Secrets and Self-Reinvention: The Making of Cold War Liberalism
Secrets and Self-Reinvention: The Making of Cold War Liberalism
This chapter explores the disloyalty allegations against the Keyserlings. Over the long course of their loyalty investigations, the Keyserlings portrayed themselves as having been political centrists during the 1930s, when in fact they had been decidedly on the left. The Keyserlings are remembered as loyal Johnson Democrats who favored Cold War military spending, backed U.S. policy in Vietnam, and argued that poverty could be eliminated through economic growth rather than redistribution. Before coming under investigation, however, they were socialists. Faced with a relentless stream of disloyalty allegations that began in the 1940s and climaxed in 1952, they were forced to modify their political rhetoric and moderate their policy proposals. They also denied they ever had held leftist views. Conservatives may have lost the battle to exclude the Keyserlings from public influence, but by narrowing the range of permissible debate, they won the war.
Keywords: disloyalty allegations, Mary Dublin Keyserling, Leon Keyserling, loyalty investigations, political centrists, socialists, leftist views
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