Introduction

           Hello readers! We really appreciate you coming to read our blog Communism vs Capitalism in the 1960's. We are 5 students at the University of Maryland in various scholars programs within the university. Through considerable research and analysis we are able to provide insight on the influence of media on the depiction of communism in the United States during the 1960's. In order to portray this, we analyzed two texts in the late 1950's and early 1960's through rhetorical appeals:  a comic book cover "The Red Iceberg" and a newspaper article by Daniel F Gilmore named "Man on Threshold of Space". From analyzing these texts, we concluded that through the escalation of conflict, both texts portray communism as an imminent threat to America’s authority on the world stage, thus calling upon collective action in the face of the red scare.
           During the 1960's, one source of animosity in America was the Cold War. America was at "war" with the Soviet Union, and although there was never any official violence between the two countries, Americans were on high alert against the USSR and communism. Communism, to Americans, was intimidating to their way of life. People feared the idea of not being free, and that picture had been furthered by the launching of the first Russian satellite.
           The article by Daniel F Gilmore, the United States Press Staff Corespondent, "Man on Threshold of Space". In this article, Gilmore discusses the success of Russian launching the first satellite into space. This was a mighty blow to U.S. morale; the Russians had beat the U.S at something which threatened U.S's super power status, making communism on shore a real threat. This lead to further propaganda against Russia, as fear of communism had become a real threat. The resulting propaganda can be portrayed by the comic cover "Red Iceberg". The Red Iceberg was publicized in order to warn Americans of the danger that communism posed to U.S. democracy. The image depicts Uncle Sam sitting on a boat heading towards a red iceberg which depicts the symbol of communism ( the hammer and sickle) as well as many gravestones of many nations (expressing the death of a nation due to communism). The cover is warning Americans of steering clear of communism.
            This idea has been important in more recent times as well, especially the past month. This is because of the relationships between Trumps campaign officers and Russia as well as the relationship between his pick for the national security advisory and Russia. The latter is extremely important because of how important the roll is in the US government. Even though we are no longer at "war" with Russia, we still aren't allies with them so the fact that Trump seems to be on such good terms with the Russian government is very troubling and some have even said that he should be impeached over this scandal.
            The newspaper article argues for pressure on the government in order to be more proactive in the 'race' for authority on the world stage, while the comic book cover argues for the need of people to be aware of the presence of communism around them. Ultimately, each text argue for the execution of a unique action on the part of the people, by inciting suspicion, doubt, and fear. We argue that these texts are still valuable today because propaganda is still used to serve various ends. However, this propaganda is often more subtle and even barely visible due to hyper exposure in everyday situations. This propaganda, at its most complex, comes in the form of advertisements in a capitalist society.