The Red Scare Sedgwyck Chan

Sedgwyck Chan
6/5/10

My topic is about the affects of the cold war on the American people. My first interview focuses on what it was like to live in a military town during the cold war. My second interview focuses on the effect of blacklisting on the music industry and stories about Russian people. My third interview is focused on life in America during the cold war.
Cold war interview with Patricia Chan, Student during the cold war
“What do you remember about the atomic bomb drills in America?
All I remember is that, when they had drills we had to get under the tables at school. Like that would do much good.
Where there fallout shelters in your city?
Yes there were. We didn’t have one, but there were some.
Were they private or public shelters?
There were both, I never saw any private ones, but I knew some people had them. I never saw the public ones, because I never had to go to it. I grew up in Warner Robbins, a small town in middle Georgia. There was a large air force base there,


one of the largest in America at the time. It was the worldwide manager for a wide range of aircraft, engines, missiles, software, and avionics.
Were there any military alerts while you lived there?
Yes, the airmen would be put on alert at times, and would have to stay on the base for a whole week. This was so that they would be completely ready for anything, in case they actually had to do something. In the post world war 2 era, the base stored a lot of the surplus of the war material. They kept lots of vehicles, and weaponry. They had 250 B-29 bombers, along with a lot of other planes. My dad was an air plane mechanic, and worked on planes on the base. He would work either day or night shifts, depending on how the flow of vehicles in need of repair was going through the base. When the cold war started, the Warner Robbins air force became a key air force base in holding surface to surface missiles.
What role did the air force base play in the cold war?
By the end of the 1950s the base assumed management of almost all the cargo aircraft in the entire United states air force. They called themselves the cargo


center of the air force. Also they supplied troops and materials through the
Southeast Asian pipeline, and modified two gunships for the wars. Also, in the 1970s they had cargo air craft that supplied Israel in the Yom Kippur War. In 1983, the cargo aircraft supported the U.S. invasion of Grenada. I went to school with a lot of military brats also.
When you were growing up, what was the sentiment like towards the Soviet Union?
They were the cold, heartless, machine like bad guys that could rain destruction on us at any given moment, and because of this, we were afraid of them.
Did you hear about McCarthyism when you were growing up?
A little bit, but all that I remember hearing was about his witch hunt, and how he made a huge mistake by accusing the military.
Did you hear about blacklisting?
Yeah I heard about that. Some movie stars were on the blacklist.



What do you know about it?
It was much like what McCarthy was doing, it was a huge witch hunt. A lot of movie actors, and directors were put out of work, because they were accused of being communist sympathizers.
Thank you for your time.” Cold War interview 2

Kim Zabelle, Musician
What do you know about the blacklisting that took place during the cold war?
I’ve known a few musicians who were blacklisted because of their political views during the McCarthy era. They worked for the big studios in LA and did a lot of film recording. If the film wasn’t “acceptable” they could find themselves on the blacklist and no longer hired for gigs.

What do you know about McCarthyism?
I don’t have enough time to write all that I know. I’ve found it interesting to see how school history books have changed over the years. There was very little about McCarthyism when I was growing up because the Cold War was



still happening. The “threat of Communism” still loomed in our Democracy-proud country of The Free & The Brave. I loved the movie George Clooney did about the tv news journalism call Good Night and Good Luck. Freedom of Speech? Freedom of Press? And even our history books were skewed in their time and that was in the 70’s, years after Senator McCarthy’s scares.

When you were in school, did you have to perform air raid drills?
In the early 70’s there were several bomb threats in our elementary school (during the Vietnam war) and lots of fear about The Communist Threat. We would have to line up on the school field for what seemed like hours and as small kids we didn’t understand what it was all about. One time, the school was being searched for such a long time, the school Principal finally let us go to the park across the street to play for the rest of the afternoon. There was also a lot of fear about Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who were starting to appear on the west coast, thought to be another “Communist Threat” because of their different skin color. This was, of course, after the McCarthy era of the 50’s but the general fear of people from other countries who might be Communist was definitely there. I don’t know that we had to perform air raid drills or if they were Earthquake drills but sometimes the


alarm would sound and we would have to climb under our desks. I don’t remember having to do this past about the 3rd grade (1976).


Did your family have their own fallout shelter?
My father was raised Mormon. We had a basement ready for the worst disasters at anytime and enough food for at least 3 months for our family of 6. I’m sure the Mormon population was thrilled that fallout shelters were encouraged. Once a year we would change all of the water in the bottles and replace any food that could go bad.


Did you know of any fallout shelters in your city? If so, then what kind of locations were they at?
Every Saturday morning, the Seattle Youth Symphony rehearses in Room 35 at the University of Washington’s School of Music. Our conductor, Mr. Sokol, used to make jokes about the fact that we rehearsed in a fall out shelter. Room 35 is in the sub-basement of the building. There are large metal doors outside of the wooden doors that sealed the room.


