Your search for: subjects:"Subversive Activities United States History 20th Century"

In late 1953 and early 1954, Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly's See It Now television documentary broadcast a series of four programs that dealt with abuses of McCarthyism: "The Case of Milo Radulovich", "An Argument in Indianapolis", "A Report on Senator McCarthy", and "Annie Lee Moss Before ...

In late 1953 and early 1954, Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly's See It Now television documentary broadcast a series of four programs that dealt with abuses of McCarthyism: "The Case of Milo Radulovich", "An Argument in Indianapolis", "A Report on Senator McCarthy", and "Annie Lee Moss Before the McCarthy Committee". Each program focused upon elements of McCarthyism - the blacklist, the suspicion of anything "liberal", the Congressional hearing and immunity, even the political tactics of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy himself. These justifiably acclaimed telecasts have been credited with forever defining the form of television documentary and with greatly contributing to the "downfall" of the senator and the movement that took his name. Rosteck studies these programs for what they reveal about the rhetoric of television documentary and the ideological representations within. He considers the four programs as artifacts that expose a crucial era in American political life and represent cultural and ideological struggles. Specifically, Rosteck analyzes the programs as instances of public discourse that symbolically reframe McCarthyism, and he provides us with the first sustained exploration and case study of documentary television as a discrete genre. He explores how the programs "work" as public argument in a way that goes beyond an analysis of content or propositional "logic". Indeed it may be, Rosteck says, that See It Now uses the form of the documentary medium and the myth it fosters - that of the open and free exchange of ideas - as "argument" against McCarthyism. Because he sets the programs in their particular situation and historical context, Rosteck also helps us understand aunique era in recent American history what one historian has called "The Decade of Fear" when the national mood was one of mistrust and suspicion. The See It Now programs influenced the development of both the television docum

For decades, a great number of Americans saw Alger Hiss as an innocent victim of McCarthyism--a distinguished diplomat railroaded by an ambitious Richard Nixon. And even as the case against Hiss grew over time, his dignified demeanor helped create an aura of innocence that outshone the facts in many ...

For decades, a great number of Americans saw Alger Hiss as an innocent victim of McCarthyism--a distinguished diplomat railroaded by an ambitious Richard Nixon. And even as the case against Hiss grew over time, his dignified demeanor helped create an aura of innocence that outshone the facts in many minds. Now G. Edward White deftly draws together the countless details of Hiss's life--from his upper middle-class childhood in Baltimore and his brilliant success at Harvard to his later career as a self-made martyr to McCarthyism--to paint a fascinating portrait of a man whose life was devoted to perpetuating a lie. White catalogs the evidence that proved Hiss's guilt, from Whittaker Chambers's famous testimony, to copies of State Department documents typed on Hiss's typewriter, to Allen Weinstein's groundbreaking investigation in the 1970s. The author then explores the central conundrums of Hiss's life: Why did this talented lawyer become a Communist and a Soviet spy? Why did he devote so much of his life to an extensive public campaign to deny his espionage? And how, without producing any new evidence, did he convince many people that he was innocent? White offers a compelling analysis of Hiss's behavior in the face of growing evidence of his guilt, revealing how this behavior fit into an ongoing pattern of denial and duplicity in his life. The story of Alger Hiss is in part a reflection of Cold War America--a time of ideological passions, partisan battles, and secret lives. It is also a story that transcends a particular historical era--a story about individuals who choose to engage in espionage for foreign powers and the secret worlds they choose to conceal. In White's skilled hands, the life of Alger Hiss comes to illuminate both of those themes.

Nazi Germany's efforts to weaken the United States by subversion failed miserably. Bungling spies were captured and half-hearted efforts at sabotage came to nothing. Yet anyone who lived through WWII remembers the chilling posters warning Americans that "Enemy Agents Have Big Ears" and "Loose Lips ...

Nazi Germany's efforts to weaken the United States by subversion failed miserably. Bungling spies were captured and half-hearted efforts at sabotage came to nothing. Yet anyone who lived through WWII remembers the chilling posters warning Americans that "Enemy Agents Have Big Ears" and "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Even Superman joined the struggle against these insidious foes. In 1940, polls showed that 71% of Americans believed a Nazi Fifth Column had penetrated the country. Almost half were convinced that spies, saboteurs, dupes, and rumor-mongers lurked in their own neighborhoods and work-places. These fears extended to the White House and Congress. In this book, Francis MacDonnell explains the origins and consequences of America's Fifth Column panic, arguing that conviction and expedience encouraged President Roosevelt, the FBI, Congressmen, Churchill's government, and Hollywood to legitimate and exacerbate American's fears. Gravely weakening the isolationists, fostering Congress's role in rooting out Un-American activities, and instigating the creation of the modern intelligence establishment, the Fifth Column scare did far more than sell movie tickets, comic books, and pulp fiction. Insidious Foes traces the panic from its origins in the minds of reasonable Americans who saw the vulnerability of their open society in an age of encroaching totalitarianism.