‘The Black Silence of Fear’: MacCarthyism, 1946-1961.
The drive against Communism dominated American politics from. the end of the war until deep into
the 60s. It was an era of anxiety and self-confidence, that could be easily sum up by the words
MacCarthysm. Yet, it goes well beyond the Senator who gives its name to a specific crusade against
Communism at home. This trend was deeply rooted in the American mind and shaped not only the
style of politics in a paranoid stand, but also the behaviours, and resulted in the limitaiton of the
range of ideas. As a consequence, thought was being standardized and the scope of political debates
was narrowed to conformism and non dissenting opinion.
The Cold War and the Atomic warfare is of course not alien to the diffusion of fear and suspicion in
every field of American actvities
1. The background of Communist hysteria: geopolitics and paranoid style.
The early years of the Cold War transformed what was still a matter of opinon into a
question of national security and a national obsession. Although it wasn’t right, many saw the
beginnings of the Cold War as a defeat of the United States, and its inability to prevail in the
international arena and to contain Communism. In other words, America is seen as being running
out of stream and to lose the war at the hands of the S.U.
The text of Douglas was released in a famous East coast liberal (middle-left) newspaper. It
was a ringing paper, for the man who wrote it was not only a Supreme Court Justice, but also one of
the 2 dissenters in the Dennis Case (the year before) that in many respects outlawed the American
Communist party and its leaders[1].
He did so for the sake of free speech, that he deemed as threatened by the new mind of the
American people; namely, far from being a menace, the CP is “the least thriving 5th column in
history”. In ddition to this context, the Korean war has just begun, bringing a bunch of antiCommunism in the country, re-inforced by the memorandum NSC 68 that puts it clearly that the
USSR was an ever-expanding power seeking to take over the world. The USSR allegedly wants to
dominate the world and to defeat totally its rival – as well as its way of life. Moscow, so as a fifth
column eager to graps the power from within – so as a threat to America.
Douglas stress the importance in the shaping of the Cold War of what President Eisenhower
called in 1961, the “miltary-indutrial complex”. First, the Pentagon is dominated by hawks at that
time and contends to the dominance of the military field and decisisons involving national security
without giving account to civilians (it was true up to the Cuba missile crisis, after the failure and the
nervosity of the Army, and Kennedy’s overhaul). Besides the dominance of the Pentagon-shaped
vision of the Cold War, there is also the importance of the military industry. It went back to WWII:
the nation needed war goods manufactured in the shortest possible time; as a consequence, it not
only awarded huge contracts to companies manufacturing military goods or linked to that field (carmaking, etc.) ($175bn 1940 to 1944), but it alos made it easy to produce and to make a proft by
granting them tax exemptions and concessions against antitrust legislation: indeed, the biggest
companies, deemed as th most efficient, were the most awarded and granted. This “complex” was to
last after the war and was of the three cornerstones of the American prosperity (with car-making and
building trade).
The nation was spending just over $10bn a year on defense, but $98bn in 1961, that is ½ of
federal expenditures in 1959! Through orders and grants to develop R&D, the government helped
finance these industries to produce new weapons. On the one hand, it helped develop rapid adavnce
in electronics (cf. the micro-chip) and entail a large tradeoff (= échange) for the American people.
On the other hand, it helped promote concentration in industry, because only biggest companies,
with huge assets, could afford to gather the pace of the development of technology – thus leading to
a wave of mergers and the birth of great conglomerates (IT&T). As a consequence the industrial
military sector wield enormous influence over the economy and the politicians: not only it is a vital
sector in case of war, but as they wre interested in milking a Government that make them
prosperous, they managed to convince the politicians and the American people of the necessity of
owning massive armament and that their interest is thaht of the country (“what is good for
McDonnel-Douglas is good for the USA...) by creating prosperity. It is to note that it does not
involve the militray industry proper only, but also related industries (steel, for instance), leading
Truman to intervene in a strike in the steelworks in 1952 (cf. Korean War)...
Let’s ad that the Cold War implies a standing Army of 3.5m, in a country with no experience
of drafting, bringing about a vicorty culture and the idea that the war is always on the brink of
bursting...
