The Cold War: Fear Of Communism

The Cold War was made up of two sides, NATO and Warsaw pact. The NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization and it was the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Denmark while the Warsaw Pact was the USSR, Eastern Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. The Cold War consisted of several different scenarios which caused the Red Scare, fear of Communism. Because this war wasn’t technically a fighting war, there was still several things they did to treat it as a war such as the arms race. Each country was trying to create a deterrent weapon so they would be seen as feared by the other country. The atomic and hydrogen bombs were both created at this time. In 1947, President Truman created a doctrine

HUAC called many Hollywood stars into a questioning about what they knew about communism and if they were communist. HUAC blacklisted many people in the Hollywood hearings because they had a thought that they could possibly be communist. This ruined many people 's jobs. One man in general who was a playwright and screenwriter was called in, his name was John Howard Lawson. Lawson was a communist and had been since 1934, but he refused to answer any of the questions that HUAC had asked. He said, “You are using old technique, which was used in Hitler Germany in order to create a scare here--” (L 57-58). While this is showing HUAC was trying to create a scare to the people, he was proving a point that their scare wasn 't scaring Lawson. HUAC was a very powerful committee who accused many Hollywood producers of being communist. These accusations caused loss in Hollywood business because Americans began to be fearful that Hollywood was communist and they didn 't want to give any of their money to people who were not of what they believed. Even though some believe that HUAC was the main cause to the Red Scare, I believe Senator Joseph McCarthy caused more of a scare due to his accusations of the United States State Department and government. With all of the events that took place during this time, they all added up to cause a scare in America at the time. I believe that McCarthy was the main cause of the Red Scare because of his accusations of many American people. McCarthy accused American citizens as well as the United States government while HUAC only accused Hollywood