{"id":1785,"date":"2014-11-25T03:46:49","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T03:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/?p=1785"},"modified":"2016-01-22T19:22:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T19:22:17","slug":"fear-in-the-early-stages-of-the-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/2014\/11\/25\/fear-in-the-early-stages-of-the-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear in the Early Stages of the Cold War"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"081201_mccarthy_glass\"<\/a>

Image of Senator McCarthy courtesy of Politico<\/p><\/div>\n

In\u00a0From Colony to<\/em> Superpower<\/em>, George Herring\u00a0<\/em>describes the early stages of the Cold War as a turbulent time in United States (US) history. During this period,\u00a0the government created\u00a0policies, like containment, that would influence American foreign policy\u00a0until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and\u00a0American citizens began to determine their views on the threat of Communism within US\u00a0borders (Herring 635-637). \u00a0In September 1949 after the Soviet Union successfully exploded an atomic bomb, the consequences of Soviet espionage within the United States became very real to many Americans.\u00a0 With these events in the background,\u00a0Senator Joseph R. McCarthy<\/a> emerged as a leader among American politicians who were adamant about rounding up alleged Communists within the United States and reducing the threat to the country. \u00a0To accomplish this, McCarthy and his allies fomented and exploited the fear of Communism to promote\u00a0their cause. \u00a0Herring\u00a0summarizes this point in time by writing, “A Cold War culture of near hysterical fear, paranoiac suspiciousness, and stifling conformity began to take shape. Militant anti-communism increasingly poisoned the political atmosphere at home…”(Herring 637). \u00a0Herring’s quote\u00a0highlights the power of political ideologies in the bipolar world and shows the fear and contempt many Americans felt about Communism.<\/p>\n

\"rosenbergs6\"<\/a>

Image of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg with Morton Sobell courtesy of The FBI<\/p><\/div>\n

In this climate, the case of alleged atomic spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, took center stage as an example of the threat Communists posed on American soil. \u00a0The Rosenberg trial provides a clear example of how the “near hysterical fear” of Communism motivated the prosecutors in the case and a large part of the American public to violate standards of legal and clear evidence in order to convict and execute the Rosenberg’s. \u00a0As members of the Communist Party, both Julius and Ethel were active politically in the years prior to their arrests in 1950. \u00a0In Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter’s Story <\/em><\/a>the\u00a0codefendant in the Rosenberg case, Morton Sobell<\/a>, describes Julius and Ethel\u00a0as very politically active. \u00a0Sobell goes on to explain how Julius, himself, and their friends all believed that a Socialist world would be a better world and that the Soviet Union was the answer to bringing Socialism to America. \u00a0The Rosenberg’s political activity combined with Julius’ post at the War Department during WWII<\/a> made him and his wife perfect suspects for the crime of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets.<\/p>\n

\"jello-box\"<\/a>

Image courtesy of The National Archives<\/p><\/div>\n

Arrested on July 17, \u00a01950<\/a>, Julius Rosenberg was initially accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets and his wife Ethel was arrested as a co-conspirator on August 11, 1950<\/a>. \u00a0Although both Julius and Ethel maintained their innocence throughout their trial, conviction, and up to the point of their execution, the two were in fact guilty of espionage. \u00a0What makes this case interesting is that although the Rosenberg’s were guilty, the way in which they were convicted and the evidence used against them reflects the fear that Herring describes as infecting\u00a0the country in the early Cold War years. \u00a0For example,\u00a0Ivy Meeropol describes in her documentary,\u00a0Heir to an Execution\u00a0<\/em>that one of the pieces of evidence used against her grandparents, the Rosenberg’s, was a can found in their New York apartment with the label, “Save A Spanish Republican Child”. \u00a0The investigators\u00a0in the case used this can to prove the Rosenberg’s connection to the Soviet Union. Another\u00a0piece of evidence used against the Rosenberg’s was a Jell-O box <\/a>described by another Soviet spy, Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass<\/a>, as a way for the spies to confirm their identities<\/a> when they passed along information meant for the Soviet Union. \u00a0A third\u00a0piece of evidence, sited by Greenglass as a tool the Rosenberg’s used for espionage activities, was a small console in the family’s living room. \u00a0During the trial, the prosecutors questioned Julius and Ethel about the table, but the two maintained they bought it\u00a0at Macy’s. \u00a0In the prosecution’s summation<\/a>, prosecutor Irving Saypol suggested that the console was used for “microfilming” and therefore was a crucial part of the Rosenberg’s espionage activities. \u00a0Following the trial, the console was determined to be void of any hidden cameras<\/a>, and just a normal table from Macy’s.<\/p>\n

\"ROS_IK\"<\/a>

Image of Judge Irving Kaufman courtesy of University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law<\/p><\/div>\n

All three of these pieces of evidence were used to connect the Rosenberg’s to the Soviet Union and accuse them as spies. \u00a0However, the determination of the prosecution’s crucial piece of evidence, the console, as irrelevant to the Rosenberg’s espionage activities calls into question the entire collection of evidence. \u00a0From this example, we can see a snapshot of how fear of Communism in the United States degraded the quality of evidence and overall integrity of the trial. \u00a0In conclusion, Judge Irving Kaufman’s<\/a> sentencing statement<\/a>, which concluded the Rosenberg trial, encapsulates America’s fear of Communism. \u00a0In the statement, Kaufman says, “I consider your crime worse than murder. Plain deliberate contemplated murder is dwarfed in magnitude by comparison with the crime you have committed. In committing the act of murder, the criminal kills only his victim…I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country.” \u00a0Kaufman’s quote which\u00a0condemned Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death emphasizes how frightening the idea of the Soviet’s having nuclear weapons and the Communist ideology\u00a0both were for Americans in the early Cold War years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0From Colony to Superpower, George Herring\u00a0describes the early stages of the Cold War as a turbulent time in United States (US) history. During this period,\u00a0the government created\u00a0policies, like containment, that would influence American foreign policy\u00a0until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and\u00a0American citizens began to determine their views on the threat of Communism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rosenberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}