The United States government promoted a strident nationalism during World War I, demanding from its citizens “100 percent Americanism.” Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks launched a propaganda campaign against the Western world. Against this backdrop, two events in early 1919 paved the way for the “Red Scare” in America: the establishment of the Workers’ Party (predecessor to the Communist Party) in the United States, and the appointment of the politically ambitious A. Mitchell Palmer as Attorney General.

That fall, Palmer launched an unprecedented series of raids against suspected political dissidents and left-wing radicals. The “Palmer raids” often were enormous in scope. On December 22, 1919, the United States deported 249 aliens (including well-known anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman) to Russia under suspicion of subversive activities. The Department of Justice conducted raids in 33 cities on January 2, 1920, taking 2,700 people into custody. By the time that the Palmer raids ended in May 1920, they had led to more than 6,000 arrests and 500 deportations.

Palmer justified the raids by claiming that there was a conspiracy to overthrow the government, and pointed to a series of failed bombings as evidence. His disregard of civil liberties, however, drew broad criticism and he ultimately was discredited. Palmer ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1920, but was unsuccessful.

PostScript: As special assistant to the Attorney General, J. Edgar Hoover helped investigate 60,000 radicals in preparation for the Palmer raids. In 1924, Hoover was named Director of the Bureau of Investigation, a position that he held until 1972.