Mini-Review: Nightmare in Red

Pay no mind to its lurid title—Richard Fried’s “Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective” is a fine, if limited, primer on American anti-communism. It’s not the best book on anti-communism. It’s not the best book on the Red Scare. It’s not even the best book on Joe McCarthy. But it’s the best short book on all three subjects.

Fried picks up the story shortly after World War II, when Americans began to realize that “Uncle Joe” Stalin might not be as cuddly as he seemed. The conquest of China by Maoist cadres added another ingredient to the simmering anti-communist stew. No surprise, then, that the Communist Party—which had enjoyed a brief vogue during the war—suddenly became less popular than syphilis. Politicians national and local seized the anti-communist issue as a cudgel to beat their enemies.

Some anti-communist warriors won great victories. Richard Nixon, for instance, made a national name thanks to his role in the Alger Hiss case. The urbane Hiss, accused of espionage by a dumpy ex-communist named Whittaker Chambers, turned out to have been part of a Soviet spy ring in Washington during the 1930s. More often, though, these hunts devolved into farces, more dangerous to the anti-communist cause than to undercover reds. Fried details some of the more lunatic cases: one father charged a candy company with pro-Soviet bias for printing a wrapper bearing a map of the USSR.

Yet when it comes to explaining anti-communism, Fried stutters. Certainly, the world scene contributed to public fears. Anti-communism spiked during the bleakest days of the Korean War. But Fried tries to argue that the driving force behind the movement was “conservative politics.” And how does he define conservative politics? As anti-communism. There you have it: anti-communism was the product of anti-communism.

Every history of anti-communism makes Joe McCarthy its centerpiece, and, once again, Fried delivers a mixed bag. Tail Gunner Joe’s story is retold in its sordid detail. The highs and lows—the Wheeling speech, the investigation of Owen Lattimore, the Army hearings, “Have you no sense of decency?”—are all touched. Still, the simple question of “Why McCarthy” is never answered. Why that demagogue at that time? Why him and not, say, William Jenner or William Knowland, who shared McCarthy’s anti-communism but not his vile personality?

“Nightmare in Red” is an excellent starting point. It’ss short and punchy; you can read it in a day or two. Don’t stop with Fried, though. Read “Not Without Honor,” a comprehensive—magisterial, even—history of American anti-communism by Richard Gid Powers. Or pick up David Oshinksy’s “A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy,” one of the finest biographies I have ever read. There is a world of literature on anti-communism, much of it quite good. “Nightmare” is only the beginning.