Archival Audio, Duck and Cover Propaganda Film:
Voiceover 1: No matter where we live, in the city, in the country, we must be ready all the time for the atomic bomb. Duck and cover! That’s the first thing to do: duck and cover. The next important thing to do after that is to stay covered until the danger is over. Yes, we must ALL get ready now, so we know how to save ourselves if the atomic bomb ever explodes near us. If you do not know just what to do, ask your teacher when this film is over. Discover what you can do in different places if the bomb explodes. Older people will help us as they always do. But there might not be any grownups around when the bomb explodes. Then…you’re on your own.
Voiceover 2: Remember what to do friends! Now tell me right out loud, what are you supposed to do when you see the flash?
Children yelling: Duck and cover!
Singing: Duck and cover! Duck and cover! Duck and cover!
Rebecca Naomi Jones: In a 1946 letter to Secretary of State James Byrnes, President Harry Truman proclaimed, “I’m tired of babying the Soviets.” Once the United States’ strongest anti-Fascist ally, the Soviet Union was rapidly becoming its greatest enemy. The following year, Bernard Baruch, a Jewish American financier and advisor to multiple presidents, urged an audience at the state House of Representatives in his native South Carolina: “Let us not be deceived – we are today in the midst of a Cold War,” coining the term that would define the next 45 years of foreign and domestic policies.
On August 29, 1949, the USSR successfully tested its first atomic weapon, sending shockwaves across the world. Once theoretical, the threat of nuclear war was now real, and the United States and the Soviet Union entered into a decades-long arms race that brought with it an unprecedented era of espionage and paranoia.
From the American Jewish Historical Society, this is The Wreckage: Year Zero. I’m your host, Rebecca Naomi Jones. In this week’s episode, The Soviets, the Cold War begins.
Archival Audio, Bernard Baruch Speaks at Hunter College, NYC:
[Music]
To New York City’s Hunter College and the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission comes Bernard M. Baruch, key figure in two world wars and advisor to presidents. The 75 year old statesman brings his plan for the Atomic Age. Among those at the historic meeting are Major General Groves and other military and civilian experts. Mr. Baruch chats with Trigby Lee, secretary-general of the United Nations. Now he outlines the position of the United States and calls for an international law to deal with the control and development of atomic energy.
[Music]
We suppose this: one, manufacturing of atomic bombs shall stop; two, existing bombs shall be disposed of pursuant to the terms of the treaty; and three the authority shall be in possession of full information as to the know-how for the production of atomic knowledge. We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead. That is our business. Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a vault which seized upon the state and is worth our salvation. If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of fear. Let us not deceive ourselves: we must elect world peace or world destruction.
[Music]
Rebecca Naomi Jones: The Cold War brought to the forefront a new set of challenges that would test global leaders and ordinary citizens alike.
Joining us is Dr. Jonathan Brent, CEO of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Jonathan Brent: The biggest challenge was that FDR died. And with that went many agreements between Stalin and FDR that were never written down. And the consequence was that no one quite knew what the endgame for FDR was going to be. And Truman comes in. Truman is not a terribly educated guy. He’s, he’s not a world sophisticated man. All he knows is that he hates Bolshevism.
And he and Stalin are, you know, ideological opponents from the very beginning, as opposed to FDR and Stalin, who sort of put their ideological differences to the side. Besides which, the New Deal looked like kind of a socialist initiative, you know? Uh, not one that, that Stalin or Lenin might have approved of, but nevertheless, it was in the, in that general framework and that, et cetera.
So there was this distrust that had to be overcome. There was also a small matter of the atom bomb.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: In 1941, leader of the USSR Joseph Stalin authorized the Soviet atomic bomb project, a classified program for researching and developing atomic weapons.
Jonathan Brent: It was of the highest priority for Stalin to understand what this weapon was and, and what, uh, uh, how it was being built and whether the Soviet Union, uh, He was so intent on this project that he took Beria away from being the chief of the NKVD. The Secret Service becomes the KGB and puts him in charge of the atomic bomb project in the Soviet Union.
The atomic bomb project in the Soviet Union, much like the atomic bomb project in the United States, has a great many Jewish mathematicians, physicists, you know, scientists, et cetera, et cetera. They are given total freedom. They are not constrained by ideology. And the US Army becomes aware of this espionage.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: On February 1, 1943, the US Army’s Signal Intelligence Service initiated the Venona Project, designed to intercept and decrypt messages transmitted between Soviet intelligence agencies and their operatives in the United States.
The Venona Project was kept secret, and not just from the public – even Presidents Roosevelt and Truman were unaware of its existence.
