The Cold War

After the cessation of hostilities, the wartime alliance of the Allied Powers collapsed when the Russians proceeded to set up puppet communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Tensions between the West and the Soviet Union rapidly escalated into a global military and ideological confrontation. The Cold War, as it came to be known, was in some ways more threatening than the hot wars of the past because both sides were armed with nuclear weapons capable of mass destruction.

War Powers of the President Limited

The first major eruption of Cold War hostilities occurred when communist North Korea attacked the American-backed government of South Korea. The United Nations Security Council issued a Resolution on June 25, 1950, calling upon member states to commit peacekeeping forces to the region. President Harry S. Truman committed United States forces to the mission and appointed General Douglas MacArthur to command all Allied Forces in Korea. There was no formal declaration of war by Congress, and the military operations that followed technically took the form of an international police action. When a steelworkers’ strike threatened to impair war production, Truman issued an executive order seizing the steel mills. The Supreme Court declared the order unconstitutional on the ground that the president could not invoke his war powers in time of peace absent congressional authorization.

The Truman Loyalty Order

The Cold War put the United States on the defensive globally and gave rise to domestic suspicions that communist forces were working from within to subvert and ultimately overthrow the government. Rumors of espionage and the infiltration of the government by Soviet agents and sympathizers fueled the fear of hidden enemies on the home front. President Truman issued a Loyalty Order in 1947 for the investigation of employees of the executive branch. The campaign to root out subversives that followed for a time assumed the dimensions of a political witch hunt; loyal Americans were harassed and dismissed on the basis of rumors and anonymous accusations. High-profile cases involving espionage helped inflame anticommunist hysteria well into the 1950s.

The McCarran Act

The McCarran Internal Security Act required all communist and communist-front organizations to register with the attorney general and submit their membership lists and financial records. While it did not prohibit membership in such organizations, the law prohibited the promotion of dictatorial forms of government and barred members from working for the federal government. It was followed by the Immigration and Nationality Act, which threatened denationalization and deportation of naturalized citizens who had been members of totalitarian organizations before coming to the United States. It was in this context that Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin rose to national prominence for his ruthless pursuit of alleged communists.

Presidential Succession

The Presidential Succession Act made the Speaker of the House and then the President Pro Tempore of the Senate next in line of succession to the president and vice president.

Twenty-Second Amendment

The Twenty-Second Amendment prohibited anyone from serving as president for more than two terms. It also provided that anyone serving as president for more than two years of another person’s term should not be eligible for election as president more than once. Although Truman was exempted from the amendment as the sitting president, the measure was regarded by many as implicitly critical of his administration.

Truman’s Court Appointments

President Truman altered the balance of power on the Court with his appointments. Justices Reed, Jackson, and Frankfurter joined his conservative appointees on many issues, leaving Black and Douglas as the only consistently liberal justices on the Court.

Civil Liberties under Siege

The first major challenge to postwar anticommunist legislation came in American Communications Association v. Douds (1950). At issue was the constitutionality of a provision in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 requiring officers of labor unions to file affidavits disclaiming membership in the Communist Party and to disavow support for or belief in organizations advocating the violent overthrow of government. The Court upheld the affidavit requirement but declared the nonbelief oath unconstitutional for penalizing individuals for their political convictions.

Smith Act Prosecutions

The Smith Act imposed sweeping restrictions on First Amendment rights, making it a criminal offense “to knowingly or willingly advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence.” When the Truman administration used the act to indict eleven leading members of the American Communist Party, the defendants challenged the constitutionality of the measure under the First Amendment. The Court upheld the law by a 6–2 vote, but without agreement as to why it was constitutional.

State Loyalty Programs

Taking their cue from the federal government, the states passed security measures involving loyalty oaths and noncommunist affidavits designed to exclude alleged subversives from government employment. Laws requiring individuals to disavow belief in the right to overthrow government by force were upheld by the Court as reasonable exercises of state police power.

The Federal Loyalty Program

In 1951, President Truman issued Executive Order 10241, which authorized the removal of government employees upon a finding of reasonable doubt as to their loyalty. A standard ordinarily used to protect the accused was now used to condemn them. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the order and of the loyalty boards employed to enforce it. The Court essentially took the position that no one has a constitutional right to a government job.

Racial Progress in the Courts

While civil liberties suffered significant setbacks during the Cold War, civil rights made some historic strides forward. The NAACP scored a number of signal victories in the Supreme Court. Racially restrictive covenants on property were held to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and racial segregation in interstate transportation was held to interfere with the uniformity of interstate commerce.

Enforcing the “Equal” in Separate but Equal

The Vinson Court made racial segregation all but impossible in a series of cases involving public universities and professional schools. Without overturning the separate but equal doctrine, the Court held that the doctrine required the states to admit black students to existing academic programs or else establish new facilities and programs to accommodate them. It would no longer be acceptable for public institutions to deny African Americans admission simply because the schools did not have separate facilities for them. The price of continuing segregation in higher education now became prohibitively high, putting the states under heavy pressure to desegregate their universities and professional schools.

Eisenhower and the Return of Reason

Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1953, the first Republican to hold that office in twenty years. Senator McCarthy’s hunt for Communists within the federal government continued unabated until he finally discredited himself by accusing the U.S. Army of harboring subversives. The subsequent Senate hearings were televised and for the first time the nation witnessed his bullying tactics. The spectacle cost McCarthy his credibility, and support for his anticommunist witch hunts thereafter vanished almost as quickly as it had begun.

The Bricker Amendment

The United Nations was established after World War II for the purpose of promoting global peace, security, and development. When the United States joined the organization and subscribed to its charter, concern arose over the charter’s implications for domestic law. Article 55, for example, obligated member states to promote “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.” Judicial decisions invalidating state laws on the ground that they violated Article 55 caused a political reaction. A constitutional amendment limiting the domestic effect of treaties was proposed, but fell one vote short of the required two-thirds majority in the Senate.