America’s Fear of Communism: The Events that Paved The Way in Influencing America

Fear is a dangerous state of mind that can consume anyone and anything. Fear has the capacity to drive people to take extreme actions in attempts to eradicate the perceived threat at the root of their fear. The Cold War Era thrived on the western world’s fear of Communism. The fear of Communism manifested into hatred and violence, which permeated into influencing major aspects of the 20th century. Through the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), implications of McCarthyism and the development of Kennan’s Containment strategy, America and its allies created more geopolitical problems by letting their own fear influenced foreign policy.

At the end of the Second World War two major political opposites emerged. These being America and the Soviet Union. These opposing powers also had radically different views on how a country should be governed. The Soviet Union and its allies were communist countries where as america and its allies were democratic. The war left many European countries economically and politically in shambles thus susceptible to Soviet Communism. The thought of Communism spreading to more parts of Europe sent fear down the backs of many democratic politicians. As a result of this America got heavily involved in European politics. In 1947 Britain approved Harry S. Truman, the president of the United States. Britain had been providing aid to Greece in their civil war against the Greek Communist party. Truman felt an obligation to provide aid to Greece to prevent the further spread of Communism in Europe. He asked the Senate to provide aid to both Turkey and Greece in the form of financial aid as well as military personnel and equipment. Truman stated in his speech to the Senate that “the seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died. We must keep that hope alive.(” Truman believed that if America would not provide this aid they would be letting innocent people lose their freedom to the communist resim. This became known as the Truman Doctrine, it was one of the first steps the democratic world took to attempt to extinguish the growing flame of Communism.

The implication of the Truman Doctrine yielded great improvements in both Turkey and Greese. Both countries were able to avoid falling to Communist rule. A year later in 1948 the Marshall Plan was introduced. The Marshall Plan was unlike the Truman Doctrine as it was not “against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the existence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist”(Marshall). This financial aid was offered to any european country in need regardless if they were comunist or democratic. According to british historian Paul Kennady the Marshall Plan was a strategic way for the americans to promote that democracy was a better way to govern a country. The Soviet Union caught on to the American’s plans and eugred small European countries that they had ties to not to take the aid. The Marshall Plan like its predecessor the Truman Doctrine both produced great benefits in economically rebuilding Europe as well as laying the groundwork for further containment of the Communist resim dominating eastern Europe.

With the Marshall Plan working extremely well Europe was starting to become at ease believing that the Communist infestation was at bay. This did not last long as the Soviet Union began taking actions against America and its allies. On June 2, 1948, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia converting the country from a democratic state to communist one. Prior to the communist takeover Czechoslovakia had been attempting to use aid from the Marshall Plan to rebuild after the war. When the Soviet Union took over it spiked worries Amongst the democratic powerhouses of the world. Only a few weeks later the Soviet Union took another alarming action. This one detectly against America and its allies. They cut off food supply to Berlin. Berlin is located in the eastern part of Germany which at the time was ran buy the Soviet Union. Western Germany was ran collectively by the allies but because Berlin was the largest city the allies and the soviets came to an agreement to also split Berlin into a west and east side. This allowed West Germany to build a single highway to gain access to West Berlin, but on June 24th 1948 access to the west side of Berlin was cut off. This prevented any food from accessing West Berlin. This forced the allies to airlift food to West Berlin for almost a year. The Berlin Blockade as it had become known has been hailed by historians as one of the first events in the Cold War. These two seemingly violent events that happened merely weeks apart drove the allies into a frenzy of fear. This fear led them to take further action in less diplomatic and peaceful ways.

On April 4th 1949 the western nations came together in Washington DC to form what became the backbone of western European politics and military proceedings for the following forty years. It was the of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO was developed for the military protection of the western powers against communism. According to Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay NATO was created “keep the soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” this military alliance was a way to provide protection from the threat of communism. The original members of NATO were Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United States. NATO did militarily what the marshall plan did economically for europe. This military movement was mainly led by the United States and it sought to halt further Communist expansion in europe.

