Exodus may be a film that you forgot about a long time ago – or that you haven’t even heard about. If either is the case, you might want to take another look. The film has more socio-political significance than simply the establishment of Israel narrative or its darker and more critical discourse about the horrors of British Colonialism. Not only was it the first film to allow screenwriter Dalton Trumbo to have an actual screen credit after the Hollywood Blacklist, but it was also the first film to actively hire two formerly blacklisted writers.

Want to watch Exodus again – or for the first time? Take a look at the trailer below and then stream for $3.99 on Apple TV. Don’t want to pay?  Last I checked, you could stream it for free (with ads) on Amazon Prime.

What About Kurt Douglas?

If you’re a rabid movie buff, you may have heard that it was Kirk Douglas, a legend of the golden age of Hollywood, who played an instrumental role in helping end the Hollywood blacklist. But, according to Beverly Cinema, this would be wrong. They say:

There is no argument that Kirk Douglas was a badass and he did make certain that Trumbo got billing. But one cannot dispute history and cold hard facts. It was Otto Preminger with his balls of steel that insisted that Dalton Trumbo write Exodus. While Spartacus was released 2 months before Preminger’s beautiful Panavision work, the fight for Trumbo’s credit and billing went on with the United Artists Production before Douglas and co. got to it. Sorry, Kirk!

Haven’t seen the Roman spectacle Spartacus? The trailer is below. It’s $3.99 on Amazon Prime Video and it’s also on iTunes.

Dalton Trumbo

Trumbo, you might remember, was a member of the Hollywood Ten, a group of writers and directors cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. You can read more about Trumbo in Witch Hunts, a Cold War Studies post.

A January 20, 1960, article, headlined Movie Maker Hires Blacklisted Writer, appeared on the front page of The New York Times, publicizing Preminger’s announcement that blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo would receive full credit for the script of his film, Exodus.  According to The Times, this  was “the first open defiance by a producer-director of Hollywood’s ‘blacklist.'” (1)

Breaking the Blacklist

As discussed above, Trumbo was involved in two films in 1960, Spartacus, which came out in October, and Exodus, directed by Preminger and released in December. Thus, at the end of 1960, Trumbo’s name was on the screen twice for two hugely successful films. This feat provoked a slow weakening of the blacklist, but blacklistees returned to work in a trickle, not a wave.

As you’ve probably guessed, there was competition for which film would be the “first” to break the blacklist by hiring Trumbo. In actuality, producer and director Otto Preminger hired Dalton Trumbo to adapt the screen play for Exodus before he was hired for Spartacus.

Preminger announced his decision first and Douglas then followed. Spartacus was released first, on October 19, 1960. Exodus was released a month later, on December 20th.

If you like podcasts you will want to check this out. The site has lots of movie photos and a selected list of resources also.

Exodus: The 1960 Movie

Not interested in Hollywood and politics or behind the screen intrigue? Just want to know about the story of Israel and its founding? Well, Exodus is a terrific movie, but it’s not very factual. The film, based on the novel by Leon Uris, is a fictionalized recounting of the founding of Israel starring Paul Newman.

For a full synopsis of the movie click here. Meanwhile here are five  interesting facts from IMDb:

• Paul Newman took the part of Ari Ben Canaan in honor of this father who was Jewish.
• Sal Mineo actively sought the role of Dov Landau despite being told that he didn’t “look Jewish.”
• When the filmmakers bought the ship that they used as the refugee ship, the ship’s owners were so thrilled that they delivered the ship with a fresh coat of paint. Since the ship was supposed to look old, fake rust had to be painted on.
• The movie has been credited with garnering support for Zionism and the state of Israel in the United States.
• There are important historical differences between the actual Exodus 1947 ship and the ship as presented in the novel by Leon Uris and in the movie.

Exodus, the movie and the novel, are sheer fiction. If you’re interested in the factual information about the founding of Israel you can refer to the following posts on Cold War Studies:

Check out Part I of the Palestine-Israel Timeline here.

Check out Part 2 of the Palestine-Israel Timeline here.

Check out Part 3 of the Palestine-Israel Timeline here.

Check out Part 4 of the Palestine-Israel Timeline here.

Check out Part 5 of the Palestine-Israel Timeline here.

