LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A new book by journalist Clay Risen brings back to life a period of American history after World War II known as the Red Scare. According to Risen, what should've been a counterintelligence effort ended up as...
CLAY RISEN: A whole cultural witch hunt against all kinds of people who, regardless of their pasts, did not deserve to be hounded out of their professions and out of their livelihoods.
FADEL: The book is "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, And The Making Of Modern America," and it's based in part on newly declassified sources. Risen spoke with our cohost, Steve Inskeep.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It would be easy to think of the McCarthy era as a relic or a part of the Cold War, but you say it's part of a culture war. What do you mean by a culture war?
RISEN: What I mean, Steve, is that, you know, beginning in the 1930s, there was a real cultural change in America. And it was brought about by the experience of the Depression, but also the government activism on the part of the Roosevelt administration, what we know as the New Deal. And obviously, we know the New Deal had a lot of impact in terms of building new institutions. But it also helped foster a very - a cultural change in America, a progressive change, a more cosmopolitan, more pluralistic change. And from the very beginning, there was a lot of opposition to that, even though it was ascendant. There were a lot of people who didn't like it and a lot of people who took a very conspiratorial view toward that.
INSKEEP: You acknowledge early on there really were communist spies. There were Soviet spies in America. So there was an actual threat, right?
RISEN: Yeah, absolutely. The Soviet government really was trying to infiltrate elements of American society, either through the Communist Party or through spies in the government. But it's also important to recognize two things, first that it was a pretty small effort. The Communist Party was small. These spies were not very effective. But also, most of this - almost all of it, in fact, was ended by the end of World War II. So by the time the Red Scare started, we were talking about ghosts of the past, and yet the people we were going after were in the present.
INSKEEP: What was the motivation of people like Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose name was given to the era, and others who were extreme anti-communists?
RISEN: Well, I think it's a mix of both real ideological fervor, and I would say legitimate concern about the state of the country, but also a lot of opportunism. And, you know, you look at someone like McCarthy, and I do think on some level, McCarthy really believed that there was this conspiracy at the heart of the American government. And he really believed that communism was this threat. But he also was, no doubt, an opportunist. And he saw this as an opportunity to elevate his position in the Senate, in American politics. And, of course, that's what he did. And you can look at a lot of other people around him, both who preceded him during the Red Scare and also who saw him as someone they could sort of rise with, and it's hard not to read that as opportunism and rank partisanship.
INSKEEP: As I read your account of this, I think about the power of narratives. If people have bought into, if they believe the narrative that there is a vast, vast communist conspiracy to take over America, any evidence you find can be judged in light of that narrative. And if you don't find any evidence, it just shows the conspiracy is even bigger than you thought.
RISEN: Yeah, that's right. I mean, this is a part of the story that I think Americans today will connect with, is this all-consuming power of the conspiracy theory. And, of course, again, this is all in the context of the Cold War, which is a new thing. And it was a nuclear thing and was really scary for a lot of people. And so as soon as someone came along and said we have to be absolutely sure, regardless of whose rights we violate, that we are safe as a country - and there's a conspiracy, by the way, that we have to check against - well, really, Katy, bar the door. There's no stopping those people.
INSKEEP: In your judgment, Clay, how well did the Constitution hold up?
RISEN: You know, it's like a lot of things in America. It did not do very well until it did. And one of the things I think is really important to note about the Red Scare is that for a long time, the people who should've stood up did not stand up. They were afraid or maybe they were complicit in some way. But eventually, people did. And these were lawyers, and they were some politicians, they were journalists like Edward R. Murrow. One person that I really highlight is Chief Justice Earl Warren, who no one expected to be a strong civil libertarian.
But when he came into office - or onto the bench, rather unexpectedly, he began to develop a philosophy around civil liberties. And he saw the Red Scare as what it was, a fundamental threat to American civil liberties. And over the course of four years, even as he's going after school desegregation, he was also developing a list of cases that would allow him to start to dismantle the tools of the Red Scare, and using the power of the court to uphold constitutional values and ultimately to validate them and to push back the Red Scare. So I think there were moments of real constitutional crisis in America. But ultimately, it was people like Earl Warren who stood up and took the best of the Constitution and pushed things back.
INSKEEP: In the long run - and it was a period of years, of course, and many lives were ruined - did Americans at large end up being more secure in their civil liberties, then?
RISEN: I think, yes. I think that one of the silver linings of the Red Scare is that it reminded a lot of people that civil liberties cannot be taken for granted, that they need to be defended.
INSKEEP: How did the Red Scare end?
RISEN: The Red Scare ended partly because the world moved on. Communism was clearly not a threat to the United States. People came to realize that. Also, the Cold War simmered down. But I think also it ended because of the actions of people who stood up against this. And, you know, we're talking about journalists like Edward R. Murrow, who exposed McCarthy on television. We're talking about people like Chief Justice Earl Warren, who very systematically worked his way through the legal architecture of the Red Scare and either pulled it back or dismantled it completely. And that's ultimately what brought the Red Scare to an end.
INSKEEP: Clay Risen's latest book is "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, And The Making Of Modern America." Pleasure talking with you again.
RISEN: Well, thanks so much for having me, Steve.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CITY OF PRAGUE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA'S "FAST CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL (ETERNAL FUTURE II)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