That’s why Douglas stress secondly the importance of the “paranoid style” that has shaped
the American mind in the past. Not to mention troubles with Catholics (and Irish) led by the WASPs
in the 19th century or trade-unions during the Gilded age, not to speak of the KKK, the fear of
Communism had a much longer life than the first years of the Cold War. In 1919, the Red Scare
following WWI led to a wave of imprisonments and deportations [=expulsions/reconduites à la
frontière] of foreign social activists. Moreover since the 1870s the segments of the business
community who opposed organized labor identified the labor movement with the Red Menace. By
saying that every worker’s demand is not based on legitimate grievance but is the creation of
outside activists, it made it possible for them to confront unions and workers without adressing
social and economic issues. Before WWII, many steps have been taken against Communists,
barring them from Federal and local government jobs (Hatch Act, 1940). During the war, camps
have been built to clusters Japanese-Americans, seen as puppets of Tokyo... Traditionnaly, America
is reluctant to intervene in world affairs (Monroe Doctrine), but when it did so it believes that it is
given a mission and feels besieged by alien forces, trying to undermine its way of life.
At that moment, many liberals were afraid of the spread of Communism, and while thinking
that free speech and liberties must not be impaired in normal cicumstances, are poised to fight
Communism by all means, even if liberties have to be restricted because the end is rightful and
because the times are not to discussions...They are called “Cold War liberals” (Schlesinger and its
vital center, or Bell, for instance). From the left, they tended to drift to the right (and to give birth to
the “neo-cons” doctrine).
2. ‘Atmosfear’: the Communist Hysteria.
As a consequence home Communism is seen as un-american, because by definition and as a
matter of fact, Communists were allegedly totally faithful to Moscow so intended to overthrow the
Government by force, whatever thy said... After all, it is written in Marx’ and Lenin’s books, as it is
stated during the numerous trials of Communism, and if American Communists refused to
acknowledge being conspirators, that is because of Aesopian language [= double langage: in order
not to be prosecuted, they hid their thoughts]. Every communist was considered as disloyal and as a
soviet agent, ploting a conspiracy devoted to the Soviet dominance, as Hoover, the leader of the FBI
stated...
This conception was rife. The public, anxious before the might and the progress of the
Soviet Union, was in search of scapegoats and shared largely this conception, as puts it Doc.1b:
Accoding to this Comics book cover the USA is engaged in a formidable struggle between Liberty
and Oppression, echoing the views embedded in the Truman doctrine (doc.5). Liberty is herladed by
the United States, and the Americans are the heroes of this black-and-white movie (no surprinsingly
westerns flourished at that time: cf; John Wayne, the typical American hero, whose values are those
of the Frontier, of the pionners: liberty, property, democracy, ect., fighting the nasty Indians
[sometimes the wanton Mexicans: cf. Alamo], whose purpose is to unravel the American
civilisation...). Yet, The USSR is catching up; however the Great America could not be defeated by
a backward country, so its shortcomings are the result of a conspiracy from within, led by spies and
infiltrated alien agents. This naive conception is the staple of the first Comics books, popularizing
the idea of blood-thirsty communists, that could only be challenged by the reinforcement of
American values ... ang strengths.
In other words, the Nazis of the comics of the 40s are replaced by Communists. They are not
only challenging the American power, they also threaten its very way of life. They are depicted as
totally opposite to Americans: public/state property v.s. private property; collectivism v.s.
individualism; soviets v.s. democracy; disloyalty v.s. honesty, and so on. In turn and meeting
Truman’s statements, it helped shape the American identity and the belief in the Manifest Destiny of
the country: since Communism is the symbol of oppression, Americanism is the expression of
Freedom, so the duy of Americans is to ... save the world! Such viewpoints carried demonisation of
Communism. From now the Reds are seen as monsters an irreductible foes, as well as devils, with
whom no dialogue is possible except violence.
Such a publication helped shape the American opinion, because it was mass-produced, and
as a matter of fact well read and deeply diffused. In turn, these images, released by anti-communist
crusaders (here a Southern Christian association) created a true anxiety and led the people to claim
for energetic steps to fight Communism, reinforcing Truman and Eisenhower policies, while these
same policies created the background for Communist hysteria. Indeed, containment adressed the
Soviet expansion in the late forties, when the rhetoric of the USSR was apocalyptic against
Democracy (cf. The Jdanov Doctrine).
3. professional Red-Baiting: MarCarthy
Such an hysteria and plausibility of the menace is fed by the emergence of professional anticommunists and former communists converted to capitalism exerting as communist pundits/experts.