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1.  Exodus was the first film to bear Trumbo’s name since Emergency Wedding in 1950. His uncredited work won two Academy Awards for Best Story: for Roman Holiday (1953), which was presented to a “front” writer, and Best Original Screenplay forThe Brave One (1956), which was awarded to a pseudonym used by Trumbo, Robert Rich. The Academy finally awarded Trumbo his Oscar for The Brave One on May 2, 1975. He was given full credit by the Writers’ Guild for Roman Holiday in 2011, nearly 60 years after the fact.

Right before Thanksgiving in 1959 the United States was hit with a different kind of Red Scare. Primed for panic and paranoia by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red baiting taunts, Americans reacted anxiously when told that the cranberries they expected to serve with their Thanksgiving turkeys might be contaminated by a chemical weed killer known to cause cancer in animals.

What made things worse was the fact that the danger was so close to home, lurking in plain sight on supermarket shelves and in family kitchens! No red berry was safe.

Americans were told that every kind of cranberry product could be affected whether sauce or relish, spiced or sugared, chunky or jelled, room temperature or chilled, homemade or store bought.

The announcement was made by Arthur S. Flemming, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, at one of his regular weekly press conferences. He said:

The Food and Drug Administration [FDA] today urged that no further sales be made of cranberries and cranberry products produced in Washington and Oregon in 1958 and 1959 because of their possible contamination by a chemical weed killer, aminotriazole, which causes cancer in the thyroid of rats when it is contained in their diet, until the cranberry industry has submitted a workable plan to separate the contaminated berries from the uncontaminated.

Talk about a berry bomb.

For Cranberry Bog Owners, the date of Secretary Flemming’s announcement, November 9, 1959, became a “Red Monday,” dumping the industry’s biggest annual sales period into the trash heap and threatening to destroy the industry’s existence.

The cranberry industry was under attack at its busiest time of the year. At the Ocean Spray Cranberry Company in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. its president George C.P. Olsson said:

the Secretary’s announcement was ill-informed and ill-advised . . . his intentions are a cranberry witch-hunt.

A San Francisco Chronicle headline blared “A Nation Without Cranberry Sauce.”

The cranberry industry shouldn’t have been surprised, however. They had been warned.

Three years earlier the chemical in question had been approved by the Agricultural Department for the purpose of killing invasive plants that threatened to choke off the cranberry plants. This approval, though, was based on the condition that the chemical be used only after the harvesting of berries, before any fruit began to develop. Otherwise, it might find its way into the edible berries.

These instructions were strictly outlined by the government and widely and specifically disseminated in warning and educational newsletters and reports by Ocean Spray and other industry leaders to Bog Owners.

Ocean Spray had warned its collective of bog owners in a letter dated September 18, 1959. The letter stated that no berries that had been treated with the weed killer after that date would be accepted. It even required bog owners to agree to certify their berries, punishable as perjury if violated. However, when the FDA began testing cranberries for the traces of the weed killer a month later, they found it in berries shipped from Washington and Oregon.

According to Flemming, nobody knew the degree to which the national crops were potentially contaminated. Also, nobody could instruct the public on how to buy “safe” cranberries. Consequently, food chains cancelled all orders of cranberries. Cans of cranberry jelly and jars of cranberry relish were returned to the warehouse, and hundreds of millions of cranberries were seized, quarantined, and destroyed.

Fleming instructed housewives thusly:

If unsure where the cranberries came from, to be on the safe side, she doesn’t buy.

The states also reacted:

Nevada declared it illegal for any supermarket grocery store and corner mom and pop shop within its borders to carry any cranberry products.

Random dragnets were conducted by a network of Ohio, New York, California, and Michigan health board food officials.

The Governor of Oregon immediately ordered that not even one can of cranberry jelly remain on the commissary shelves of all state prisons, fearful that incarcerated men might riot on Thanksgiving if served the poisonous relish.

Individuals and the hospitality industry also panicked:

An irate father in Chicago phoned his daughter’s school board president when he found out that the school had served a spoonful of the tainted stuff in each school lunch.

A hysterical woman in Mobile, Alabama, called an ambulance after washing cranberries to make her family’s chutney recipe.

A Boston beatnik poet scribbled cranberry notations on a coffee shop blackboard and got his picture in Life Magazine.

Iowa church ladies were warned from the pulpit to wear rubber gloves and face masks if they had to touch the berries.

Restaurants crossed “cranberry sauce” off their menus, and hotels assured the public that they would not serve the berries.

Politicians pontificated through word and action:

Republican Vice President Nixon ate four heaping helpings of cranberry sauce  in front of newsmen while campaigning in Wisconsin.

Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy drank a tall glass of cranberry juice and then asked for a second one. Importantly — as I’m sure you remember — he was from Massachusetts — Land of the Cranberry.

Legislators jumped into the fray:

Dr. Boyd Shaffer, a member of American Cyanamid’s Test Team, was called to testify before Congress. He said:

“Why, it would be impossible to expose humans to aminotriazole in amounts that would be toxic, and besides there was no proof that it caused cancer in people.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Shaffer had credibility issues since Cyanamid was the chemical company that invented the weed killer. But he went on to describe the weed in detail. It was called “panic grass” he said.

Meanwhile, a one hit wonder Cranberry Blues made the pop music charts.

As the Cranberry Crisis lengthened, Ocean Spray asked the administration to declare s state of emergency in the five leading cranberry states: Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. And reporters began coming up with headlines connecting Cranberry, Communism, and Cancer as “red zones.”

On November 19, a plan was implemented for the immediate testing of fresh cranberries. But it was too late to save the season from a 20% decrease in cranberry sales.

Secretary Flemming finally made a concession, posing for a photo op with his wife passing him a tray of cranberry sauce.

As for the White House, the press office had assured reporters that the President and Mrs. Eisenhower would be eating some of the nationally “approved” cranberry sauce at the White House Thanksgiving dinner table.

Everyone believed it until a dinner guest emerged from the meal and let it slip that the First Lady had insisted that applesauce, not cranberry sauce, be served.

In the end, the US government offered subsidies for the unsold cranberries which were tested and found to have no pesticide residue. In fact, after the holidays the government announced that 99% of the nation’s cranberry crop had not at all been contaminated.

In an omen of things to come, the San Francisco Chronicle detailed in its article titled “A Nation Without Cranberry Sauce!:”

“One housewife whom we know says she dumped her prepared cranberry jellies into the garbage can, then sat down and smoked a cigarette in relief at having just been saved from cancer.”

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Featured Photograph: Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism

Kitchen Photograph: Ethan on Flickr

Ocean Spray Photograph: Brent Danley on Flickr

Quietly and without fanfare, President Trump signed an executive order last week that, to me, is eerily reminiscent of the profiling that was common place during the Red Scare of the early Cold War years.

The order is titled Executive Order on Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service, and it gives Trump the power to purge thousands of federal workers whose job protections have allowed them to remain apolitical over the past four years. (If you’d like to learn more about the executive order and its potential impact, you can just do a ‘google’ search.)

The administration says it’s all about getting rid of “poor performers.”  However, the workers targeted tend to include most of the non-partisan experts — scientists, doctors, lawyers, economists — whose work is supposed to be done in a way that is fact-driven and devoid of politics.

Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. I know the Blacklist is on my mind because I just attended a “zoom” lecture on Broadway and the Blacklist, a history of the impact of the blacklist on New York theater by K. Kevyne Baar. Still, the current environment and the recent executive order remind me of all the talk about commies in the State Department back in the day. (If you’d like to know more about that, check out the post titled Witch Hunts.)

I’ve always been interested in the theater but, before this summer, I knew a lot more about blacklisting in Hollywood and on television than on the Great White Way. Then I read a fiction book titled The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis.

Pre publication advertising for The Chelsea Girls led me to believe that it was about the Cold War. I think that’s a stretch. It’s really fairly light reading about a friendship between two women that spans the decades, beginning in World War II.

The story about how the two girls got caught up in the Cold War is just one of several. Certainly it’s not central even though there is a role for Richard Nixon as a Congressman on the House Un American Activities Committee, and for Roy Cohn as investigator for Senator Joseph McCarthy. (Cohn is perhaps best known now for his role as Donald Trump’s lawyer.)

Even though the author asserts “I hewed closely to the stories of several blacklisted artists,” Davis’ work raises enough questions that a more scholarly history titled Broadway and the Blacklist is quite welcome.

Barr brings a lot to the table. She’s a former professional stage manager who also worked as an archivist for NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives.

Here are  5 takeaways from her recent talk at NYU:

• There was no blacklist on Broadway. The theater community — unions as well as management — wouldn’t capitulate to pressure from HUAC  — the House Un American Activities Committee.  You can learn more about HUAC here.
• People who couldn’t work in Hollywood were able to work in  New York theater.  Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller are good examples.
• Arthur Miller wrote his play The Crucible in response to being accused of being a communist sympathizer in the 1950s.  You can read what he has to say about it here. You can rent or buy The Crucible on Amazon. The last time I checked it was also available on You Tube.
• New York theater and the Hollywood film industry differed in two ways:
  The theater wasn’t dependent on advertising. Hollywood was.
  The New York audience kept coming!

