Anticommunism remained a potent weapon in political affairs as long as the Cold War operated in full force. When George Kennan designed the doctrine of containment in 1946 and 1947, he had no idea that it would lead to permanent military alliances such as NATO or to a war in Korea. He viewed the Soviet Union as an unflinching ideological enemy, but he believed that it should be contained through economic rather than military means, along the lines of the Marshall Plan. When the Korean War ended in 1953, the Truman administration had already put into operation around the world the heightened military plans called for by NSC-68. Hard-line Cold War rhetoric portrayed the struggle as a battle between good and evil, summed up in the phrase “I’d rather be dead than Red.” Casting the conflict in apocalyptic terms did little justice to the nature of its origins. Born out of different perceptions of national interests and mutual misunderstandings of the other side’s actions, the Cold War became frozen in the language of competing moralistic assumptions and self-righteousness. Within this context, though some Americans rallied to obtain clemency for the Rosenbergs, most considered that they got just what they deserved.
The Cold War remained the backdrop for life during the 1950s. Americans accepted it and took it for granted as part of the hazard of modern everyday life. Occasionally, overseas crises riveted their attention on the perilous possibilities of atomic brinksmanship with the Soviets, but for the most part Americans focused their attention on pursuing their economic dreams and raising their families. They could not avoid the Cold War, but they would try to work around it.