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Cold War in a Cold Land - Fighting Communism on the Northern Plains (Paperback)
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Cold War in a Cold Land - Fighting Communism on the Northern Plains (Paperback)
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Most communists, as any plains state patriot would have told you in
the 1950s, lived in Los Angeles or New York City, not Minot, North
Dakota. The Cold War as it played out across the Great Plains was
not the Cold War of the American cities and coasts. Nor was it
tempered much by midwestern isolationism, as common wisdom has it.
In this book, David W. Mills offers an enlightening look at what
most of the heartland was up to while America was united in its war
on Reds. Cold War in a Cold Land adopts a regional perspective to
develop a new understanding of a critical chapter in the nation's
history. Marx himself had no hope that landholding farmers would
rise up as communist revolutionaries. So it should come as no
surprise that in places like South Dakota, where 70 percent of the
population owned land and worked for themselves, people didn't take
the threat of internal subversion very seriously. Mills plumbs the
historical record to show how residents of the plains states-while
deeply patriotic and supportive of the nation's foreign
policy-responded less than enthusiastically to national
anticommunist programs. Only South Dakota, for example, adopted a
loyalty oath, and it was fervently opposed throughout the state.
Only Montana, prodded by one state legislator, formed an
investigation committee-one that never investigated anyone and was
quickly disbanded. Plains state people were, however, "highly
churched" and enthusiastically embraced federal attempts to use
religion as a bulwark against atheistic communist ideology. Even
more enthusiastic was the Great Plains response to the military
buildup that accompanied Cold War politics, as the construction of
airbases and missile fields brought untold economic benefits to the
region. A much-needed, nuanced account of how average citizens in
middle America experienced Cold War politics and policies, Cold War
in a Cold Land is a significant addition to the history of both the
Cold War and the Great Plains.
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