Lastly, just think about this: What if the film industry had just said “we don’t care?”

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Photograph courtesy of https://newyorktheater.me.

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Have you watched the movie Trumbo? If you haven’t, stop reading now and start streaming. The film tells the story of Dalton Trumbo, a Hollywood screenwriter.

In 1947, Trumbo is at the top of the heap. His lot in life changes suddenly, though, when he is called to testify before the US Congress. Specifically, he and nine others — the Hollywood Ten — undergo a grilling by the House Un American Activities Committee.

“Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” he is asked.

Trumbo refuses to answer and, on November 24, 1947, a day after his testimony, he and the rest of the Ten are indicted for Contempt of Congress, and fired from their jobs.

On June 13, 1948, the Ten learn that their convictions have been upheld by the US Circuit Court of Appeals. Eight of them, including Trumbo, serve one year in prison. Each is assessed a fine of $1,000, and all are blacklisted upon their release. In other words, they aren’t able to work.

Now I’m not suggesting that you watch Trumbo because it’s 100% historically accurate. In fact, some critics have attacked the film.

Godfrey Cheshire of the Roger Ebert Journal wrote that Trumbo is ‘another of those simplistic, made-to-order films about the Hollywood blacklist in which the blacklisted movie folks are all innocent, in every conceivable way.’

Cheshire decried the film’s insinuation that Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities created the Hollywood blacklist. In reality, the blacklist was created by Hollywood studio chiefs. Cheshire also wrote that the film defended international communism: ‘it invites us to see the Communist Party USA as just another political party rather than as the domestic instrument of a hostile and ultra-murderous foreign tyranny.’

Since this film is fairly recent — it had its world premiere in 2015 — the above criticism gives you an idea of the schism over communism and the Red Scare that continues to this day. But before I talk about that, let’s go into a little more detail about what happened in the 1950s, and the contentious atmosphere that you can pick up on simply by watching the movie Trumbo.

Fear of communism was already fairly entrenched when Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) came on the scene on February 8, 1950. A former Marine tail-gunner, he gave a now infamous speech to the Women’s Republican Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. In the speech, he charged that

The State Department ‘is thoroughly infested with Communists’.

He claimed that he had a list of 205 employees of the State Department who are either “card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party.”

The next day, on February 9, he gave a similar speech in Salt Lake City, lowering the number of State Department commies to 57. Later, he explains that this is the number he meant all along.

As if Americans hadn’t been scared enough, things now went straight downhill. McCarthy was on a rampage, leaving thousands of ruined lives in his wake. In April 1953, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Government Operations opened for business under McCarthy’s leadership. People — especially the press — muttered under their breath about the tyrant. But nobody spoke out.

Finally, four years after McCarthy started his tirade, on March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow, the popular CBS newscaster, had had enough. His TV series See It Now featured a “Report on Senator McCarthy.” According to the book Red Scared!, the program

includes clips of the pugnacious Red-baiter belching, picking his nose, and bullying witnesses while apparently in his cups.

“Upon what meat does Senator McCarthy feed?” Murrow asked.

The show was a smash hit and a follow-up critique of McCarthy aired on CBS the following week.

On April 8, 1954, McCarthy appeared on See It Now to respond. And on April 24, US Army vs. Senator Jos. McCarthy hearings commence and are carried live. Americans watch as “Tail-Gunner Joe” flames-out before the skilled probing of Army counsel Joseph Welch. By the time the hearings conclude on June 17, “McCarthy’s career is as good as over.”

“Just a piece of history,” you might say.

“Doesn’t matter now. The US won the Cold War and the ‘commies’ are toast.”

Well, not so fast. Fairly recently The Huffington Post printed an article titled “The Media is On the Edge of a Murrow Moment” where they argue that Donald Trump’s inflammatory speech and unpopular policy proposals take us back to McCarthy’s witch hunt days.They argue:

Strangely, or perhaps not, Trump’s connection to McCarthy is more than metaphorical. (Indeed, the head of the Edward R. Murrow Center said Murrow would skewer Trump were he around today,)

Does this mean that the same forces of intolerance are around today as in the early 1950s? That we’ve just given them a new name? That instead of fighting commies, we’re fighting Muslims and Mexicans?

