An American Stand - 9780739144428

"With this book, Eric R. Crouse performs the essential craft of the historian in bringing to our attention the fascinating but too often forgotten figure of Margaret Chase Smith. Using extensive archival research and disciplinary insight, Crouse deftly portrays Smith in her multiple roles: a pioneering woman in the Senate, a principled anticommunist, a voice for ordinary Americans, and, above all, an American original. This book makes an invaluable contribution to scholarship on Cold War history, Congressional studies, anticommunism, and the American character."ùWilliam Inboden, Legatum Institute, author of Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment

"Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman elected to both the U.S. House and the Senate, was a mainstay of American anticommunism in the 1950's and 1960's. Eric R. Crouse's well-researched and discerning study of this formidable politician excels at describing the sources, limits, and actions of her determined anticommunist stance. Along the way he also sheds light on the complexities of American foreign policy during this time, no better indicated than in Margaret Chase Smith's public stand against the anticommunist demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy. This is a fine book."ùMark A. Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame

"Based on thorough research, An American Stand outdistances other studies of Margaret Chase Smith in analyzing the foreign policy philosophy and stances of this remarkable senator. By presenting extensive historical context, Eric R. Crouse delivers a more balanced treatment of her fierce anticommunism than previous historians."ùMark Moyer, U.S. Marine Corps University, author of Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965

Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman in American history elected to both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the first politician to take a public stand against McCarthyism, and the first woman of a major political party to run for president of the United States. An American Stand: Senator Margaret Chase Smith and the Communist Menace, 1948-1972 explores her engagement with the "masculine" issue of national defense. An unyielding foe of global communism, this Republican senator was the first female Cold Warrior. During the Korean War, she voiced strident anticommunist rhetoric in her newspaper column. Her energetic support for nuclear superiority in the 1950's and 1960's caused Nikita Khrushchev to describe her as "Satan in the guise of a woman." In the face of growing opposition to America's involvement in Vietnam, Smith remained committed to a clear stand against violent communist expansion. This book examines the exposition of the communist "menace" and the Cold War as a fight between good and evil without sanitization of communist leaders' ruthless actions. For Smith and many others, America's fight against global communism, despite appalling sacrifices of lives and money, made sense because they believed that communism was a vicious, expansionist system with little respect for human life and freedom.