What was the overall feeling toward the soviets during the cold war?
When I was growing up, we didn’t know any Russians and our experience was only through reading, hearing the news or playing Russian music. In Shostakovich, you can actually hear the political torment in his style. In the movies, Russians were all portrayed as KGB spies and the common people were starving, poor, and lived in fear. I also imagined Russia as a place that was all black and white and cold. You know, it was the Cold War afterall. In school we read books like All’s Quiet on the Western Front and imagined that all Soviets only ate potatoes and beets. My stand partner in the PNB orchestra, Yuriy Mihklin, still upholds this diet with a lot of garlic on top.


Do you have any interesting stories from the cold war?
I didn’t know any Soviet people until David Tonkonogui and Mara Finkchelstein moved to Seattle in 1989. They had been professional cellists in a Ukranian Chamber Orchestra that was making a rare concert tour that would have a performance in New York City. Their daughter, Anna, was very ill. She was one of the many children suffering from leukemia due to the disaster at Chernobyl in 1986. Her parents convinced the government to


allow them to take Mara’s mother and their daughter with them on the tour. They were afraid that Anna would not live if they left her alone. As soon as they were in NYC, they defected from the orchestra and stayed to live in the United States mostly so they could seek better medical treatment for their daughter. David and Mara freelanced in NYC for several months and then David learned that there would be an audition for the Seattle Symphony. He scraped together enough money to buy a plane ticket to Seattle for himself. He could not afford to bring his cello with him so he borrowed an instrument from a local shop in order to take his audition. Without a doubt he was the most superior cellist for the job. But it was difficult for the music director to hire a defected Soviet but learning their story about their daughter’s, and also learning about Jewish persecution under the Communist regime, the Seattle Symphony’s music director, Gerard Schwarz, went to bat and worked it out so that David could work for the Seattle Symphony and his family could move to Seattle. Anna was able to get treatment at the Fred Hutchinson Center and is now living a healthy life. David, unfortunately, suffered from a rare blood cancer which took his life in 2003 and was probably linked to the Chernobyl disaster. I was in college when the nuclear melt down at Chernobyl occurred. Because news from the USSR was so filtered to the outside world, there were very poor reports as to how bad


things were. Meeting people like David and his family made you realize how much worse it was than the news that reached us here and that the long term effects of radiation poisoning are still taking lives. David was the first of many Soviet musicians invited to join the Seattle Symphony. In the early days of Russian-Jewish immigrants to the Seattle Symphony there was Michael Miropolsky, Mischa Schmidt, and Leonid Keylin...all violinists and they have lived in Seattle ever since.

Interview 3
Steve Kirk, College Professor During the cold war

What do you know about the blacklisting that took place during the cold war?
Conservative Politicians created “The House Committee on UnAmerican Activities” to go after anyone who was suspected of having sympathy for communists, or Soviet Russia. A famous question they asked was “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party.” Many artists, writers and intellectuals had tough decisions to make. For example, either tell on your friends and get them in trouble, or keep your mouth shut and go to jail. Dalton Trumbo was a writer who was blacklisted in Hollywood, nobody would hire him for years.
What do you know about McCarthyism?
Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin was know for accusing people of secretly being communist. Such an accusation, proven or not, could destroy a career and put people out of work. Many people, especially intellectuals, supported communism somewhat, because the great depression made life so hard for poor people in the 1930s, and communists in Europe were against Hitler before the USA. So, this got them in trouble later. Many believed that the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons because communist spies stole the secret from the USA.
When you were in school, did you have to perform air raid drills?
No, but my wife remembers in grade school in California having to crouch under her desk as practice in case of an air attack. Many U.S. citizens thought communists were evil people, and were worried to think they had atomic and hydrogen bombs and the missiles to deliver them. Books were written and movies mad about the end of the world through nuclear war.
Did your family have their own fallout shelter?
No. I never knew anybody that had one. I remember arguing about needing guns if you had one, because the starving neighbors might come to steal your stockpiles of food. They might make you open your shelter and then you would get contaminated by radioactivity just like they were. Some people said they wouldn’t want to survive when so many others died, and the earth was contaminated.
Did you know of any fallout shelters in your city? If so, then what kind of locations were they at?
Nope.



What was the overall feeling toward the soviets during the cold war?
The cold war was a long period. Russia became communist in 1917, and China in 1949. People thought the communists wanted to take over the world. They had half of Europe, half of Korea, and most of Vietnam. They tried to take over Greece in 1947. Still, they were too far away for me to worry about. It was okay to fight against the communists in Koreas in 1950, but by the 60s, people were fed up with fighting.
Do you have any interesting stories from the cold war?
Well, one slogan was:”Better dead than red.” We Catholics didn’t like them because they were atheist. Here’s a joke I told the class in grade school. Everybody was catholic and the teacher was a nun. Everybody loved the joke.
Commisar visits a farmer in Russia: “Hello comrade, how is the harvest under our potato crop production plant?”
Farmer: Very, very good. If we put all our potatoes in one pile, they would make a mountain reaching to the feet of god.
Commisar: Very good comrade. But you know, there is no god.
Farmer: I know. There ain’t any potatoes either.