Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front

From 1938 to 1942, a case of national jitters gripped the United States--fear that a German Fifth Column had penetrated the nation, and that Nazi spies were actively engaged in a campaign of subversion. Responsible voices in the White House, Congress, the intelligence community, and citizens organizations voiced genuine alarm at the internal threat. Spies were everywhere in the popular media--movies, radio shows, novels, pulp fiction, and comic books all contributed to the hysteria.
In INSIDIOUS FOES, author Francis MacDonnell recaptures the spirit of the anxiety and dread that permeated the country during these years. He examines factors that led to the rise and fall of the Fifth Column panic, and its manifestations in political and cultural life. While acknowledging that actual subversion by Axis powers was minimal and quickly eliminated, MacDonnell also outlines the significant legacy the scare produced--not only for World War II, but also for the postwar anticommunist period, and our own struggle with the threat of terrorism. Since much of the rhetoric used and measures taken against the presumed Nazi threat were carried over into anticommunist crusades of the Cold War, this episode clearly contributed to what has been described as the paranoid element in American politics.

FRANCIS MACDONNELL is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Southern Virginia University. Previously, he was a lecturer in history at Yale University from 1993-95. Dr. MacDonnell has written several articles for Civil War History, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and the Journal of American Culture. He has presented scholarly papers at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Southern Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians. Dr. MacDonnell lives in Virginia.