Some answer, of course. And they point to Trump’s close relationship to Senator McCarthy’s right hand man, the lawyer Roy Cohn, a close adviser to Donald Trump. In fact, Cohn was “the Donald’s” lawyer for 13 years. In a June 20, 2016 article, The New York Times says:

Decades later, Mr. Cohn’s influence on Mr. Trump is unmistakable. Mr. Trump’s wrecking ball of a presidential bid — the gleeful smearing of his opponents, the embracing of bluster as brand — has been a Roy Cohn number on a grand scale. Mr. Trump’s response to the Orlando massacre, with his ominous warnings of a terrorist attack that could wipe out the country and his conspiratorial suggestions of a Muslim fifth column in the United States, seemed to have been ripped straight out of the Cohn playbook.

Is it a stretch to equate the two? Well, here’s one more movie reference for you. Have you seen George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck?

He plays Edward R. Murrow, and, in a memorable scene, he repeats the closing remarks in Murrow’s pivotal newscast. You can see it now in the clip below.

What do you think? Is this the role that the media plays in today’s world? Just substitute Trump for McCarthy and see what you think. And, by the way, why don’t we have a newscaster with Murrow’s gravitas anymore?

Sandwiched between the Great Depression and the US entry into World War II, the 1939 World’s Fair opened in Queens, New York, on April 30, 1939. The celebration was so ambitious that a new bridge — the Bronx-Whitestone — and a new subway line were added to New York City’s infrastructure.

Opening day was full of symbolism, as the Fair’s Grand Opening was held on the 150th birthday of George Washington’s inauguration. Never mind that the Sunday was sweltering. Hordes of visitors showed up to see the fair’s pavilions, representing many of the world’s nations — sixty to be exact. Each creation was its own small world complete with exhibits, artifacts, food, and performances.

Postcard of George Washington at the 1939 World’s Fair

Walt Disney liked the concept so much that he modeled EPCOT on it.

He said:

The presence of sixty foreign participants makes the Fair a true parliament of the world. Here the peoples of the world unite in amity and understanding, impelled by a friendly rivalry and working toward a common purpose: to set forth the achievements of today and their contributions to the ‘World of Tomorrow’.

Unfortunately it didn’t take long for these friendly rivalries to erupt into world war. But on the Fair’s opening day, all was well.

At the center of it all were the 700-foot Trylon and 200-foot Perisphere, the symbols of the fair. The visitors loved them, referring to them as the spike and the ball.

Spike and Ball at the 1939 World’s Fair

Inside the 16-story Perisphere, in an auditorium the size of Radio City Music Hall, thousands rode on two moving balconies and looked down on Democracy, a mammoth model of the city of tomorrow — a city of broad streets, many parks, and large buildings.

America’s largest corporations promoted their newest and most advanced products. Westinghouse even made a robot named Electro, who smoked cigarettes, counted on his fingers, and swept the house.

“Hard to top that,” you might think. “Well, guess again.”

Not to be outdone, the Soviets unveiled a 79-foot tall statue of “Joe the Worker.” Joe was made of stainless steel, and spent his days guarding the entrance to the Soviet Union’s pavilion. Also known as “Big Joe” or “working Joe,” the statue was mounted on a 188-foot pedestal, increasing his height substantially. To make his presence even more in your face, he held an illuminated Red Star, “the symbol of communism.” According to newspaper reports, Joe’s outstretched hand “could be seen for miles.”

Joe The Worker

The Soviet pavilion itself was massive. In fact, they had two pavilions.

One was a flamboyant display of life and achievement in the Soviet Union designed to promote tourism and to show the increased cooperation with the West that was evident in the 1930s. The other was an Arctic Pavilion, dedicated to Soviet achievements in the Arctic.

Actually the Russians had outspent the Americans on the fair — $4 million to $3 million.The facades of their building were decorated with eleven large panels representing the eleven Soviet Republics. Inside, there were paintings and sculptures by leading Soviet artists, and handicrafts from Central Asia and the Caucasus — wood carvings, lacquer work, embroidery, and hand woven carpets and rugs. Soviet films were playing, and there were performances by the Red Army Ensemble of Singers, Dancers and Musicians. They even had a reproduction of one of the stations in Moscow’s new “palace subway,” and a replica of the Palace of Soviets constructed in semiprecious stones.

