The Use of American Propaganda During the Cold War

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The Use of American Propaganda During the Cold War

• Kristin M AHAP- DEF
• Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua NY

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Essential Question

• How did propaganda reflect on American fears and
  support during the Cold War?

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The Red Scare Hysteria

• In the 1950s, communism was not an imagined
  enemy, it had concrete shape in the form of the
  Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin.
• Many hindrances were encountered in Americas
  fight against communism
• The Korean deadlock
• The defeat of China
• The development of the Atomic bomb by the Soviets
• People were searching for somebody to blame, and
  many were drawn to the suggestion of a communist
  conspiracy among the American nation.
• State and local governments, the judiciary,
  schools and universities, labor unions all
  sought to rid themselves of real or imagined
  subversives.
• Not only was the fear of communism in the air,
  but also the fear of being suspected of ties with
  communists.
• This panic gave way to an extraordinary public
  figure whose behavior was merely accepted because
  of the crucial times that called for such
  actions.

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Joseph McCarthy

• National spotlight shone first on McCarthy in
  1950, when he made a speech in Wheeling, W.Va. He
  declared he had a list of 205 Communists working
  in the State Department.
• In the 1950s, he became the most visible public
  face during a period of extreme anti-communism
  tensions.

Republican US Senator from Wisconsin
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McCarthys Manner

• Along with his immoral assistants, Roy Cohn and
  David Schine, McCarthy moseyed his way through
  federal offices and American embassies seeking
  evidence of communist influence.
• One after another were harassed by McCarthys
  subcommittee and their public careers were soon
  destroyed due to feeble proof produced by
  McCarthy.
• His accusations were without confirmation yet a
  rising community in the US grew to adore his
  policies and the assaults he was making on those
  subversives, real or phony.

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McCarthyism

• Is characterized by uncontrollable, and unproven
  accusations, as well as public attacks on the
  character or patriotism of political opponents

Have a care, sir.

• No one was able to bash McCarthy without the risk
  of being called a communist spy or sympathizer,
  even President Eisenhower remained silent.

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In the summer of 1954, a branch of the American
Legion denounced the Girl Scouts, calling the
"one world" ideas advocated in their publications
"un-American."
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House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

• In search of an issue to attack the Democratic
  party with, the Republican-controlled Congress
  established the House of Un-American Activities
  Committee with the goal to prove that the
  government under Democratic rule, had tolerated
  communist sedition.
• A committee that was made up of the U.S. House of
  Representatives, was created to investigate
  treachery and subversive associations. (193875)

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Hollywood Ten

• The movie industry was the first to be attacked
  by HUAC, claiming that communists had broke into
  Hollywood and polluted America with propaganda.
• Writers and producers were called to testify and
  when some refused to answer questions about their
  own political views, they were jailed for their
  disdain.
• Not only were these ten fined and sentenced to
  years in jail for contempt of Congress, they were
  also blacklisted from working in the film
  industry in Hollywood until the 1960's when the
  ban was lifted.

Herbert Biberman, Martin Popper, Robert W. Kenny,
Albert Maltz, Lester Cole, Dalton Trumbo, John
Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Samuel Ornitz, Ring
Lardner Jr., Edward Dmytryk, Adrian Scott.
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...Continued

• There were many grounds by which HUAC
  investigators arrested those in the entertainment
  business
• sympathy toward the American Communist Party
• involvement in liberal or humanitarian political
  causes that enforcers associated with communism
• refusal to assist federal investigations into
  Communist Party activities
• Some were blacklisted merely because their names
  came up at the wrong place and time

