COLD WAR: REDS, 1947-1953 {PART 6 OF 24} (TV)
Summary
The sixth in this twenty-four-part documentary series examining the events of the Cold War, from 1917 to the early 1990s. This series consists of interviews and archival footage, accompanied by historical narration by Kenneth Branagh. This episode focuses on the repression and internal searches for subversives in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which stemmed from the Cold War atmosphere of fear. The program opens with excerpts of American anti-Communist propaganda such as "Power Behind the Nation" and the "Big Lie," in addition to scenes from the House Un-American Activities Committee's 1947 investigations and trials of Hollywood professionals. Included are statements by actors Gary Cooper and Robert Taylor; screenwriters John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, and Ring Lardner, Jr.; and Ronald Reagan. In an interview, Lardner recalls the ostracism and harassment he experienced throughout the investigations. Information follows on the trial of Alger Hiss as well as on Representative Richard Nixon's political ascent, which Nixon biographer Ralph De Toledano attributes to the congressman's espousal of an anti-communist platform. Paul Robeson, Jr., also discusses the violence directed at his father because of Robeson's communist sympathies. As international communism gained strength with Soviet aquisition of nuclear power and the formation of the People's Republic of China, communist hunting in the U.S. expanded to the government. John Service of the U.S. State Department recalls the persecution he suffered when Senator Joseph McCarthy marked him as a government traitor serving Soviet interests. Although President Harry S. Truman denied the existence of communist agents in the federal government, persecution of communists and suspected communists continued. FBI Agent M. Wesley Swearinger compares American methods of routing out "enemies" with the Soviet methods that Americans condemned, and U.S. Attorney General Herb Brownell recalls that the witch hunt came to a head when McCarthy accused General George Marshall of treason. After a discussion of the controversial Rosenberg trials and executions, with comments from constitutional lawyer Arthur Kinoy, Toledano describes McCarthy's downfall following the senator's denunciation of several senior government and military officials. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc, Joseph Stalin's government developed its own Cold-War propaganda and practices of purging the enemy within. When the CIA sent Soviet refugees into the communist countries as spies, the Soviet authorities responded with investigations, trials, and imprisonment in the Gulag. Jan Novak of Polish Radio Free Europe and Eduard Goldstuecker, an arrested communist official, discuss the repressive measures instituted to keep a tight reign on those in communist countries. Dmitri Sukhanov of the Politburo Secretariat explains that prior to trials political prisoners' confessions were forced and fabricated by the secret police to suit the needs of the government, and Jarmila Potuckova, who was arrested by Soviet agents, remembers the abuse she suffered during questioning. A discussion follows of Stalin's demands for officially sanctioned, social realist art, including comments by Boris Pokrovsky, artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater, on the unintentional stifling of the creative arts. Next, Susanna Pechuro, a student arrested in 1951, recalls the horrors of the Gulag, and Gulag prisoner Yakov Etinger concludes that the Soviet government used Jews and dissenters, among others, as scapegoats for the problems of the communist state. The program ends with information regarding Soviet anti-Semitism and the arrest of Kremlin doctors accused of treason; and Soviet foreign minister Vladimir Yerofeyev comments on the impact of Stalin's death. Commercials deleted.
Cataloging of this program was possible by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, 1999.
This selection from the Alan Gerry Cable Collection has been made available by the Gerry Foundation, Inc.
Details
- NETWORK: CNN
- DATE: November 1, 1998 Sunday 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:46:50
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:58333
- GENRE: Public Affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Cold War; She Made It Collection (Pat Mitchell); U S - History - 1945-1989; Soviet Union - History - 1945-1989; Army-McCarthy Controversy, 1954; U S House Committee on Un-American Activities; Communism and international relations
- SERIES RUN: CNN - TV series, 1998-1999
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Pat Mitchell … Executive Producer
- Jeremy Isaacs … Executive Producer
- Vivian Schiller … Senior Producer
- Martin Smith … Series Producer
- Cate Haste … Producer
- Isobel Hinshelwood … Series Associate Producer
- Alison McAllan … Series Associate Producer
- Ted Turner … Series Concept by
- Andrew Page … Editor
- Tessa Coombs … Research
- Gerald Lorenz … Research
- Svetlana Palmer … Research
- Miriam Walsh … Film Research
- Neal Ascherson … Writer
- Carl Davis … Music by
- Kenneth Branagh … Narrator
- Herb Brownell
- Gary Cooper
- Ralph De Toledano
- Yakov Etinger
- Eduard Goldstuecker
- Alger Hiss
- Arthur Kinoy
- Ring Lardner
- John Howard Lawson
- George Marshall
- Joseph McCarthy
- Richard M. Nixon
- Jan Novak
- Susanna Pechuro
- Boris Pokrovsky
- Jarmila Potuckova
- Ronald Reagan
- Paul Robeson
- Ethel Rosenberg
- Julius Rosenberg
- M. Wesley Swearinger
- John Service
- Joseph Stalin
- Dmitri Sukhanov
- Robert Taylor
- Harry S. Truman
- Dalton Trumbo
- Vladimir Yerofeyev