Red Scare in the Green Mountains Receives Kirkus Review
"A historical account of the effects of McCarthyism in the state of Vermont.
According to conventional wisdom, Vermontās libertarian tendencies insulated it from the worst excesses of the Red Scare during the late 1940s and ā50s. However, debut author and longtime Vermonter Winston (Film/Community Coll. of Vermont) argues that the state suffered more than its fair share of hyperbolic McCarthyism. In journalistically meticulous prose, he provides a series of revealing historical vignettes that document episodes of fearful extremism. For example, he notes that Charles Plumley served as the stateās Republican congressman for nearly two decades despite his ferocious anti-Communist rhetoric and his unyielding opposition to the labor movement. Also, in 1953, Alex Novikoff, a talented University of Vermont professor, was ousted from his position because of suspicions he was a Communist sympathizer; in fact, although heād once harbored such sentiments, heād since grown thoroughly disillusioned by the Soviet Union. In 1948, two years before U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthyās hearings garnered national attention, Henry Wallace ran for president on the Progressive Party ticket. Despite a sterling reputationāheās served as President Franklin D. Rooseveltās vice president from 1941 to ā45āthe Vermont press savagely condemned him for his ties to the Communist Party and his criticisms of United States foreign policy. Winston discusses his own parentsā encounters with ideological extremism, as wellāboth were New York City teachers and members of the Communist Party, and both were scrutinized for their affiliations. The authorās prose is not only clear and elegant, but also impressively objective in tone; he relates the stories in great detail and then permits the reader to largely draw his or her own conclusions. The stories themselves are powerful examples of how anxiety can lead to the curtailment of intellectual freedomāa predicament that the author detects in the American political atmosphere of today. Thereās also a prefatory historical overview by the late Vermont College history professor Richard O. Hathaway, originally delivered at a conference in 1988, āVermont in the McCarthy Era.ā (Winston was among the conferenceās organizers.) Photos and newspaper clippings are included, as well.
A compelling case study on the political effects of collective closed-mindedness."