(cf. Doc.2). Indeed, many people accused of having been or of still being Communists were
attacked by allegedly former communist members, having abjured their former faith and eager to
denounce their former comrades. Because they were deemed to know the party from within, they
were quickly acknowledged as professional witnesses, upon which testimony accusations rested on.
Hiss was thus accused by chambers, a former Time editor. Those people produced lists of names,
bringing the idea that Communist spies were everywhere... This phenomenon went hand in hand
with criminalisation of American Communists: they were systematically refered to a court.
Although many of them were finally declared innocent, the very fact they were heard by a court
accredited the idea that there is no smoke without fire. What’s more most of them invoke the 1 st and
the 5th Amendement for not answering the court, and as MacCarthy and Hoover said, if they refused
to answer that proves they have something to hide...
Besides, anti-communism and ‘professional Red-Baiting’ were great opportunities for an
ambitious politician to recieve publicity and to become popular: and nothing could boost a career as
finding Communists in government. The trajectory of Senator MacCarthy (doc.2) illustrates that
issue. The press was greedy for such allegations, whose force rested on their concreteness and
plausibility. I remind you that at that time sensationalism is the staple of the press. So no matter that
MacCarthy’s list had changed all the time, his revelations were always released just in time for the
evening deadlines! And if a case didn’t work, he brought up another...
Yet, at that very moment, the USA is deemed as lagging behind the S.U., thanks to its
pusilanimity and maybe because it was harboring traitors at the top of the Administration. It is what
Senator MacCarthy stressed in this famous speech before a group of southern Republicans in 1950.
This speech launched his career as a profesionnal ‘Red-Baiter’: he was strictly unknown before
pronouncing it. It unveils the fear of a country compelled to commit in the World(’s) affairs, while
not accustomed to, and axious before what that implies. This typically paranoid and populist (‘silver
spoons’) speech puts it that the USA is losing speed and is being defeated. Some piece of evidence
tended to make it obvious: 1. TheYalta conference is seen as having sold out eastern Europe to the
Soviet union, while China, turn to Communism in 1949, is seen as betrayed to the S.U. without a
fight and perhaps. 2. Those “losses” are construed as the effect of the American withdrawal rather
than the consequence of internal events within a country or realistic geopolitical considerations. So
the withdrawal could not but be the consequence of a plot engineered by traitors from within,
because for MacCarthy and many others (cf. The ‘Victory Culture’) America’s might made it
impossible for America to lose to Communism. Some events tended to give legitimacy to
MacCarthy’s arguments: as soon as 1945, an OSS (predecessor of the CIA) official noted that an
article of Amerasia, a small magazine, was based on secret reports, whereas in Canada a russian
scientist, accused of being a Soviet agent, unveiled a list of documents about a spy ring within
scientific and government circles...
More important was the Hiss case, occured in January 1950. Its publicity embodied
MacCarthy’s conceptions. To be true the taste for secret of American Communists and their practice
of party name made such statements plausible: most of them hid the fact they belonged or had
belonged to the party. Note that Senator Mac Carthy spoke just after Hiss’s conviciton for perjury.
The attacks against the establishement and the Administration members with silver spoons in the
mouth are directed directly against him. Hiss was a former New Deal official, who had participated
to the Yalta Conference and helped to organize the United Nation. After leaving the Government he
advocated internation peace in the Carnegie Endowment for International peace. Because he was a
liberal [au sens américain= à peu près de gauche] siding with the left-wing of the Roosevelt
Administration, he was an easy prey for ‘maccarthysm’ when accused by a former Communist to
have belonged to the party. The argument makes it clear and is for many convincing: the USA is
weak because Communists have infilitrated the Administration. And though Hiss refused to
acknowledge being a former communist, his senstitive position could explain easily why the USA
was so amicable with Stalin at Yalta; moreover, it must be noticed that for the right-wing of the
American political class, the UN was construed as a Soviet appartus intended to undermine
American influence. As a matter of fact Hiss healded the danger that individual in important
position could influence the nation’s foreign policy. That Hiss was finally subpoened for perjury
was for the opinion a clue of the veracity of such allegations. Indeed, if accused by the Court that
made it clear there was something unclear with him...
Whatever the truth is, the Rosenbergs case tended also to prove to the American opinion that
Russia, as backward as it was, could not share the Atom bomb thanks to its scientists but rather
thanks to espionage! What is more the claims of Julius Rosenberg accredited this conception, when
he denounced ‘a growing neo-fascism’ because such a vocabulary is typical of communist forces at
that time, though they were of course not the only ones to use it...
