1. Focus Question: How did the Cold War affect life at home?
The Cold War at Home
Focus Question: How did the Cold War affect life at home?

2. Activity
You will receive a piece of paper. It is either blank or has a dot on it. There are fewer dots than blank papers.
Secretly look at your paper. If you have a dot, do not reveal it to anyone.
Put the paper in your pocket.

3. Activity
The goal of this activity is to form as large a group of “nondot” students as possible – the largest group without a “dot” member wins.
The whole group will lose if there is a “dot” member in your group.
If you suspect a classmate has a dot you should say “so-and-so is a dot!”
“Dot” students can win points individually by being the only “dot” member in a group

4. Activity
You will have 10 minutes to form your groups that exclude “dot” members.
Move around the room to question each other. Those with dots should bluff to convince others they don’t have a dot.
Do not show your paper to anyone until I tell you to.

5. Debriefing
How did you feel when you discovered you had a blank piece of paper or a dot?
What methods did you use to determine who had a dot?
For those that had dots, how did you convince others you were not a “dot?”
For those who were accused of having a “dot,” how did you feel?
Given that there was no way to know for sure who was or was not a “dot,” why did you try so hard to convince others that certain class members were “dots?”
What emotions fueled this activity?

6. The Red Scare Returns!
“Communists are everywhere—in factories, offices, butcher stores, on street corners, and private businesses. And each carries in himself the death of our society.”
- Attorney General J. Howard McGrath (under Truman)
Fear that American communists are Soviet agents and that many are in high ranking government positions and all levels of society

7. Video clip He may be a Communist

8. Joseph McCarthy Known for his Communist “witch-hunts”
Republican senator who faced almost certain defeat in 1950 re-election
Used fear of communism as a way to promote his career
Claimed to have a list of 205 names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and were still working for the government
“[There is] a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man”

9. HUAC House Un-American Activities Committee
Established to investigate Communist activity
Government, armed forces, unions, education, science, newspapers, movies, etc.

10. McCarthyism
Fear, suspicion, and scapegoating surrounded McCarthy’s communist accusations
He bullied and berated witnesses when they testified before the committee
Could be labeled as a “5th amendment communist” or be guilty by association

11. Why do you think the Movie Business was targeted?
Hollywood Ten
Why do you think the Movie Business was targeted?
Most famous HUAC case
Ten film industry directors/producers/ were sent to prison after the hearings for contempt of Congress b/c they refused to testify
Blacklists: lists of movie stars who could not be hired because of their suspected ties to communism.

12. Alger Hiss
Government employee – worked on New Deal programs and in created UN
Accused of stealing government documents for Soviets: spying
Sentenced to 5 years in prison for perjury
**Puts Richard Nixon on the map – he convinced HUAC to press the case and in 1952 he is Eisenhower’s running mate

13. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
Charged with passing secret information about nuclear weapons to the Soviets
Pleading innocent, the Rosenberg’s said they were being targeted because they were Jewish and had unpopular political beliefs
They were electrocuted in 1953.