Red Scare Or Red Menace

Along the way he touches on the chief episodes, personalities, and institutions of cold war anticommunism, showing how earlier campaigns against domestic fascists and right-wingers provided most all of anticommunism's tactics and weapons. And he dissects the various anti-Communist constituencies, analyzing their origins, motives, and activities.

"Red Scared! offers valuable lessons from the vault on how to identify Communists, media reports on the jolly side of Stalin, guidelines for bomb shelter chic, and much more. As they did in their other lively pop-culture histories, Teenage Confidential and Wedding Bell Blues, Michael Barson and Steven Heller once again bring the nearly forgotten details of American culture into full relief with Red Scared!"--BOOK JACKET.

The New York Times–bestselling biography: a “complete and powerful assessment” of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency (Booklist, starred review). Drawing on newly declassified documents and thousands of pages of unpublished material, The Age of Eisenhower tells the story of a masterful president guiding the nation through the great crises of the 1950s, from McCarthyism and the Korean War through civil rights turmoil and Cold War conflicts. This is a portrait of a skilled leader who, despite his conservative inclinations, found a middle path through the bitter partisanship of his era. At home, Eisenhower affirmed the central elements of the New Deal, such as Social Security; fought the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy; and advanced the agenda of civil rights for African-Americans. Abroad, he ended the Korean War and avoided a new quagmire in Vietnam. Yet he also charted a significant expansion of America’s missile technology and deployed a vast array of covert operations around the world to confront the challenge of communism. As he left office, he cautioned Americans to remain alert to the dangers of a powerful military-industrial complex that could threaten their liberties. Today, presidential historians rank Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, and William Hitchcock’s “rich narrative” shows us why Ike’s stock has risen so high. He was a gifted leader, a decent man of humble origins who used his powers to advance the welfare of all Americans (The Wall Street Journal).

The anticommunist crusade of the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not start with the Cold War. Based on research in the early files of the FBI's predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation, the author describes how the federal security officials played a decisive role in bringing about the first anticommunist hysteria in the US, the Red Scare in 1919 to 1920. The Bureau's political role, it is argued, originated in the attempt by the modern federal state during the early decades of the 20th century to regulate and control any organised opposition to the political, economic and social order.

This book focuses on the values, beliefs, fears and actions of Brazilian groups that throughout the twentieth century fought the red menace. It is based on broad and diversified documentary sources, including police files, archives of political leaders, traditional press periodicals, newspapers and brochures of right-wing organizations, monuments, caricatures, and photographs. The work is a major contribution to better understanding the political impact of right-wing movements in Brazil and the justifications made for the authoritarian coups of 1937 and 1964. The author explains the intricacy of the political movements, leaderships and organizations that gathered around the fight against communism, as well as the ideas and images used to disseminate their arguments, including international sources of inspiration. The argument presented is not one of mere condemnation, but as dictatorship has reared its head post-1964 an assessment is long overdue in order to understand the political impact of anti-communist movements which have contributed to enable the longstanding police-military repressive machine of the Brazilian State. The current return of anti-communism to the Brazilian political scene is evidence of the book's thesis that this phenomenon took root in Brazilian society during the first decades of the twentieth century. On Guard Against the Red Menace helps to understand why a candidate of military origin who promises to rid the country of the reds won the October 2018 elections in Brazil, by adopting a discursive strategy that represents the appropriation of the anti-communist tradition analyzed in this book.

Anti-communism has long been a potent force in American politics, capable of gripping both government and popular attention. Nowhere is this more evident that the two great 'red scares' of 1919-20 and 1946-54; the latter generally - if somewhat inaccurately - termed McCarthyism. The interlude between these two major scares has tended to garner less attention, but as this volume makes clear, the lingering effects of 1919-20 and the gathering storm-clouds of 'McCarthyism' were clearly visible throughout the 20s and 30s, even if in a more low-key way. Indeed, the period between the two great red scares was marked by frequent instances of political repression, often justified on anti-communist grounds, at local, state and federal levels. Yet these events have been curiously neglected in the history of American political repression and anti-communism, perhaps because much of the material deals with events scattered in time and space which never reached the intensity of the two great scares. By focusing on this twenty-five year 'interim' period, the essays in this collection bridge the gap between the two high-profile 'red scares' thus offering a much more contextualised and fluid narrative for American anti-communism. In so doing the rationale and motivations for the 'red scares' can be seen as part of an evolving political landscape, rather than as isolated bouts of hysteria exploding onto - and then vanishing from - the political scene. Instead, a much more nuanced appreciation of the conflicting interests and fears of government, politicians, organised labour, free-speech advocates, employers, and the press is offered, which will be of interest to anyone wishing to better understand the political history of modern America.

A creeping sense of panic and paranoia characterized the Red Scare as millions of Americans began to subscribe to the belief that communists and socialists were infiltrating American institutions. This compelling volume examines the Red Scare from diverse perspectives to facilitate discussions and research of relevant topics regarding this tense period of American history. Chapters examine topics such as the conditions that spawned radical movements, the response to communist activity including blacklists and F.B.I. surveillance, initiatives in congress to stamp out threats from the Left, and the downfall and aftermath of the Red Scare.

The Amerasia affair was the first of the great spy cases of the postwar era. Unlike the Hiss or Rosenberg case, it did not lead to an epic courtroom confrontation or the imprisonment or execution of any of the principals, and perhaps for this reason, it has been largely ignored by historians. Harvey Klehr and Ronald Radosh provide a full-scale history of the first public drama featuring charges that respectable American citizens had spied for the Communists. It is a story with few heroes, many villains, and more than a few knaves. In June 1945, six people associated with the magazine Amerasia were arrested by the FBI and accused of espionage on behalf of the Chinese Communists. But only Philip Jaffe, editor of Amerasia, and Emmanuel Larsen, a government employee, were convicted of any offense, and their convictions were merely for unauthorized possession of government documents. Klehr and Radosh are the first researchers to have obtained the FBI files on the Amerasia case, including transcripts of wiretaps on the telephones, homes, and hotel rooms of the suspects, and they use this material to re-create the actual words and actions of the defendants.