Jonathan Brent: The U. S. Army eventually collects about 35,000 of these cables. And initially General Clark, who is in charge of this, thinks, well, we’re, we’re allies, we have Lend Lease.
These are probably associated with Lend Lease, but eventually he realizes when he tries to decrypt these, that he can’t decrypt them. They are double encoded, and they are on what’s called a one time pad, which means you can’t decrypt them. Unless you get one of the pads that gives you the key to what the codes are.
And so, at that point, a red light goes on, and he forms a small, super secret project called the Venona Project that was put in the basement of the Arlington School for Girls in Arlington, Virginia.
So, on the one hand we’re allies, and on the other hand Stalin is doing everything he possibly can to get a hold of these secrets.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Once the world – and Stalin – learned of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet atomic project accelerated its efforts, with more aggressive espionage, including forcing captured German scientists who had worked on the German nuclear weapons project to join them. The scientists relied heavily on stolen secrets from the Manhattan Project to complete their work.
Then, in 1949, the moment that the United States feared had arrived – the Soviets successfully detonated an atomic bomb, modeled after the Manhattan Project’s Fat Man and codenamed First Lightning.
Archival Audio: Russian Atomic Blast Shakes UN General Assembly
President Truman’s dramatic announcement that Russia has created an atomic explosion sends reporters racing for Flushing Meadow where Russia’s wyszynski arrives to address the United Nation the Russian Foreign Minister maintains his silence about Russia’s atomic progress in his address he accuses the west of planning atomic war and urges the outlawing of atomic weapons but he makes no reference to Russian agreement on international inspection Keystone to control Secretary of State artisan says of America stand connection with the president’s statement that there has been an atomic explosion in the Soviet Union I wish to emphasize that from the very beginning of the development of atomic energy this nation has been determined to do everything in its power to proceed toward a truly effective international system of control it would be deluding ourselves to get something on paper that was not really effective the president’s statement underlines the importance of having an effective method of control assembly president Romulo addresses East and West if the announcement made by President Truman that the Soviet Union now has the atomic bomb is true then item number 23 in the agenda of the present session of the assembly will project itself as one of the most important questions that we will take up the impasse that now exists regarding the International control of atomic energy must be broken and the assembly must face this question squarely for the sake of mankind and for the peace of the world.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Through the Venona Project, American intelligence agents discovered that there were a number of Soviet spies working in the United States, and that this spy operation had provided the nuclear secrets that made Fast Lightning successful.
Jonathan Brent: These coded messages that were going back and forth between agents in the United States and agents in, and, and, and, Moscow Center. Uh, this is how the FBI got the name of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: The Rosenbergs, an American Jewish couple from New York City, stood accused of spying for the Soviet Union. Ethel, once an aspiring singer and actress, worked as a secretary in a shipping company. She became active in the labor movement, and joined the Young Communist League. It was there that she met her future husband, Julius.
Julius worked as an engineers inspector at the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He was discharged after his prior membership in the Communist party was discovered.
In 1950, the couple was arrested for espionage, and alleged co-conspirators included Ethel’s brother David Greenglass. They were put on trial, and on March 29, 1951, they were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917 and sentenced to execution. A public campaign for clemency that found support from figures like Jean-Paul Sartre, Frida Kahlo, and Albert Einstein was mounted, but the Rosenbergs’ sentencing stood, and they were executed two years later.
Jonathan Brent: You know, unfortunately, the paranoia was based on a reality, which was people knew what Stalin was doing, there were many and there were many journalists. Walter Durante at the New York Times, because of Venona, we now know was a paid Soviet agent.
Walter Durante at the New York Times. We know, uh, that, uh, a major journalist at the Christian Science Monitor, was a paid Soviet agent. We’ve just found these things out since, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But people had their suspicions. And a sufficient number of Soviet émigrés were coming over and explaining how the system worked.
And so people, in government and in institutions and all over were aware of these things. And furthermore, the Venona Project was leaking information. The Venona Project involved the U. S. Army Intelligence and it involved the FBI. Okay. And there was a liaison officer between the two. But this meant that Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover, knew what was going on, and he was leaking.
Archival Audio, J. Edgar Hoover:
The Communist Party of the United States is a fifth column if there ever was one. It is far better organized than were the Nazis in occupied countries prior to their capitulation. They are seeking to weaken America, just as they did in their era of obstruction when they were aligned with the Nazis. Their goal is the overthrow of our government. There is no doubt as to where a real communist’s loyalty rests. Their allegiance is to Russia, not the United States. Communism in reality is not a political party. It is a way of life – an evil and malignant way of life. It reveals a condition akin to disease. It spreads like an epidemic, and like an epidemic, a quarantine is necessary to keep it from infecting this nation.
