Executive Orders 9806 and 9835. Despite passing these orders (which granted the FBI the authority to investigate federal employees for suspected subversion or espionage), Truman seemed to firmly hold that the United States was not in danger, and often dismissed McCarthyism and its preceding hysteria as nonsense, as seen in a letter written to Pennsylvania Governor George Earle: “People are very much wrought up about the Communist ‘bugaboo’ but I am of the opinion that the country is perfectly safe so far as Communism is concerned – we have too many sane