doubled in one decade from thirty-six million to seventy-two million people. By the end of the fifties, one-fourth of all Americans had found a small, sunny oasis of open space in the suburbs. Ironically, at the peak of anti-Communist fervor, few Americans seemed to realize that what made this exodus possible were public subsidies for higher education for veterans, low-interest home loans for GIs, the private automobile, and interstate highways, all paid for by the federal government in the name of containing Communism. 13
If a storm was brewing unexpectedly within the sacred confines of the family, there was another storm out there in the world that directly endangered home and hearth. The Cold War pitted the United States against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, capitalism against Communism, one nuclear-armed superpower against the other. It was a âwarâ that could not be fought directly for fear of causing global nuclear extinction. To contain Communism and to win the âhearts and mindsâ of Third World and unaligned nations, the U.S. government threw a circle of strategic bases around the globe. The two superpowers settled into a policy of deterrence, which, if it worked forever, would prevent Mutually Assured Destruction, dubbed, appropriately enough, MAD. Then, instead of annihilating each other, the two countries embarked upon a series of âproxyâ wars, some of which threatened to turn the Cold War into a scorching conflagration.
On the home front, demonic images of the Soviet Union unleashed amoral panic, a âgreat fearâ that penetrated all aspects of American culture and society. Like the Devil, Communism seemed to lurk everywhere, capable of inhabiting the soul of any individual. Vigilance, the government insisted, was essential. The search for Communists in American life became an obsession. Loyalty oaths, indictments, and blacklists crippled thousands of lives. Fear of internal sabotage and subversion crushed dissent. In 1950, Joseph McCarthy rose to power on a tsunami of anti-Communist hysteria, proclaiming Communists to be in every nook and cranny of American life, and at the very highest reaches of the American government. He fell only when his futile attacks against the United States Armyâbroadcast to millions of Americans in their living roomsâexposed his hateful persecution of innocent people. But to true believers, political treason, like religious heresy, endangered the nationâs moral covenant with God. In the name of that covenant, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, convicted of espionage, were executed in 1953.
The red-baiting witch hunts that Joseph McCarthy came to symbolize and that took his nameâMcCarthyismâcoincided with what might be characterized as a national emotional breakdown. The Cold War recruited everyone and all resources into the national battle against the Soviet Union. Like a colonial jeremiad, a 1950s civil defense pamphlet warned, âOur nation is in a grim struggle for national survival and the preservation of the world.â 14 Americans mobilized the military, the civilian population, the economy, education, and even children for what seemed like an interminable war.
My Weekly Reader
, a scholastic news magazine, unleashed a barrage of anti-Communist propaganda at elementary-school students in order to produce another generation of Cold Warriors. The Boy Scouts, worried about American menâs growing âsoftness,â pledged to toughen boysâ physical and psychological strength to fight Communism. Universities shifted their attention to the kind of basic research and defense projects required to counter Soviet expansionism. The military sent families to join soldiers at strategic bases, as ambassadors for a superior way of life. 15
Anti-Communism also helped contain the storm brewing within the home. American women could be mobilized without a single woman leaving her suburban home for work. The belief
If a storm was brewing unexpectedly within the sacred confines of the family, there was another storm out there in the world that directly endangered home and hearth. The Cold War pitted the United States against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, capitalism against Communism, one nuclear-armed superpower against the other. It was a âwarâ that could not be fought directly for fear of causing global nuclear extinction. To contain Communism and to win the âhearts and mindsâ of Third World and unaligned nations, the U.S. government threw a circle of strategic bases around the globe. The two superpowers settled into a policy of deterrence, which, if it worked forever, would prevent Mutually Assured Destruction, dubbed, appropriately enough, MAD. Then, instead of annihilating each other, the two countries embarked upon a series of âproxyâ wars, some of which threatened to turn the Cold War into a scorching conflagration.
On the home front, demonic images of the Soviet Union unleashed amoral panic, a âgreat fearâ that penetrated all aspects of American culture and society. Like the Devil, Communism seemed to lurk everywhere, capable of inhabiting the soul of any individual. Vigilance, the government insisted, was essential. The search for Communists in American life became an obsession. Loyalty oaths, indictments, and blacklists crippled thousands of lives. Fear of internal sabotage and subversion crushed dissent. In 1950, Joseph McCarthy rose to power on a tsunami of anti-Communist hysteria, proclaiming Communists to be in every nook and cranny of American life, and at the very highest reaches of the American government. He fell only when his futile attacks against the United States Armyâbroadcast to millions of Americans in their living roomsâexposed his hateful persecution of innocent people. But to true believers, political treason, like religious heresy, endangered the nationâs moral covenant with God. In the name of that covenant, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, convicted of espionage, were executed in 1953.
The red-baiting witch hunts that Joseph McCarthy came to symbolize and that took his nameâMcCarthyismâcoincided with what might be characterized as a national emotional breakdown. The Cold War recruited everyone and all resources into the national battle against the Soviet Union. Like a colonial jeremiad, a 1950s civil defense pamphlet warned, âOur nation is in a grim struggle for national survival and the preservation of the world.â 14 Americans mobilized the military, the civilian population, the economy, education, and even children for what seemed like an interminable war.
My Weekly Reader
, a scholastic news magazine, unleashed a barrage of anti-Communist propaganda at elementary-school students in order to produce another generation of Cold Warriors. The Boy Scouts, worried about American menâs growing âsoftness,â pledged to toughen boysâ physical and psychological strength to fight Communism. Universities shifted their attention to the kind of basic research and defense projects required to counter Soviet expansionism. The military sent families to join soldiers at strategic bases, as ambassadors for a superior way of life. 15
Anti-Communism also helped contain the storm brewing within the home. American women could be mobilized without a single woman leaving her suburban home for work. The belief
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