The Second Red Scare

There was a Red Scare twice in American history, and the only reoccurring factor in both these Red Scares was the aspect of fear. The second Red Scare involving Americans intense hunt for subversives was caused by the fear created by the Cold War or the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union was the major cause of the massive fear throughout the United States. The first major aspect of the Cold War to instill fear was the Soviet development of the Atomic Bomb. The Atomic bomb lead to such massive paranoia throughout the country, the government had to work on a large propaganda program to calm down the American public. Despite these efforts Americans were filled with the “dark image of the nuclear war that many Americans feared would result of the rivalry with the Soviet Union” (Brinkley 766). Americans tried to become more and more prepared for such an event by having air raid drills, regular testing of emergency broadcasting systems, and the creation of fallout shelters. Americans came closer and closer to the belief that subversives were taking over their country. Joseph McCarthy was a man who achieved political power throughout the Red Scare. However, he was not the man to create the Red Scare, the hunt for subversives might have been intensified through his attacks on communists. McCarthy in fact “never identified a single subversive” (Patterson 199). Furthermore, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover “investigated and harassed alleged radicals” but it was not until the Soviet detonation of the Atomic bomb in 1949 that sparked the idea of subversion in the United States (Brinkley 773).