Soviet Pavillion at the 1939 World’s Fair

Hungry? Thirsty? Visitors could taste Soviet food and wine while viewing an “Intertourist Map of the Soviet Union” that featured sample travel itineraries throughout the USSR.. They also distributed informational brochures on specific destinations like Sochi. The brochure boasts:

The Caucasian shores of the Black Sea, that blissful sunny corner of the globe, has always enticed the traveler with the incomparable beauty of its scenery and the wonderful healing power of its climate . . . . This lovely resort stretches for 25 kilometers along the sea coast. Magnificent sanatoria, rest-homes, clinics, and hotels nestle amid . . . fine bathing places and sports stations.

As if this wasn’t enough, the Soviets went a step further. As mentioned above, they had a separate Arctic Pavilion, close to the main Pavilion, that was dedicated to Soviet Achievements in the Arctic. Outside, there was the airplane that Valery Chkalov flew when he made the first transpolar flight from Washington to Vancouver, Washington. Inside, visitors could see the actual hut and equipment used by the Papanin Expedition, which made scientific observations for nine months on the North Pole ice flow.

According to fair documents:

On the ceiling, on an illuminated map, the routes of the historic transpolar flights of Chkalov and Gromov, the recent flight of Kokkinaki from Moscow to America, and the route of the Papanin drift are shown. Additional exhibits record other heroic episodes and the vast scientific, industrial, and cultural progress in the Soviet Arctic.

The Soviet displays were among the most popular destinations at the fair. But they didn’t triumph for long. They earned a lot of revenue for the fair, but they also earned a lot of displeasure from members of the public who considered the flamboyant structure to be politically insulting to the host country.

Remember “Joe the Worker?” Reaction to him is a good example of what was going on.

Complaints were lodged that Joe was taller than the American flag that flew over the fairground so fair organizers increased the height of the flag. Still, the complaints continued.

Talk about one upsmanship!

Towering Joe the Worker

Tension between pro Soviet and anti Soviet fairgoers got a lot worse in September of 1939 when Germany launched an invasion of Poland, The Polish contingent shrouded its display in black, and the status of the Russian Pavilion came into question.

Stalin and Hitler had signed a non-aggression pact just a month before the invasion, an action that many said made the Soviets complicit in the events that triggered the Second World War.

It wasn’t long before the US State Department received a telegram from the US Embassy in Moscow stating that

the government of the Soviet Union does not intend to participate in the NY World’s Fair of 1940.

The Soviets were too busy, I guess, because at this time, they were staging an invasion of Finland.

Soon the USSR Pavilion disappeared from the Fair. Stalin’s bust was taken down, the transpolar plane was dismantled, and “Joe the worker” was taken apart piece by piece and loaded on a ship headed back to the Soviet Union where he would be reconstructed. The site was taken over by a space called the “American Common.”

OH!

After a short period of time, cooperation between Germany and the USSR began to deteriorate. The Soviet Union switched sides and became an ally of United States. But the two never really trusted each other and as soon as the war was over a new — and even more intense — Red Scare was on the horizon.

Our new issue of Cold War Magazine is all about the Red Scare — America’s fear of communism run rampant! Americans were afraid. And there were lots of scare tactics! Click here to go straight to the magazine.

During the First Red Scare, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, Americans were so frightened of “commies” that President Wilson committed arms and troops to a war against Bolshevism abroad. At the same time, “America First” Fanatics bolstered the level of anti-Communist propaganda at home. BTW, have you heard that term lately? Don’t miss our article on The First Red Scare.

There was a brief breather from running Red Scared between the two world wars. But it didn’t last for long. You can read all about that in our article titled What Red Scare?.

Want a brief overview? Not of the real Soviet Menace which threatened the world with nuclear destruction. We’re talking instead about anti-Communist propaganda run amok, scaring Americans into thinking that their world could end in a heartbeat — and with very little warning. Want to know more? Check out A Superficial History of the Red Scare.

Scare tactics have been around forever, I guess, but they seem especially timely now that the US is in the midst of an extremely ugly American election season. Witch Hunts is all about Joe McCarthy and Donald J. Trump. Are the same forces of intolerance around now as in the 1950s? Some think just the name has changed and that instead of fighting “commies” we’re targeting Muslims and Mexicans. Read Witch Hunts and then decide. Is it a stretch to equate the two?

In 1947, Look Magazine published an article titled How to Identify an American Communist. We take a second look. Do we really want to start being so suspicious again?

Finally, the issue ends with a baker’s dozen of Red Scare Movies. Lots to keep you entertained during the Dog Days of Summer.

Hope you enjoy the issue. To read, share, or download just click the image below.

Let us know what you think!