Sofia Corrales

April 1, 2019
Green Group
Cold War DBQ Essay

The Cold War had international influences throughout the world. One of the countries
where it had its most impact was in the United States. Having never faced the difficulties of a
war of this kind, the U.S. had a lot of adjusting to do, socially and politically. The Cold War
impacted US domestic policy and American culture and society because it instilled the American
people with the fear and caused many unjust and questionable legislative policies to be enacted.
One way that the Cold War instilled fear into the American people was because of the
threat of Communism. During the time known as the Red Scare, many people were inaccurately
and unfairly accused of being a communist or having communist ideals or sympathies, which led
to drastic consequences in the lives of the people accused and those close to them. An example
of a person who was directly impacted by this period of mass hysteria is Paul Robeson. Robeson
was an actor, a singer, and an advocate who fought for racial equality and called for the end of
colonization. His passport was revoked between 1950 and 1958, and he was called in to the
House Un-American Activities (HUAC) to be questioned, as his arguments and beliefs led
people to think he was a communist. In a statement that Robeson didn’t get a chance to read out
to HUAC, he says that his fight for a passport is “is a struggle for freedom: freedom to travel,
freedom to earn a livelihood, freedom to speak, freedom to express myself artistically and
culturally. I have been denied these freedoms because the U.S. government opposes my
views…” (“Unread Statement before the House Committee on Un-American Activities”).
Senator Margaret Chase Smith saw the impact that the accusations in the Red Scare were having
on the American public. In 1950, she read out her “Declaration of Conscience,” a speech in
which she stood up to Senator McCarthy’s ways. She expresses many of the concerns people had
about McCarthyism but were too scared to go out and say them. “The American people are sick
and tired of being afraid to speak their minds to avoid being politically smeared as
"Communists" or "Fascists"...” Smith told the Senate. “Freedom of speech is not what it used to
be in America” (“Declaration of Conscience”). Another way that fear was brought onto the
American people during the Cold War was due to the imminent threat of a nuclear war. After the
Soviet Union built their own atomic bomb in 1949 and the U.S. one-upped them in 1950 and
started trying to build the hydrogen bomb, the Federal Civil Defense Administration was put
together to ensure that civilians were prepared for the possibility of the attack, which
understandably put people on edge. Videos calling for people to “duck and cover” were played in
classrooms all across the country (“Duck and Cover”). This fear also caused many people to
build bomb shelters in their homes just in case a bomb was dropped. An image from the
Smithsonian and National Archives titled, “​Fallout shelter built by Louis Severance adjacent to
his home near Akron, Michigan, 1960” ​shows a shelter that included “special ventilation and
escape hatch,” and a “tiny kitchen, running water, sanitary facilities, and a sleeping and living
area” costing almost $1,000. “Ever since I was convinced what damage H-Bombs can do,” said
Severance, “I've wanted to build the shelter." The fear caused in the U.S. during the Cold War
significantly influenced American society, as people were experiencing danger from foreign as
well as domestic factors, which were caused by new hazardous situations brought about by the
time period.
The domestic policies of the United States were also heavily influenced by the Cold War
because many unjust and questionable policies to be legislated. An example of one of these
policies is Executive Order 9835, better known as the Loyalty Order, which was signed by
President Truman on March 21, 1947. This was the beginning of a loyalty program whose
purpose was to root out communists or communist sympathizers from the federal government.
The policy included many unfair sections, such as one stating that there had to be an
investigation on the background of every person who started working for the government, and
that “refusal of employment or the removal from employment” would mean that “on all the
evidence, reasonable grounds exist for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the
government of the United States.” This just enforces the ideology of McCarthyism and accusing
people without substantial evidence. The Loyalty Order also states that “Membership in,
connection with or sympathetic association with any foreign or domestic organization…
designated by the Attorney General as totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive” would be
considered activities of disloyalty (“Loyalty Order”). But what is thought of as “totalitarian,
fascist, communist, or subversive” is completely subjective. What the Attorney General deemed
as a disloyal organization probably wasn’t what many other people as disloyal. The Cold War
also impacted the U.S. defense budget. During the 50’s and 60’s the budget declined in
comparison to the war levels but still stayed very high up due to the Cold War. This spending
also caused the education budget to suffer. Though not as low as they were during the war,
education levels during the 50’s and 60’s weren’t very high above the war levels (“United States,
Changing Priorities in Federal Spending, 1940-1995”). This is because the government was still
spending a lot of the budget on nuclear armament and proxy wars fought with the Soviet Union
during this time. Overall, domestic policy was deeply swayed by the events of the Cold War.
The Cold War heavily impacted the United States in many different ways. Not only did
the American public have to deal with the threat of nuclear attacks, but they also had to deal with
the domestic attacks of harmful accusations during the Red Scare and some policies from the
federal government that fueled this hysteria against communism. It was a hectic time for the
United States, and the adaptations that government and the citizens took reflected the problems
of the time.