With political tensions rising in europe the fear of communism was spreading rapidly through everyday americans. Starting in January 1950, a senator by the name of Joseph McCarthy came into the public eye. He capitalized on the collective fear and paranoia of communists and claimed that only he could save America from Russian spies. Because of the tense political atmosphere and the Cold War, his claims were taken seriously. This led to him releasing a list in february 1950 of 205 names in the us state department that he believed were members of the communist party. He later reduced his list down to only fifty seven names. Despite the list being only fifty seven name thousands of people were called to the stand to testify. McCarthy’s accusations were so intimidating that few people dared to speak out against him in fear of being accused of having communist connections. He also portrayed Truman as a dangerous Liberal and McCarthy's campaign ultimately helped the Republican candidate, Dwight Eisihower, win the presidential election in 1952. He continued his Communist witch hunt even after Eisenhower came to office. In October of 1953 McCarthy began investigating the united states army. Attempts were made by McCarthy to discredit Robert Stevens, the Secretary of the Army as he claimed the United States army was too soft on Communism. Eisenhower realized that McCarthy had gone too far and it was time for his Communist witch hunt to come to an end. On December 2, 1954, the Senate formally condemned him on a vote of 67 to 22. Although he did not lose his job he lost most of his power within the Senate. Joseph McCarthy never had enough proof to charge any of the people he interrogated with treason but despite that the fear he stirred up in American’s did have a lasting effect. More than 2000 government workers lost their job because of his investigations. McCarthy’s investigations left American’s with this looming fear of Communism that made citizens push for more aggressive actions against Communism in the years that followed.

At the end of the second world war the American government knew that the Soviet Union was a growing threat. Few people in the west had experience with the Soviet so it was difficult to understand their motives and strategies. George F. Kennan was an American diplomat living in the Soviet Union at the end of the war. He had first hand observations and experiences with the Soviets. He wrote an 8000 word telegram to the United States defence department. This famously became known as the “long telegram” and it earned him the reputation as the government's foremost Soviet expert. He abruptly transitioned from a Soviet diplomat into a Cold War strategist. In 1947 he unveiled his idea of the Containment strategy in the famous journal “forgin affairs” under the name Mr.X. Keenan stated that “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” He believed that if American forign policy was rooted in non-confrontational actions that were enough to keep Communism inside the Soviet Union alone and restore democratic freedom to the rest of Europe. According to John Lewis Gaddis who is an American historian and a preeminent scholar of the Cold War, the idea of the Containment policy sparked a shift in american policy. “The new strategy manifested itself into the Truman Doctorite” as well into the Marshall Plan (22). Keenan’s containment strategy changed American forgin policy radically. It was as used thought the Cold War era, one of the most notable times would be during the Korean war.

When Japan surrendered on September 2nd 1945 it lost all of its colonies. Similarly to Germany the allies and the soviets spilt Korea. Korea at the time did not have their own government so the Soviet Union took care of the north and the allies the south. The split happened hastily, the allies were more focused on dismembering Japan opposed to aiding Korea. The split was supposed to be a temporary way to transition Korea into governing themselves. Over the next few years the commumist party in North Korea run by Kim ll-Sung was growing rapidly. The UN saw that the south and north were unable to come to an agreement on how to govern Korea, so the UN proposed that South Korea became its own sovereign nation. This sparked outrage in the North korean communists. Tensions continued to build until finally north Korea with direct permission from the Soviet Union, attacked across the 38th parallel in June 1950 taking South Korea's capital of Seoul.

Truman was initially hesitant to engage in combat but also feared that South Korea may fall to Communism as well. He sent army general Douglas MacArthur to Korea to protect the citizens and Americans living there. During this time as well, Truman was receiving pressure from tougher communist haters such as McCarthy. They were pushing Truman to be more aggressive in his choices regarding forign policy in East Asia. They viewed that Truman was being too soft on the Soviet Union. Eventually, Truman gave in allowing MacArthur to attack. Prior to this Truman voiced his concerns regarding China getting involved. MacAuther went on with his attack on september 14th 1950 in Inchon, then two weeks later retaking Seoul. By October the United States as well as some NATO troops made it all the way to North Korean capital of Pyongyang. As Truman feared China joined the war in October 1950, sent troops to North Korea. Not much progress was being made, so in April 1951 MacArthur asked for permission to bomb communist China. Truman blatantly refused MacArthur's request, leading to a large public dispute. On April 11, 1951, Truman removed MacArthur from his command for insubordination and to prevent the Korean war from building into a larger conflict. The war dragged on for almost another two years. With the American's aggressive involvement in the Korean War they had spent roughly 50 million dollars sent over 2 million men and ultimately lost 54,000 of those men. The Korean War did not really benefit Korea in anyway. The war let Korea a bigger mess than before the war happened. America and NATO were so focused on stopping the spread of Communist they did not stop and think about what Korea needed. In fact, it can be argued that America and NATO had no place in meadling in Korean politics but did so based on their own fear of the ideology.

The clashing opinions between the Soviet Union and the United States left two major world powerhouses with attempts to thwart the opposition. Communism went against everything America stood for as a nation, because of this they did everything in there power to stop the spread of Communism. This led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and right wing anti-Communists such as McCarthy fueled this fear. As well the development of Containment strategy that was later used in Korea. The alarm of spreading Communism drove America spent an incredible amount of money and become involved heavily in many for gin issues that did not involve them.