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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
Americans struggled with paranoia in the early 1950s. Many believed the most extravagant charges about the presence of Communists in the United States. Others had no firm convictions about the threat of Communism but tolerated an unrestricted search for disloyal citizens. To a later generation, there seems to have been little connection between the degree of danger and the public’s alarm.
A recent attempt to explain this national paranoia holds the Truman administration responsible for creating an unreasoning anti-Communist mentality. According to Athan Theoharis and Richard Freeland, members of the Truman administration exaggerated the dangers of international and domestic Communism. The public heard that the United States was “imminently threatened by a massive ideologically based assault upon everything Americans valued.” The administration’s excessively moralistic rhetoric portrayed the Soviet Union as the “Anti-Christ.” This strident anti-Communism created a public mood that Joseph McCarthy and others exploited for their political advantage. Thus, one of McCarthy’s major victims—the Truman administration—created the preconditions for McCarthyism.
1 Freeland, Richard, The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism (New York, 1972), 11–12Google Scholar. Theoharis, Athan, “The Rhetoric of Politics” in Bernstein, Barton, ed., Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration (Chicago, 1970), 213Google Scholar. Theoharis elaborates his position in Seeds of Repression: Harry S. Trumanandthe Origins of McCarthyism (Chicago, 1971).
2 The central role that Truman plays in Theoharis’s interpretation is apparent in the ubtitle of Seeds ofRepression: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of McCarthyism.
3 My source for public statements is The Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1945-1950(Washington, D. C, 1961-1965).
4 The following kinds of phrases are associated with each category.
I Soviet Union an Communism in general.
A Soviet Union.
References to either Russia or its leaders (Stalin).
Comintern.
Responses to reporters’ questions about meeting with Stalin.
Berlin blockade of 1948-1949.
Iranian dispute of 1946.
Implicit references to behavior of Soviet Union, a “One country has failed to live up to its agreements.”
7 References to a body of nations that includes the Soviet Union are not relevant unless explicit mention was made of Soviet Union.
A Example: sentences about “wartime allies” or “Big Three” are not relevant unless explicit mention was made of Soviet Union.
B References to postwar peace conferences (foreign ministers conferences) are not relevant unless explicit mention was made of Soviet Union.
Exceptions: references to negotiations about Berlin blockade are relevant because the Soviet Union was the chief protagonist.
B Communism in general.
Vague terms used by Truman when he wanted to talk indirectly about the challenge Communist states posed to American foreign policy.
a “Totalitarianism” (after February 1947).
b “Forces of dissension and chaos.”
c “Foreign dictatorships.”
d “Police states.”
e “Tyranny.”
f “Iron Curtain.”
Communism as an unspecified force.
a “Communism exalts the state and degrades the individual.”
b References to Communist-controlled governments in Eastern Europe.
c References to China before 5 August 1949, are not relevant unless there was a direct reference to Chinese Communism. All references to China after 5 August 1949, inclusive, are treated as references to Chinese Communism.
II Domestic Communism.
A Any discussion of the internal danger posed by Communist within the United States.
B House Un-American Activities Committee.
C Problem of loyalty and security among government employees.
D Senator Joseph McCarthy.
E References to presidential appointees that were challenged on the basis that they were allegedly tainted by previous association with Communists.
5 For the evaluation of sentences, guidelines were established for two special cases. Whenever Truman replied to a reporter’s question about the Soviet Union or Communism with a “no comment,” the response is treated as “neutral.” In some cases, Truman answered a reporter’s question by referring to a statement issued by another member of the administration. In such instances, the statement to which Truman referred is evaluated, and then Truman’s sentence is given the same value.
The reliability of this method of categorizing and evaluating sentences was checked on a sample of 50 randomly selected relevant sentences. Four coders placed each of the sentences in one of two categories: 1) Soviet Union and Communism in general; 2) domestic Communism. The percentage of agreement among the four coders is summarized below.
In the second stage of the reliability test, the same sample of 50 randomly selected relevant sentences was used. Four coders evaluated the sentences on a scale from +1 to -1. The percentage of agreement among the four coders is summarized below.
6 Janis, Irving L. and Fadney, Raymond, “The Coefficient of Imbalance,” in Laswell, Harold D. and Leites, Nathan, eds., The Language of Politics (1965), 153–69Google Scholar.
The coefficient of imbalance = C.
C = (f-u)(f)/(r)(t)whenf>u
C = (f-u)(u)/(r)(t)whenf<u
f = total number of favorable sentences
u = total number of unfavorable sentences
r = number of “relevant” sentences
= sum of favorable, unfavorable, and neutral sentences
t = total number of sentences (including nonrelevant sentences) in all statements
Ascertaining “t” involves a tedious and time-consuming process of counting all of the sentences in all of Truman’s public statements. Consequently, a shortcut was adopted. By counting the number of sentences in a sample of addresses, press conferences, and White House releases, the average number of sentences in each of these forms of communication was calculated.
7 The Truman Doctrine speech is also considered to be the point at which the administration made a commitment to contain Communism everywhere. John Gaddis argues that, in fact, the administration’s opposition to Communism was still limited until the Korean War. But even Gaddis acknowledges that the Truman Doctrine speech may have been a turning point in the administration’s rhetoric, if not in its behavior. “Was the Truman Doctrine a Real Turning Point?” Foreign Affairs, 52 (January 1974), 386-402.
8 Polling organizations asked Americans many questions about Communism in the postwar years, but most of the surveys are not useful for this study because the same question was not asked repeatedly over the months prior to and following March 1947. Thus they do not reveal the effect upon public opinion of the change in Truman’s rhetoric in March 1947.
9 The exception was the Navy Day speech in October 1945: “We shall refuse to recognize any government imposed upon any nation by the force of any foreign power. In some cases it may be impossible to prevent forceful imposition of such a government. But the United States will not recognize any such government.” Public Papers, 1945, 434.
10 Public Papers, 1945, 211.
11 Public Papers, 1945, 384, 387.
12 Public Papers, 1945, 510.
13 In Figure 4, the data for October 1947 is derived from a Fortune poll in which people were asked: “There has been a lot of talk about what should be done about the Communists in this country. Do you believe there should or should not be a law preventing people who admit they are Communists from holding any kind of public office?”
14 “The Truman Doctrine Speech: A Case Study of the Dynamics of Presidential Opinion Leadership,” Social Science History, I (Fall 1976), 20-44. Working with the raw data from public opinion polls of 1947, Kernell discovers that the people who were persuaded by Truman’s appeal for a more vigorous policy vis-a-vis Russia were not the same people who wanted to outlaw the Communist Party.
15 Public Papers, 1947, 131.
16 Public Papers, 1948, 845, 609,610.
17 Public Papers, 1950, 268.
18 Small, Melvin, “When Did the Cold War Begin?: A Test of an Alternate Indicator of Public Opinion,” Historial Methods Newsletter, 8:2 (March 1975), 70Google Scholar; Sylvester, Harold J., “American Public Reaction to Communist Expansion: From Yalta to NATO,” Ph.D. diss. (Univ. of Kansas, 1970), 190–91Google Scholar.
19 Crosby, Donald F., “The Politics of Religion: American Catholics and the Anti-Communist Impulse,” in Griffith, Robert and Theoharis, Athan, eds., The Specter: Original Essays on the Cold War and the Origins of McCarthyism (New York, 1974), 30Google Scholar. Irons, Peter H., “American Business and the Origins of McCarthyism: The Cold War Crusade of the United States Chamber of Commerce,” in The Specter, 81Google Scholar.