The Cold War And Homosexuals

The Cold War was the name given to the political economic, military and ideological contention that occurred between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and their allies after World War II. The two forces never directly engaged in military activity in light of the fact that both had atomic weapons that if utilized, might have had crushing outcomes for both sides. Instead, proxy wars were battled. A proxy war results when contradicting forces utilize outsiders as substitutes for battling each one other and is ordinarily launched by a power that does not itself partake. The Korean and Vietnam wars are two examples of proxy wars on the grounds that the U.S. and the Soviet Union did not directly engage one another however, Soviet endeavors to spread and bring together both Korea and Vietnam under communist rule provoked mediation either by the United States and/or by their allies. These two occasions were simply a few of the impacts of the Cold War in Asia. This paper will examine each war individually and in more detail and endeavor to persuade that the Korean and Vietnam Wars were the immediate aftereffects of Soviet endeavors to expand communist influence in Asia and the United States and their allies' approach of forestalling and holding such endeavors.

The novel, The Culture of the Cold War, is the all about the cold war and how that time period effected America in the 1960s. It talks about how the Cold War era haunted America with constant threats, and the talk of communism all across the nation. The author of the book, Stephen J. Whitfield, described that the Cold War gave the nation an identity crisis and that suspicion started to arise. The novel is very descriptive on that topic and elaborates on certain ideologies during that time.

The federal government’s action during the Red and Lavender Scares following World War II would promote the hero-heroine relationship with a large portion of the American people. Joseph McCarthy, the figure head of these two scares, crystalized on the anxieties of the public that communism posed a threat to their freedom and democracy when he boldly declared in 1950 that the State Department was infested with communists. He then spearheaded the Internal Security Act (ITA) which would require member of communist organizations to register with the government and eventually made it illegal to even affiliate with any communist organization (Lecture). In addition, McCarthy connected this fear of communism to the gay community by stating that “homosexuality…was the phycological maladjustment that led people toward communism” Johnson 192). As a way to keep homosexuals, communists, or a mix of the two from “threatening” American freedoms, the federal government used acts such as the ITA and Truman era bans on homosexuals working in the government to ease the fears of the American people (Lecture). By using these tactics, the federal government asserted themselves in the lives of Americans, namely those who differentiated from societal norms, and forced them into submission or silence for fear that they would be punished. This act of

During the Cold War, America as a whole was terrified of the idea of communists. Everybody had a perception of a communist, and knew that they did not like them. The American Government took many measures to protect the United States from Communism. In 1947, President Harry Truman made an Executive Order 9835 with the purpose of making the United States Government more secure. To summarize the order, it was to have all people holding or applying for Government positions to be checked or inspected a great deal for being or

Fear was a large part of this as a fear of world domination by communists or nuclear holocaust, especially because the Soviet Union exploded its first A-Bomb in 1949 and China became communist.

The Cold War was a time of suspicion. The fear of communism was at its highest level. Anyone who was thought to have had ties to communism was blacklisted and stripped of of any honor they had. However this was not the first or last persecution taken place in the U.S. Back in Puritan time the belief that the devil executed his deeds by bewitching people.Like the Red Scare people set out on a mission to hunt the blights that had among them.

The security risk that the government thought a lot about was the fact that the gay and lesbian employees knew that it was an issue to work there but they hide it. They thought that if these employees could hide something like this from us, then they could possibly be hiding the fact that they were communists and if a communist would threaten to tell the government that they were gay or lesbian than they might tell communist what the government was planning to do to take down communism around the

The Cold War created a certain desire for security, which led to conformity during the immediate years after WWII. This desire for security was brought about by McCarthyism, a theory based on the claim that Senator McCarthy had a list of hundreds of communist that had perpetrated the United States government. People became terrified that they too may be singled out, or identified as different, therefore their only response was to fit in, to conform. Americans conformed every aspect of their daily lives to fit the standards of those around them.

In spite of the fact that homophobia existed before the Cold War, there wasn’t much attention towards targeting homosexuals until then. The end of World War II began to bring forth the intense persecution by not only excluding homesexuals in the military, but by also excluding them from civil service. President Truman’s want to aid Greece and Turkey, expressed in his address, was rooted from fear that Communist forces in those countries will take over the U.S. This implemented an executive order of a loyalty program in the government, in which the State Department attempted to partake in. The State Department began to fire homosexual employees, even though Truman’s executive order did not refer to one’s sexuality. Moreover, Joseph Mccarthy’s claim of Communists in the State Department gained mass

The topic of race throughout history has been debated heavily, even causing wars and devastation because of it. Why do we judge people based on the color of their skin? Truth be told, we find ways to judge people based on prejudices and things that we do no even know enough about to be judging. The sad part about all of this is that we still have not gotten rid of those prejudices throughout history, and in the book The Cold War and the Color Line, the author goes very in depth about the progress of getting past the color line that held back so many people in not only America but the rest of the world as well. Progress has been slow, but many events have brought us slowly closer to equality

During the 1960’s to be gay in the United States was essentially a crime. It was the time of the “Lavender Scare,” in which thousands of people were fired from the federal government for no other reason than their sexuality. The fear stemmed from Cold War concerns that homosexuals would be a “security risk,” exploitable by communists (Sherouse) (Sears). Dozens of anti-gay legislation was in existence, specifically prohibiting employment of “homosexuals and other sex perverts” in civil service positions, and subsequently creating a president of discrimination throughout the country (Sears).

In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the 34th President of the Unite States. His main goal was to keep pressure on the Soviet Union during the early stages of the Cold War. During his Presidency, Eisenhower brought back many of the old traditional values and fiercely attacked homosexuality and sexual immorality.

Despite its name, the Cold War did not actually involve military fighting between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, the Cold War is still an excellent example as to why war can be a result of bargaining failures and explains reasons as to why war occurs. A single person’s rationality can tip the scale between war and peace. The Cold War was essentially a deadlock between the two super powers of that time, the United States and the Soviet Union. Both states expressed desire to maintain and widen their respective spheres of influence around the world. Both states also wanted to prove that their political system is superior; whereas the United States was pro-democracy, the Soviet Union was pro-communism. Although the Cold War was a result of many factor, war can definitely occur due to information problems between two states. Nonetheless, I do believe there is always a range of agreements that is possible between states, as is evidenced by the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis.

Homosexual men in Russia have historically experienced injustice and hatred towards them. Local police were known to conduct surveillance on suspected homosexuals and keep files on them. Accounts of abuse occurring in the early 1990’s include attacks by youth gangs, assassinations, theft, extortion, blackmail by police, and police raids on Homosexual clubs. Homosexuals are a prime target for abuse because they are unlikely to receive the protection of the police much less seeks out such protection. But this is not the only example of how Russian Homosexuals were treated in an unfavorable way. When researching, I came across the following quote which intends to set what it suggest is the historical authenticity of Lenin’s apparently pro-gay

As a society, we feed off of each other for what a proper response to something may be. As children, we first look to see our mother’s reaction after falling down; if she is calm, I should also be. We look to each other for what a definition of things should be, as well. In the 1950’s, it was generally obscene for a woman on television to show her belly button, whereas today we will show nude breasts on primetime programming. This follows the sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, where society and individual social interaction provides a subjective meaning to deviant behavior. Many social definitions change for the better, however some change for the worse. One such example was once viewed as normal, with no second thoughts given