Cold War

Ms. Chamberlain

History 106

1 April 2009

Did Communism Threaten America’s Internal Security After World War II?

In the twelfth issue in Taking Sides historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr argue that high-ranking military officials compromised decisions in America’s best interest by passing sensitive information to the Soviet Union and hurting America’s moral. Contradictory to what Haynes and Klehr discuss fellow history professor Richard M. Fried argues that American citizens had their first and fifth amendments suspended while the government searched for communist in the American work force causing more problems than anything else.

Haynes and Klehr open their argument proving the infiltration of Soviets into the American armed forces and major American government agencies. Sadly high-ranking military officials maintained relationships with Soviet leaders and through this relationship passed extensive amounts of secret information. However to battle this problem the United Kingdom and Unites States worked together to perform the act of cryptanalysis on messages sent from the Soviet Union known as the Venona project. Through this project Americans were able to see in to the Soviet mind and view their thought process in certain situations. With these decrypted codes American military forces were able to make better thought out decisions during the Cold War. Haynes and Klehr close their argument with the validation that the Verona project proved the hostility the Soviet Union had against the United States. They explain, “The Soviet Unions unrestrained espionage against the Unites States…was the type that a nation directs towards an enemy state” (272). After Haynes’ and Klehr’s research shows the Soviets Cold War attack did not start after World War II but many years earlier.

Fried’s main argument is hard to decipher at first but the underlying message he attempts to bring forth is how the rights of Americans were taken away as...