Memories of the Witch-Hunts

Me: What is your first memory of the Cold War? When did it intrude upon your life?

Dad: My first memory of the Cold War was when hearing about the Communist witch-hunts sponsored by senator Joseph McCarthy. He would bring people in front of the House UN-American Activities Committee and grill them to find Russian sympathizers in the US, and discover people in the US who had communist ideals. I saw newsreels of the hearings. It was frightening. Investigating threats of subversion or propaganda

Me: Did they torture them?

Dad: No, just investigations in a courtroom.

Me: Did they condemn any of the people you saw on the tapes?

Dad: Some of the people lost their jobs, and were publicly humiliated. Some people were black listed even though many of them were not communists. To me it was a form of domestic terrorism. He accused people of pro-soviet subversion and propaganda.

Me: Any racial profiling involved?

Dad: I was too young to understand it. Those hearings were in front of the press and the whole world was watching people being accused of being anti-American.

Me: What kind of emotions were involved?

Dad: Constant rivalry. Everyone was afraid they were going to bomb us, or that we would bomb them. It got so bad that anyone who believed in liberal politics could be accused of being a soviet communist. We were basically at war with another country even though we weren’t at war, or at least trying to avert a war.

Note: After talking to my dad, I did a little research of my own, and discovered that Joseph McCarthy had no direct involvement with the anti-communist investigations. It was actually chaired by John W. McCormack, Samuel Dickstein, and Martin Dies Jr.