The Communists are red fascists. Soviet imperialism has replaced Nazi imperialism as a threat to the peace of the world. Hitler never succeeded in building up in the countries he intended to conquer, instruments so powerful as Stalin’s communist parties and their associated fellow travelers. Stalin will not stop of his own volition. He can only BE stopped.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that there were widespread efforts to subvert the American government, and in turn, its democracy. At Hoover’s direction and with public support from figures like Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, the FBI began to investigate tens of thousands of people suspected of subversion. Targets included activists, educators, Hollywood actors and writers, and even politicians and military personnel.
Those being investigated were pressured to name names. Even as the accusations cost people their careers, their citizenship, and in some cases, even their lives, Hoover’s crusade showed no signs of stopping.
Jonathan Brent: People now suspect that he leaked information to McCarthy, which is how McCarthy made those wild accusations. But McCarthy, despite being right about the extent of espionage in the U. S. government, as we now absolutely know. Harry Dexter White, for instance, was a Soviet agent.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Harry Dexter White was an economist and senior official in Henry Morgenthau Jr.’s Treasury department. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, White was the youngest of seven children born to Jacob Weissnovitz and Sarah Magilewski, Jewish Lithuanian immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1880s.
White was one of the principal architects behind the Morgenthau Plan, and best known for his work to create the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Accusations of espionage, and that he had passed classified secrets to the Soviet Union, swirled, and in 1948, White was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He denied the accusations, and in the days that followed, suffered a series of heart attacks and died at the age of 55.
Jonathan Brent: I’ll never forget when his grand niece came to, uh, a, a, uh, book fair at Yale and we had the Venona book out there and her aunt. Uh, or grandmother, I can’t remember, uh, was telling me that she was related to Harry Dexter White. And so I went to the book and I opened it up and I showed her the section on Harry Dexter White.
And she was shocked. She had never heard these things or seen these things and she called the girl over and she said, sit in that chair and read this. About five minutes later, we look over and the girl is weeping. She is in tears. She can’t believe it. And, uh, her aunt, uh, says, Come on, let’s go. And on the way out, the girl said, Nobody ever told me that Uncle Harry was a spy.
And, uh, Wallace, Harry Dexter White was Wallace’s, I think Wallace said that if he would become president, Harry Dexter White would be his vice president. If that had happened, and if Wallace had won the election, we would have had a Soviet spy as vice president of the United States of America.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Signs of suspected Communist infiltration included “membership in, affiliation with or a sympathetic association” with “totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive” organizations, and the US government required all federal employees to take a loyalty oath. The House Un-American Activities Committee, which was originally formed in 1938 to weed out fascist sympathizers, turned nearly all of its sights on Communist infiltrators, and took a lead role in investigating those suspected of ties to the Communist party. As for the Venona Project, it continued until 1980, when it was finally disbanded.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans prepared themselves for the possibility of a nuclear war by building fallout shelters – enclosed structures designed to protect families from radioactive debris. In 1950, the Truman administration formed the Federal Civil Defense Administration, which published guides on constructing fallout shelters, and issued training films for schools across the country. These films continued to be shown in schools through 1991.
Jonathan Brent: I grew up with it, hiding under desks, going down into cellars, uh, seeing videos about how you wash your hands, you know, and don’t eat the fruit, and all of that nonsense. But the terror of that was real. It was real.
Archival Audio – Duck and Cover Propaganda Film:
Dum dum, deedle-dum dum
Deedle-dum dum, deedle-dum dum
There was a turtle by the name of Bert
And Bert the turtle was very alert
When danger threatened him, he never got hurt
He knew just what to do…
(bang) He’d duck! (gasp) And cover!
Duck! (gasp) And cover!
He did what we all must learn to do
You, and you, and you, and you
(bang) Duck! (gasp) And cover!
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Join us in January 2025 for The Wreckage: American Subversives, as we dive headfirst into the AJHS collections, and uncover the untold stories of the second American Red Scare.
From the American Jewish Historical Society, I’m Rebecca Naomi Jones. This episode was written by executive director Gemma R. Birnbaum. Recording, sound design, and mixing were done at Sound Lounge. Archival material is courtesy of the collections of the American Jewish Historical Society, British Pathé, and the US National Archives. Special thanks to Gavriel Rosenfeld, Ronit Stahl, Deborah Dash Moore, Hasia Diner, Kai Bird, and Jonathan Brent for contributing to our first season.
For episode transcripts, additional resources, and links to the collections featured in this episode, visit ajhs.org/podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review, which helps others discover our series.
