1951: Knee deep in a war in Korea – possibilities of a war with Red China becoming stronger each minute. Fears that Soviet Russia were infiltrating our government with Communist agents faster than they could be routed out. Along with a shooting war, America was now in the middle of a Cold War. Thank god China didn’t have the Atomic bomb, but Soviet Russia did and China would only be a matter of time.
And so, with fear and a general discomfort that, even though America was experiencing an almost unprecedented economic boom and flourishing of the middle-class, it could all evaporate any second.
It was a race for the hearts and minds of the free world – Asia, like Africa and the Middle East, was undergoing rapid transformation from former colonies to independent nations. The growing pains and the turmoil that accompanied them. The popularity contest that pitted Communist ideologies against Western democracy for financial and military aid – infrastructure and food. The popularity contests that often came in the form of violent protest and overthrows from both East and West.
Troubled and interesting times with each side of this tug-of-war proclaiming the other as the oppressor and that each side represented the only solution. Often, as in the case of Vietnam (which would be an issue in the very near future from this broadcast) all that was wanted was freedom from any kind of influence and the desire to go the route on their own as a purely independent nation, establishing its own future, or “The Right Of Self-Determination” as was so often expressed within the general assemblies of the United Nations.
But in 1951 we were smack in the middle of uncertain times and this episode of Town Meeting Of The Air from July 31, 1951 posed the what-ifs and whys from a panel of pundits to an audience of the concerned.
To get an idea of what America, and in fact the world, was going through in 1951, here’s a sample of what it was like.
