Anti-Communist Concerns

• A greater effort needed to be taken to thwart communist subversion
• Release of Verona viles gave evidence that Hiss and others had passed information to the Soviets
• At the same time, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI was drawing up his own list of alleged subversives, initiating surveillance, and accumulating dossiers
• 1952: Congress passed the McCarran-Walter Act which placed restrictions on immigration from outside northern and western Europe and on the entry of anyone suspected of being a national security threat
• Homosexuals were singled out because many gay activists had been members of the Communist party and it was widely believed that homosexuals could be more easily blackmailed by Soviet agents
• Soviet nuclear tests added to Americans' fears
• People wondered how the Soviets had developed A-bomb by 1949
• 1950: Britain shared info on a spy ring operating in the U.S.
• Soon 2 CPUSA members - Julius and Ethel Rosenburg - and others were arrested
• Rosenburgs executed as spies in 1953 - Julius for spying, Ethel for being an accomplice
• McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950: Given the state of affairs, by 1952 the Truman administration was the target of congressional anti-communist activism
• McCarran Act: authorized detention, during any national emergency, of alleged subversives in special camps, and created the Subversive Activities Control Board. Passed over Truman's veto but never put into action
• Senator Joseph McCarthy was Truman's prime accuser. He charged in 1950 that communists were at work in Truman's State Department and put the Truman administration on the defensive.
• McCarthy rarely tried to substantiate the charges and produced no credible evidence
• Despite McCarthy's recklessness, influential people tolerated and even supported him.
• Senators Robert Taft and Kenneth Wherry welcomed McCarthy's attacks on Democrats
• As head of a special Senate subcommittee on investigation, McCarthy had broad subpoena power and legal immunity from libel suits
• Bullied witnesses and allowed exaggerated testimony
• McCarthy went too far when he attacked the U.S. army
• 1954: Americans watched 35 days of televised hearings
• McCarthy did himself in when he displayed a mean streak and a good deal of irresponsibility
• A few months later the Senate formally condemned McCarthy for "conduct unbecoming a member"
• Truman's Fair Deal
• 1946: Debate sprung up over the government's responsibility to provide jobs. A bill called the Full Employment Act was drafted, and would have increased government spending and allowed Washington to intervene in the job market
• The law that did pass, the Employment Act of 1946, called for maximum (not full) employment and acknowledged private enterprises as opposed to the government for providing jobs
• Created Council of Economic Advisors to help formulate long-range economic policies to ensure steady economic growth
• Fair Deal
• Convinced of a future marked by constant economic growth, Truman unveiled the Fair Deal in his 1949 inaugural address. Encompassed:
• extension of social security and minimum wage laws
• Enactment of Democrat-sponsored civil rights
• Repealed Taft-Haftley Act
• Secretary of Agriculture called for government subsidies
• Called for more public housing
• GI Bill (Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944) provided large program of benefits for several million men and 40,000 women who served in WWII
• Included financial assistance for college and job training for veterans; preferential treatment for government jobs; generous terms on loans; care at veterans' hospitals
• Veterans Readjustment Act of 1952 extended GI Bill to Korean War veterans
• These laws were popular in Congress
• Social security programs expanded, higher benefits levels, coverage of 10 million more people, mainly famers
• Much of Fair Deal never enacted; lack of funding, plans for national health care failed, public housing only modestly supported