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(Communists were thought to be everywhere, even comic books)

When we think about paranoia, conspiracy theories and black helicopters today, we think this is a relatively new phenomenon.

Sad to say, no. During the 1950s we were knee-deep in the Red Scare, the all-pervasive paranoia, the trigger-happy finger on the doomsday scenario.

It's no small wonder anti-depressants became popular around this time. It's also no small wonder people drank themselves into comas on an almost daily basis. You would too if you had to endure that much rampant distrust of your fellow human being - convinced every other person was hiding secret marching orders from The Kremlin.

Nasty times.

And so in 1955, one of the hot topics of discussion on mainstream media was just how much freedom Americans were losing, and were we in danger of losing it completely? Was the U.S. Government overrun with Communist subversives, poised to take over at the appointed time?

Then as now, a lot of the hysteria was media manufactured, pumped up by fringe element alarmists bent on scaring the crap out of people. Sending them, terror-stricken for comforting answers.

And as Senator Hubert Humphrey pointed out during the interview:

Sen. Hubert Humphrey: “ I think there are a number of people who would like to have the American people believe that the government is infiltrated by disloyal people and subversives and security risks and that isn’t a fact either. The Government employees are, as a group far above the average employee in the country. They’ve been screened, re-screened and double screened as to their security and as to their loyalty. I do feel however, that there’s been far too much demagoguery about the so-called security risks, the so-called numbers game. Many people have been dismissed from employment that were not disloyal at all. But just were unsuitable employees and then they’ve been tabulated as security risks. I think the sooner we get down to taking a look at our loyalty security program as citizens rather than as partisans, as members of Congress rather than as Republicans or Democrats, the better we’re going to be off and the better the country’s going to be off. We need security and freedom and we can have both.”

Despite the claims and facts to the contrary, the witch hunt kept right on pointing fingers and accusing. And the alarmists kept right on sowing hysteria.

Not much has changed in retrospect. Only the enemy.

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(Edward J. Corsi - Assassination by Innuendo)

With America hot in the grips of the Red Scare, it was possible to settle all manner of vendetta by simply implying someone had "Communist Friendly" ties. Such was the case of Edward J. Corsi, who had been appointed in 1954 by John Foster Dulles to oversee the State Department Immigration Program. Corsi, who was a liberal Republican, had apparently run afoul of a Congressman from Pennsylvania who decided Corsi was ill-equipped to handle the position and was rumored to be tied in the past to Communist front organizations. Corsi's boss, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles promptly fired him and it sent shock waves throughout Capitol Hill. The scandal was thought to have political repercussions for the upcoming 1956 elections and his firing set up an outcry that came from many unlikely sectors of the political spectrum, including Eleanor Roosevelt.

While the scandal was fresh, CBS' program Face The Nation on April 17, 1955 sat down with Corsi, and with a panel of journalists, hammered questions at him.

John Madigan (Washington Bureau Chief of Newsweek): “Do you believe you were fired in this instance because an influential Democratic Congressman made some charges concerning your alleged associations previously with Communist front organizations?

Edward Corsi: “ I haven’t the slightest doubt about that Mister Madigan, because the Secretary himself told me that.”

Madigan: “Mister Dulles has told you that he fired you because of charges made by Representative Walter of Pennsylvania?”

Corsi: “Mister Dulles told me that it was essential that he maintained friendly relations with Congress.”

Madigan: “But did he tell you that was the reason you were fired, in order to keep up such relations?”

Corsi: “Well I think that would have had no other meaning for me other than that. What he said he had to maintain friendly relations with Congress and this controversy had embarrassed those relations with Congress and I was to go to South America so that the controversy would end.”

It's interesting that political assassination by innuendo is still very much alive and used today.

In 1955 it was just as nasty.

