Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America A Critical History Larry Ceplair Copyright 2011 by Larry Ceplair All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ceplair, Larry. Anti-communism in twentieth-century America / Larry Ceplair. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978 1 4408 0047 4 (hardcopy : alk. paper) ISBN 978 1 4408 0048 1 (ebook) 1. Anti-communist movements United States History 20th century. 2. Political culture United States History 20th century. 3. Political activists United States Biography. 4. United States Politics and government 1919 1933. 5. United States Politics and government 1933 1945. 6. United States Politics and government 1945 1989. I. Title. E743.5.C37 2011 973.91 dc23 2011029101 ISBN: 978 1 4408 0047 4 EISBN: 978 1 4408 0048 1 1514131211 12345 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. Praeger An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America To Christine, the love of my life and the source of my happiness. Contents Introduction 1 1 Official Anti-Communism, 1919–1939 19 2 Unofficial Anti-Communism, 1919–1939 33 3 The Second “Red Scare,” 1939–1941 53 4 World War II 65 5 Official Anti-Communism, 1945–1948 75 6 Official Anti-Communism, 1949–1957 91 7 Institutional Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 113 8 Ex-Communist and Conservative Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 131 9 Liberal and Left-of-Liberal Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 153 10 Civil-Libertarian Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 171 11 The Decline and Periodic Revivals of Domestic Anti-Communism 191 Conclusion 215 Afterword: Can It Happen Again? Or, Is Anti-Terrorism the New Anti-Communism? 221 viii Contents Abbreviations 227 Notes 229 Bibliography 315 Index 353 Introduction Anti-communism was one of the strongest political forces affecting the United States during the twentieth century. Loudly and repeatedly heralded as an indispensable component of national security, it pro- voked three “red scares,” all of which had deleterious effects on sig- nificant numbers of people, organizations, institutions, and national values. These “red scares” amplified and institutionalized two fears: fear of what the Soviet Union might do if not contained and fear of what the members, ex-members, and sympathizers of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) might do if not exposed and their actions proscribed. These fears were then magnified into threats and effectively wielded by political elites, making communism and Com- munists appear to be larger-than-life bogies, requiring extreme mea- sures to counteract.* But why? Why did a significant number of people and organizations feel so threatened by communism and Com- munists that they worked so assiduously, for so many years, to embed anti-communism into the political culture of the United States? An adequate answer to that question requires a more systematic and objective analysis than the topic of anti-communism has heretofore received. A full, critical treatment of anti-communism is necessary if *In this book, the convention is to capitalize “Communist” (an adherent to a political party) but not “communism” (a political doctrine). 2 Anti Communism in Twentieth Century America one is to comprehend the political and cultural history of the twentieth- century United States.† This critical treatment involves the classification of anti-Communists into types, to demonstrate that anti-communism was not a monolithic entity, that it served to promote a variety of different agendas, and that it is best understood by illuminating the diversity and plurality of its practitioners. Although I employ somewhat of an encyclopedic motif, providing examples to fit each type or style I identify, I do not list all of the prominent practitioners of each particular type or style. In effect, then, this book should be read as a guide to the most significant varieties of anti-communism, and not as an exhaustive or inclusive roster of anti- Communists.‡ SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT ANTI-COMMUNISM First, anti-communism did not derive its power from any doctrinal or ideological qualities. Indeed, it lacked the substance and coherence necessary to be classified as a doctrine or an ideology. It was an ide´e fixe which simplified and reduced the complex issues facing the United States, and became, as a result, an agenda item for adherents of a wide variety of other political doctrines.1 Thus it became a symbiotic ide´e fixe that did not necessarily benefit the host. Second, the “Communist threat” on which anti-communism was based could not be measured or, in some cases, even substantiated. As a result, many of those who feared this “threat,” as well as all of those who stood to benefit from proclaiming the “threat,” trumpeted their warnings in a highly emotional, attention-getting manner.2 Monsignor †Full disclosure: I am not now nor have I ever been a member of any Communist Party, Communist front group, or New Left organization. Nor am I a “red diaper baby.” I have, how ever, been accused of being a “revisionist on the left” (Philip Dunne, Take Two [New York: McGraw Hill, 1980], 196 97). During the course of my research into the motion picture blacklist, and during my membership in the New American Movement, a socialist feminist organization (circa 1975 1980), I became friendly with many former members of the Communist Party. ‡I will not include a parallel narrative of the activities of Communists in the United States, but I will stipulate that the Communist Party, USA’s lock step relationship with the Soviet Union and the resulting tergiversations of Party lines provided anti Communists with much of the evidence they needed to brand the CPUSA as the agent of a foreign power and to refuse to work with it or its members. Nor will I chronicle the behavior of the world’s Com munist regimes, because it was not a significant component of anti communism in the United States, and it is very well chronicled by others. See, for example, Ste´phane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1999). Introduction 3 Charles Rice (see Chapter 7), who had been a fierce anti-Communist during the height of the Cold War, later admitted: “We exaggerated the danger, we went overboard, we were un-American and uncharitable, we lost our perspective.”3 Paul Jacobs, an equally fierce, Jewish anti- Communist, later wrote about the campaign to identify and purge Com- munists from the American Jewish Committee: “We honest believed that the Communists were a threat, although we never really discussed what it was they were threatening.”4 During the first postwar decade, how- ever, their own and others’ cries of peril were loud and pervasive, and they touched on or provoked deep-seated anxieties in many people. Third, anti-Communists did not base their campaign on the actual beliefs of individual Communists, which were rarely examined in an empirical and objective manner, or their actions, which were, for the most part, legal. Rather, the anti-Communists’ case rested mainly on what they alleged that Communists, as an entity, believed and what Communists, as an entity, would do, in some undetermined future, to advance those beliefs. Finally, anti-Communists based their alarms on a bundle of beliefs, most of which were based on a fact, but none of which were factually (or logically) developed. For example, it is factually correct to say that near the end of World War II U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill made concessions to Soviet Marshal Josef Stalin at Yalta (February 1945). It is not factually correct to state that Roosevelt and Churchill “surrendered” eastern and central Europe to the Soviet Union. It is a fact that the Chinese Communist Party conquered China. It is also factually correct to say that the United States did not massively intervene to save the government of Chiang Kai-shek. It is not factually correct to say that the United States “lost” or “surren- dered” China to the Communists. Finally, it is factually correct to say that some Communists and fellow travelers who were employed by the U.S. government provided data and information to the Soviet Union. It is not factually correct to say that the U.S. government was “riddled” with Communists; that Communists in the government seriously under- mined the national security of the United States; or that the Truman administration engaged in a “conspiracy” to cover up the leaks and espionage. In a calm political atmosphere, all of the preceding conclu- sions would have required verification, but, during the fear-laden Cold War atmosphere, in which anti-communism flourished, the standards of evidence and logic were regularly disregarded.5 The failure to submit the “threat” of communism to rational analy- sis or empirical verification made anti-communism in the United 4 Anti Communism in Twentieth Century America States distinctive. If, for example, one compares domestic anti- communism in the United States with that in the United Kingdom and Canada (the homes of relatively small, not very intrusive Communist parties) and that in France and Italy (the homes of large, militant Com- munist parties), one will find missing in these other countries “un- British,” “un-Canadian,” “un-French,” and “un-Italian” crusades.