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HUAC Hearings (Click on individual pictures to
read on!)
I have turned down quite a few scripts because I
thought they were tinged with communistic ideas.
We have exposed their lies when we came across
them, we have opposed their propaganda...
Gary Cooper
Ronald Reagan
Nobody has stated just what they mean by
propaganda. I use the term to mean anything which
gives a good impression of communism as a way of
life.
They looked at a lot of our pictures, and I
think they ran a lot of them in Russia, but then
turned them back to us ... They didn't suit their
purposes.
Ayn Rand
Walt Disney
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In 1947, Ronald Reagan was an actor and
president of the Screen Actors Guild. Throughout
out the 1940s, he was an active member in
anti-communist movements, which led him into the
political stage. His keen involvement in politics
was just the beginning as his beliefs shifted
from liberal to conservative. Throughout out the
1940s he was active in anti-communist movements,
which led him into the political arena. In this
testimony before HUAC, Reagan explains the
activity of communists in the Screen Actors
Guild.
Back
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By 1947, Walt Disney Studios were famous for
their short cartoons and animated motion
pictures, which were distributed all over the
world. Walt Disney also worked with the FBI in
its investigations of communists in Hollywood. In
his testimony before the House Un-American
Activities Committee, Disney lists the effects
that he believes communists have had on his
employees, who recently unionized and went on
strike.
Back
14
In 1947, Gary Cooper testified before the HUAC
investigators as a friendly witness. Cooper was
a famous leading man in such movies as "Mr. Deeds
Goes to Town," "Beau Geste," "Sergeant York" and
"Meet John Doe." Cooper mentions, in his
testimony, scripts he has seen that he felt were
communist in nature. He believed the principle
medium used in Hollywood to inject propaganda
was done through word of mouth and pamphleting.
He also defends himself against the false rumors
that he participated in a Communist rally.
Back
15
By 1947 Ayn Rand had been writing screenplays in
Hollywood for many years and had recently gained
fame for her novel, "The Fountainhead." Born in
St. Petersburg, Russia, Rand had emigrated to
America in 1926. Because of her heritage, Rand
held very strong opinions in regard to the HUAC
investigations. She spoke of a recent film that
she felt fabricated life in a communist country,
the Soviet Union, as unrealistically enjoyable.
Back
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Alger Hiss Trial - Background

• Alger Hiss was a tall, handsome Harvard-trained
  lawyer with an impeccable family background.
  Whittaker Chambers was a short, stocky, and
  rumpled Columbia drop-out and confessed former
  Communist from a poor and troubled Philadelphia
  family.
• According to Chambers, Hiss was a devoted
  Communist engaged in espionage, even while
  working at the highest levels of the United
  States government. Hiss story was very
  different, claiming unwavering loyalty and
  denying even membership in the Communist Party.
• Chambers did not wish to testify before the House
  un-American Activities Committee in August 1948
  but he believed that "the danger to the nation
  from Communism had now grown acute," threatening
  his country's very existence.

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Alger Hiss Trial - Background

• Questioned about his association with Alger Hiss,
  Chambers described a close friendship that
  included time in the Hiss home with Alger and his
  wife, Priscilla.
• In response to Chambers's claims, which were
  given large play in the media, Hiss sent a
  telegram to HUAC's chairman, firmly denying the
  charges.  Hiss's telegram said
• I DO NOT KNOW MR. CHAMBERS AND, SO FAR AS I AM
  AWARE, HAVE NEVER LAID EYES ON HIM. THERE IS NO
  BASIS FOR THE STATEMENTS ABOUT ME MADE TO YOUR
  COMMITTEE.I WOULD FURTHER APPRECIATE THE
  OPPORTUNITY OF APPEARING BEFORE YOUR COMMITTEE.

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Alger Hiss Word Vs. Whittaker Chambers Testimony
Alger Hiss
Whittaker Chambers
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Who Was Lying?

• One member of the Committee, however, wanted to
  continue with the investigation.  Congressmen
  Richard Nixon found Hiss "patronizing" and
  "insulting in the extreme."  Hiss's Eastern Ivy
  League pedigree and style offended Nixon, a
  Whittier College graduate and the product of
  working-class parents.  With some reluctance, the
  Committee voted to make Nixon chair of a
  subcommittee that would seek to determine who was
  lying, Hiss or Chambers, at least on the question
  of whether they knew each other.
• Through intense questioning on both ends, and the
  release of the Pumpkin Papers, it was soon
  uncovered that Hiss and Chambers had in fact been
  in close relations.
• Pumpkin Papers were a series of documents turned
  into the Hiss case committee by Chambers that
  consisted of various evidences that placed Hiss
  in serious danger of criminal charge.
• Hiss could not be tried for espionage because of
  the statute of limitations, a law that protects
  individuals from prosecution for most crimes
  after seven years had passed.
• He was charged with two counts of perjury and
  several years in prison

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Importance

• Heightened Americans fears
• Cast the suspicion that communism had in fact
  crept into the US government.
• Projected an unknown California congressman named
  Richard Nixon to national fame
• Set the stage for Senator Joseph McCarthy's
  infamous Communist-hunting
• Marked the creation of a conservative
  intellectual and political movement that would
  put Ronald Reagan in the White House

