Removing the Mask of Sanity: McCarthyism and the Psychiatric–Confessional Foundations of the Cold War National Security State

Abstract

In the early Cold War, the US government institutionalized a national security program, centered on the investigation into the political beliefs of federal employees, to safeguard the nation from Communist subversion. Often interpreted as the result of a partisan battle between New Deal Democrats and conservative Republicans, the national security program had deeper origins, reflecting the influence of psychiatric discourse on public understandings of deviancy. Framed by a metonymical logic that linked radical political beliefs, deviant sexual behaviors, and other illicit behaviors under the category of psychopathology, the security program sought to guard against the threat posed by potentially dangerous individuals, a form of protection that necessitated the public disclosure by those deemed security risks of all aspects of their personal lives.