Essay Archive - The Red Scare
The Red Scare
One evening in 1950 a Houston couple entered a Chinese restaurant.
The woman, a radio writer, wanted the proprietor's help in producing a
program on recent Chinese history. Overhearing their conversation, a
nearby man rushed out, phoned the police, and informed them that people
were "talking Communism." The couple was immediately arrested and jailed
for 14 hours before the police concluded they had no case. At about the
same time a policeman in Wheeling, West Virginia, discovered some penny-
candy machines dispensing goodies with tiny geography lessons. One lesson,
under....
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