LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER

Growing concern about national security subtly altered the nation’s views of liberty, equality, and power. The growing power of the executive branch of government, particularly agencies like the CIA and the FBI, brought important changes to the nation’s unwritten constitution. Older ideas about the constitutional structure of limited governmental powers gave way to the idea that broader executive authority was necessary to protect national security. Anxiety about security was used to justify limits on liberty and equality for many in the United States, such as in the accumulation of voluminous dossiers on a wide range of homosexuals, intellectuals, and minority leaders by the FBI. Judges gave the government wide latitude in court cases, often neglecting to protect individual liberty. Extreme anticommunist fervor reached its height with McCarthyism.

Minorities and women made some headway during the postwar years. Truman issued an executive order that began desegregation of the armed forces. Major-league baseball’s unofficial policy of racial segregation came to an end, but most owners discouraged further black participation in the sport. The media depicted the average American woman as a homebound wife and mother, but economic realities propelled more and more women into the job market where opportunities remained within well-defined, sexually segregated areas. Professional opportunities for women actually narrowed. Postwar housing patterns were not simply the result of individual choice. The government actually maintained the segregationist pattern of white suburbs as the FHA made loan guarantees available only to men. In the age of anxiety, issues of liberty and equality took second place to those of national security.