What you’ll learn to do: describe the efforts to contain communism both abroad and at home

Figure 1. Photograph of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The early 1950s were a pivotal phase in the Cold War. Both the loss of China to communism and the successful test of a Soviet atomic weapon in 1949 helped create an urgency for U.S. containment strategies. In that same period, the arrest of Soviet spies in the United States and Britain aroused fears in the United States that communist agents were seeking to destroy the nation from within. These events made it appear that the west was losing the Cold War, both abroad and at home. When hostilities erupted in 1950 on the divided Korean peninsula, many policymakers chose this as an opportunity to halt the power and spread of communism through the policies of containment.

On June 27, Truman ordered U.S. military forces into South Korea. In September 1950, Congress passed acts that forced the registration of communist organizations and gave the government greater powers to investigate sedition (speech or activities focused on overthrowing the state). Loyalty board investigations and hearings before House and Senate committees attempted to root out Soviet sympathizers in the federal government and in other sectors of American society, including Hollywood and the military.

While containment was a constant, how it was applied varied. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952.  He sought to build a strong system of national defense while maintaining a commitment to maintaining peace. Unlike Truman, Eisenhower avoided engaging the United States in foreign conflicts.