However the consequences went deeper: suspicion extended to ‘fellow
travelers’(compagnons de route) and all people and organisations that once were sympathetic to
Communist ideas or shared to some extent their desire to challenge the political and social status
quo so as to improve the American society. That’s also what Justice (juge à la Cour Suprême)
Douglas argued in his well-known article titled ‘the Black Silence of Fear’.
In other words, all leftist or liberal ideas were suspected to promote Communist ideas and to
be subversive, and strikes for instance, in strategic fields (meallurgy), to paralyze the nation in order
to undermine it...That’s the same for every critic of the Government policy. What’s more, because
of the criminalisation of Communism, it could lead you to be sued... That explains why it made it so
difficult to desegregate the USA at that time (:For Douglas, orthodoxy has become the main pattern
of American politics, because as you argue for any improvement or change, by definition modifying
the status quo, you’re suspected to be pro-Communist, so un-American... and Hoover saw MLK as
a great Red menace!!!), a well as it explains the importance of the stepping in of the institutions,
especially the Government.
4. From Hoover to MacCarthy: the Institutions step in. The Policymaking is
dominated by anti-Communism.
The GOP (the Republican, Grand Old Party) economic and social program was as unpopular
as its supporters were anger at the New Deal. While sharing Truman foreign policy, to recoup its
fortune and to embarass the Truman Administration it focused on Communism at home, by putting
overemphasis on the Communist threat and by accusing the Democrats to be ‘soft’ on Communism
and to harbor suspects in the administration.
In addition to Truman’s fierce anti-Communism (during the war he wanted the USA to
intervene at the last moment in order to let the Nazis weaken Russia as much/far as possible), the
executive branch was put under pressure and forced to deal with the so-called menace it has itself
helped to shape and to take teps. That resulted in 3 interlinked consequences.
First, the Government contributed to criminalise the Communist Party by setting up a
Loyalty-Security Program (1947), through an Exectuvie Order (EO) 9835 (3a). EO 9835 imposed a
political test on federal employees, disqualifying anyone who belongeg to the CP or had a
‘sympathetic association’ with it or with any subversive association. the Government, though
reluctantly, let Hoover FBI dominate the Administration anti-Communist effort. To begin with, it
was the FBI’s tradtional area of specialization; however, it led to the dominance of the far-right
wing conception of Hoover. For this latter, there is no difference between party memebers, social
activists and left-ing liberals: for him, Martin Luther King was a dangerous conspirator... Dissent
equaled disloyalty and un-Americanism... In 1956, when the Supreme Court made prosecutions
more difficult, he set up Cointelpro, a secret program of political sabotage designed to cripple the
Communist Party and radical groups altogether... Lastly, many states mimicked the Goverment and
passed tough loyalty programm, extended to school teachers and other civil servants...
As the commitment of the Governement went deeper, the Supreme Court appeared eager to
outlaw the Communist Party and the Communists. Document 3b is an excerpt of a famous case:
Dennis was the leader of the CP. Prosecuted according to the 1940 Smith Act, he invoked the
articles of Constitution about free speech (1st Amendment), arguing that he wanted not to overthrow
the government by force, violence or conspiracy and that Communism is a matter of opinion.
Although the Court agreed that the CP was not actually trying to overthrow the Government by
force or violence, the context (the Czechoslovakia crisis, the Berlin Airlift, ...: “world crisis after
crisis”, alongside with atomc spying), the Justices insisted that the CP could not be considered as a
mere ‘seminar in political theory’ (Justice Frankfurter). Because the Communists are robotlike
abiding ‘slavishly’ by Moscow orders they migh threaten the nation in the case of a crisis. National
security considerations thus predominated over freedom of speech.
However the major role is played by Congress, not only because it bolsterd (renforcer) or
fosterd (stimuler/lancer) the careers of young politicians (Nixon, Reagan, MacCarthy), but because
it overtook the Government and went deeper with stronger and tougher measures. As a clue of that
situation, there is the passage of the 1950 MacCarran Act, (or Internal Security Act), initially
proposed by Richard Nixon over Truman veto! The act forced the Communists and the members of
subversive associations to register with the government.
Congress set up special investigating committees devoted to expose Communist
connections. The publicity their activities generated were the most important vehicle for expanding
anti-Communism to the rest of the society and for touching almost every aspect of American life.