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(Adlai Stevenson - Judging by history, they didn't pay much attention)

Not completely the same as our current situation, but certainly one where the echoes of the shrill are the same. In 1955, the time of this talk given by Adlai Stevenson, we were teetering on the edge of a shooting war over the issue of Quemoy and Matsu, two islands in the straits of Formosa purported to belong to Nationalist China, but claimed to belong to Mainland China - so a territorial dispute erupted and quickly escalated into a series of skirmishes. As always, the U.S. was quickly appealed to from Nationalist China for help and the flood of rhetoric ensued from the extremist wing of our government to get involved in an all-out shooting war with China, all for the sake of two tiny islands that were closer in proximity to Mainland China than Formosa. But which Formosa used as a "first line of defense" if Mainland China decided to invade.

And so Adlai Stevenson offered his two cents, as titular head of the Democratic Party in 1955 and offered his thoughts on the conflict and our potential involvement.

Adlai Stevenson: “At this late date, there may be no wholly satisfactory way of resolving the dilemma. But if we learn something from this experience, if we realize at last that we have been pursuing a dead-end policy in Asia, then perhaps we can turn our present difficulties to good account and devise an approach more in keeping with the realities of Asia and of the Hydrogen Age.”

Stevenson spoke of a "dead-end policy" in Asia, and in retrospect it was and largely still is. Only this time there is no Communist China and no Red Scare, but we're dealing with a region that has historically not adhered to governments as we know them, whose population is made up of such a divergent group of peoples that there is little agreement even among themselves. How we expect, even with a surge of 2-300,000 more troops will any better serve the cause of our brand of democracy is pursuing yet another dead-end policy in Asia. But there is that thing about Pakistan and the bomb to consider.

I wonder what Adlai would have to say about all that today?

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(An Eisenhower Press Conference - cheerfully referred to as Old Bubblehead)

I'm trying to do the math here. The tape says this is Press Conference Number 68. It's from May 11, 1955 - Eisenhower has been in office since January 1953. So as best as I can round it out, that's about one Press Conference every two weeks. I've spoken with several people who were with the White House Press Corps at the time and they honestly did refer to Eisenhower as "Old Bubblehead" - I'm not making it up.

I wonder if he was guilty of being overexposed?

At any rate - two subjects were covered:

First was The Big 4 Summit back when only four countries were considered worth getting together. Times have changed.

Pres. Eisenhower: “I would think the most important thing to possibly be done at such a meeting would be to define the lines or directions in which we commonly would want our Foreign Ministers to work to see if there’s any opportunity to relieve the tensions in the world. And beyond that, I don’t think you can possibly say what the subjects would be. Certainly there would be no agenda except in the most generalized form, to talk about a general group of subjects . No agenda in the sense that Foreign Ministers would normally meet.”

A sort of summit to sit around and talk about what they're going to sit around and talk about.

The other important topic in this press conference was the newly introduced Polio Vaccine which had been temporarily held up by reports of Polio outbreaks among people who got the vaccine.

1955 was the year the Salk Polio Vaccine was made public. People don't talk about Polio that much anymore, as it has been all but eradicated. But in the 1950s it was scary, especially if you were a kid.

The one thing that struck me was the civility of the press - not much in the way of screaming. Fancy that.

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(Igor Stravinsky - Well. . . there was that little fracas in Boston)

Not performed all that much, but no less an important work in the Stravinsky opus. The Greek tragedy Persephone was the basis of a poem by Andre Gide and later set to music by Stravinsky in 1933 during his Paris years and staged by Ida Rubenstein. It was later translated into English in 1948 and performed as a ballet by Martha Graham, and in more recent years by George Balanchine. But there have been relatively few performances since.

But this particular recording remains kind of a mystery. The Belgian Conductor Andre Cluytens has enjoyed a huge popularity throughout the musical community. And since his death in 1967, his records have been actively sought by collectors and most of his work (commercial and broadcast) have been reissued by various labels over the years. Except this one.

Why? I can't tell you. Perhaps there were legal issues, maybe Stravinsky didn't like the recording, maybe the masters were destroyed - any one of a number of scenarios. Or it could be no one has gotten around to reissuing it.

Regardless - this is an extraordinary recording and one I've played hundreds of times throughout my life.

Some details - Nicolai Gedda, Tenor - Claude Nollier, narrator - The Choir of Paris University conducted by Jean Gitton. Orchestra of the Paris Conservatory, Andre Cluytens, conductor.

Recorded in Paris - December 1955.

The rest is up to you.