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Federal Loyalty Program

• 1947 - In an effort to shield itself from
  Republican attacks, the Truman administration
  began a widely publicized program to review the
  loyalty of federal employees
• 1950 Truman approved agencies to fire people
  believed to have no more than bad security
  risks
• 1951 Over 2,000 government employees resigned
  under pressure and 212 were discharged

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McCarran Act

• Congress passed the Internal Security Act of 1950
  that required all communist associations to
  register with the Attorney General and to make
  public all records.
• Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB) -
  tightened alien exclusion and deportation laws,
  allowing for the arrest of dangerous, disloyal,
  or subversive persons in times of war or
  "internal security emergency"

• J. Edgar Hoover director of Federal Bureau of
  Investigations (FBI)
• Investigated and harassed alleged radicals

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FBI

• June 1950 3 former FBI agents and a right-wing
  television producer, Vincent Harnett, published
  Red Channels
• A pamphlet listing the names of 151 writers,
  directors and performers who they claimed had
  been members of subversive organizations before
  the World War II but had not yet been
  blacklisted.
• The blacklist had been compiled from FBI files
  and a detailed analysis of the Daily Worker, a
  newspaper published by the American Communist
  Party.
• A free copy of Red Channels was sent to those
  involved in employing people in the entertainment
  industry and hundreds were blacklisted until they
  appeared in front of the House of Un-American
  Activities Committee and swore to its members
  that they had abandoned their radical past.
• McCarthy also began receiving information from
  his friend, J. Edgar Hoover. William Sullivan,
  one of Hoover's agents, later admitted, "We were
  the ones who made the McCarthy hearings possible.
  We fed McCarthy all the material he was using."

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The FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, helped provide
the committee with material from its aptly named
raw files'. Some producers, directors and screen
writers refused to testify or to play the name
game' in which the committee demanded the names
of associates, who could then be called on to
name others thus providing an ever-expanding list
of suspects to be summoned.
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...Continued

• In June, 1945, the FBI raided the offices of
  Amerasia, a magazine concerned with the Far East,
  and discovered a large number of classified State
  Department documents.
• The 1946 Atomic Energy Act gave the FBI
  responsibility for determining the loyalty of
  individuals having access to restricted Atomic
  Energy data.
• Any public or private agency or individual with
  information about subversive activities was urged
  to report it to the FBI and posters were
  distributed to police departments throughout the
  country.

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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

• Paranoia was increasing among the American nation
  because
• The explosion of an atom bomb by Russia
• The invasion of South Korea by the Communist
  North Koreans and Chinese
• The numerous revelations and confessions of
  former communists and professed spies
• The intensity of the McCarthy mentality of the
  times
• Klaus Fuchs validated these fears when he
  confessed to have given the Russians information
  on the construction of the bomb.
• From the beginning, the trial attracted a high
  amount of media attention, but unlike the trial
  of Alger Hiss, there was no single public
  expression of doubt as to their guilt in any
  media before and during the trial because of the
  immense fear in the heart of every American.
• The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951,
  and sentenced to death under Section 2 of the
  Espionage Act.

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Julius Rosenberg

• This death sentence is not surprising. It had
  to be. There had to be a Rosenberg Case because
  there had to be an intensification of the
  hysteria in America to make the Korean War
  acceptable to the American people. There had to
  be a hysteria and a fear sent through America in
  order to get increased war budgets. And there had
  to be a dagger thrust in the heart of the left to
  tell them that you are no longer gonna give five
  years for a Smith Act prosecution or one year for
  Contempt of Court, but we're gonna kill ya!

Julius Rosenberg, as quoted by his attorney,
Emanuel Bloch, September 22, 1953.
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(No Transcript)
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Controversy

• In imposing the death sentence, Judge Irving
  Kaufman held the Rosenbergs responsible not only
  for stealing atomic secrets but also for more
  than 50,000 deaths in the Korean War.
• Klaus Fuchs, who spied for many more years than
  the Rosenbergs, provided far more sensitive
  nuclear information to the Soviet Union, and was
  caught, confessed, tried, convicted, and
  sentenced in the United Kingdom, received 14
  years in jail, which was the maximum penalty in
  that nation for passing military secrets to
  friendly nations.

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The End
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