Keith Benson

Military/Diplomatic History
4.6.2007
Dr. Dorwart

Response to Lisle Rose’s The Cold War Comes to Main Street: America in 1950

Lisle Rose, career author and former naval officer during the mid-fifties, in The

Cold War Comes to Main Street: America in 1950, asserts the collective American psyche

had been irrevocably damaged during the calendar year from 1949 to 1950. In seeking to

explain history, it is often difficult to pinpoint specific dates or occurrences as individual

monumental turning points, Rose, in his analysis of the twelve months from December

1949 to December 150, promotes a convincing argument that America was no longer

going to be the wholly optimistic or patriotic country that existed in the post WWII years.

The Cold War that arrived on Main Street, USA had changed that forever.

In the book’s beginning, Rose describes the zeitgeist that existed in America in the

years following WWII. Optimism and a wholesale “can-do” attitude is how Rose

described the latter half of the 1940’s. Rose quotes WWII vet Harold Russell: “The late

forties were a great period for our country, and you just had a tremendous feeling just

being alive…You had problems, sure, but they didn’t dominate us; we face the same

things now, and we despair.” As described in the book, Americans collectively, had

reasons to feel upbeat. The burdensome Great Depression was giving way to FDR’s New

Deal programs, employment was high, and American industry and economy was strong.

Families were making more money and owning more durable, expensive goods like

radios, televisions and cars. In addition, after World War II, our military believed they

had emerged as the world’s heroes from those bloody days, and as rewards for their
sacrifice, servicemen returning home would have there education subsidized by the

Montgomery GI Bill, and along with other middle-class families, be given opportunity to

experience a relatively new suburban lifestyle through the establishing of “Levittowns”,

and the like, across the nation. While Rose briefly comments that Appalachian

communities and blacks remained, largely, excluded from America’s prosperity, many

indicators were clear; the American standard of living had improved greatly during the

late forties. The Cold War Comes to Main Street however, explains this euphoria was not

going to last past 1949.

After illustrating the progresses made in the post WWII years, Rose gradually

suggests factors that led to the deterioration of the optimism that was so apparent during

those years. Rose suggests one of initial factors that contributed to the changing of

American attitudes, from generally positive and optimistic to paranoid and skeptical, was

the rising of mass print media, and motion pictures propagating a shared belief that

communism was “lurking among us like a red fog.” In the late forties, countless articles,

novels, memoirs, and films were produced suggesting that communism was ever-present;

lying in wait and ready to prey on America. The fantastic trials of Alger Hiss and Klaus

Fuchs, and the eventual forming of the House Committee on Un-American Activities

proved to all Americans that they must stay vigilant and alert against the coming threat.

These phenomena, in 1949, served as more cannon fodder for an American mass media

that was becoming increasingly obsessed by the idea “communist subversives”; that thus,

began to chip away at American morale.

Adding to American paranoia in 1949 was the Soviet’s successful testing of their

atomic bomb. Though American politicians including President Truman shrugged off
their successful test by proclaiming “we are ahead of the Soviet’s nuclear capabilities by

at least ten years”, this did little to allay the fears of an increasingly concerned, paranoid

American public. Also in 1949, America witnessed the spread of evil communism from

the USSR and its puppet states, to a more mainstream and sizable China. Mao Zedong’s

establishing of the People’s Republic of Communist China became an omen-like to

Americans exemplifying the growing power of communism and its growing influence.

The year of 1950, Rose presents, was even more damaging to American spirits.

Eugene McCarthy, following the mutual fascination and fear that gripped the American

public of the evils of communism from 1949, orchestrated his own reign of terror where

he and other Congressmen hauled prominent actors and artists before Congress with blind

accusations that they were communist sympathizers, or subversives. Though having little

evidence to support his own claims, the media frenzy surrounding McCarthy’s hearings

not only captivated American citizens, but worse, led them to look suspiciously upon one

another. Feelings of mistrust and suspicion became increasingly the normal.

Further in 1950, Mao and Stalin formed the Sino-Soviet alliance which made the

two largest countries, in population and mass, a unified communist threat. North Korea

also became a communist country with backing from its neighbor China. And while

North Korea becoming communist did very little to concern the average American, its

summer offensive against South Korea demanded America’s attention. Although Kim

Sung Il and Mao Zedong were made aware of possible US intervention by Stalin, on June

24th , North Korea bombed and invaded the much weaker South Korea taking its capital,

Seoul, in four days. On July 5th, American servicemen were on Korean soil, once again at

war.
 As American intervention in Korea increased, the war seemed to be going

America’s way until the advancement toward North Korea’s Pyongyang was met by

fierce resistance by China’s People’s Liberation Army, which led to an American defeat

there, and lengthening of the war that trudged on until 1953.

Americans in 1950, along with Stalin and Mao, believed the Korean War could

lead to the inevitable WWIII, and our direct armed conflict with the Soviet Union.

Following the invasion of Korea by American forces, Rose suggests many Americans

believed Armageddon was near.

To most Americans, the Korean War represented the final straw to the optimistic

American psyche. Not only was the war lasting longer than originally anticipated,

Americans thought that, at any moment, the Soviets would intervene and cause a nuclear

war. Perhaps even more personally devastating to Americans, was that young American

men were drafted into the war; some of whom had fought just five years before.

In Cold War Comes to Main Street, Rose set out to illustrate that the care-free,

optimistic times of the late 1940’s were erased in twelve months. Employing fly-on-the-

wall narration, along with scores of primary sources, Rose’s argument is convincing that

from 1949-1950 the culture of America did abruptly change.

But while psychological change was the focus of the book, what was impressed

me is the consistency of our nation’s two dominant political parties. As illustrated in the

book, the liberals of today behave much like they did in the 40’s and 50’s; so to does

conservatives. Prior to America’s invasion of Korea, liberal democrats deemed it crucial

to, first, obtain cooperation from the UN and the international community; much like

democrats today. The conservatives, however, were much more hawkish in their beliefs
for a firm military response and advocated for a unilateral response. Further, the

conservatives during the late 40’s and early 50’s often criticized President Truman for his

lack of military response toward China after their revolution in 1949. Finally, in 1950 the

McCarran Internal Security Act was passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress; even

though it infringed on First Amendment freedoms and allowed the detaining of suspected

subversives. “They moved to protect the Democratic Party from manslaughter at the

polls. They did so reluctantly and with much soul-searching. But in the end, they voted

not only politically, but also emotionally.” This parallels the post-9/11 era when the

Patriot Act was nearly unanimously passed, and the Democrat acquiescence for Bush’s

request for war against Iraq. Following 9/11, even if congressional Democrats personally

disagreed with the contents of the Patriot Act or going to war against Iraq, voting based

on those beliefs could have been political suicide, and thus, did not occur.

This book was well-written in simple, cogent language and, in all, a joy to read.