The most famous is HUAC (HouseCommittee on Un-American Activities), established in 1938 to
investigate Nazi and Communist propaganda. One of its member was Richard Nixon. These
congressional committees, though no courts, mimicked the process of trials, but without the due
process requirements accompanying criminal prosecutions). They had leeway to denounce and
accuse. Of course, they didn’t put people in jail; yet, they could refer them to a court; however, their
main power were their publicity: even deemed innocent at the end of the hearings, people heard by
the Committees lost their jobs. And they led private organisations to establish ‘blacklists’ (cf.
Reagan’s investigating Hollywood and the subsequent firing of supposed lefists or Communists
undesirable actors and directors). The most important impact of HUAC and other committees
hearings was the spread of unofficial blacklist established by the FBI released to the employers and
making it impossible for a person named on it to be hired...
As a consequence it is the connection between HUAC and the private sector that
‘MacCarthysm’ affected so deeply the America society and stifled (étouffer) political dissent.
However, DON’T overestimate the effects of MacCarthysm: even at the height of the
MacCarthyist furor, the anti-Communist crusade was relatively mild. Few foreign-born radicals
were actually deported and many prosecutions failed or resulted in the acknowledgment of the
innoncene of persons. Only 150 persons went to prison. So it WAS undoubtly an effective form of
political repression but more subtle than brutal. It’s more a matter of mood, of climate with some
exceptional cases such as the Rosenbergs, than of punishment – although they were real (most of
the time economic ones). In other words, the USA didn’t live in a totalitarian terror and the
insitutions were able to cope with the hysteria: in 1954, MacCarthy’s careeer was over as his crud
behaviour had lost audience. The Supreme Court made it more difficult between 1954 and 1956 to
prosecute someone , imposing tougher requirements for criminal prosecutions and in its Brown
statement (1954) decided desegregation. MacCarthy’s America is not Stalin’s Russia...
5. Bolstering the Political Agenda of the Right.
Significantly, the tide flowed back when Eisenhower became President. The right could not
decently attack one of its prominent member, as it did with Truman. What’s more, it has set its own
political agenda, and while it could not unravel the New Deal of Roosevelt followed by the Fair
Deal of Truman, it could divert the Nation from adressing hot social and economic issue until
Kennedy was elected. In other words ‘MacCarthysm” met the ideology of the conservative, and
helped promote the social and political status quo – the ideas of the ‘vital center’ as Schlesinger
said. That is the idea of what Nixon and others have called “mainstream America’ or ‘the silent
majority’: against the East Coast New Deal, it bolstered the ideology of Great Plains Americans (for
instance the MidWest), the ideology of conservative yokels (ploucs) feared by liberal ideas, deemed
as a threat to the american way of life shaped by the rugged pionneers and the Frontier...
The last document makes it clear. It deals with a popular viewpoint of the right wing. Joseph
‘Jolting’ MacCarthy is depicted as a courageous tiny boxer, daring fighting a barbaric New Dealer,
lik David against Goliath. He heralds all the virtues of the USA: pugnacity, strength, loyalty (he’s
supposed to be fair play, and boxing according to the rules), and so on; whereas the New Dealer is
in fact a Communist (‘Commy’) ally, a sort of fellow traveler searching to implement a Communistlike policy, or worse than that a disguised Communist. What is sure is that he is armed by Moscow
(and probably takes his order from) (cf. The axe). Thus depicted he’s typically an un-American
activist, whose purpose is to destroy the American values.
Thus the most importanteffect of MacCarthym is probably not the political repression
suffered by many people at the hands of the congressional committees or of the FBI – though it IS
importan, but the ‘black silence of fear’ it imposed on american politics, the subsequent
developement of a culture of consensus and of no-dissenting leading to put the required social
change and liberal ideas on the back burner (en veilleuse) and preventing the country from handling
the important social and racial (cf. The situation of the Blacks) problems it faced...
©Lemas/Claudel 2010
The Supreme Court, contrary to the French Conseil consitutionnel, is not compelled to produce
an unanimous statement. The statement that prevails is that of the majorityt; however, each Justice
can express his opposition to the decision and the reasons why (Justices who draw the same
conclusions but for different reasons can also express their views). So each statement of the
Supreme Court permits us to know the debate between the Justices, especially since the different
opinions are released with the statement. As a consequence we have the majority opinion as well as
dissenting ones. What’s more, the Supreme Court pronounces its opinion not only according to the
right, but also to the philosphy of the Constitution as it construes it and the great principles of
democracy.
[1]