Paradoxically, those Americans who manned the front lines of the early Cold War, the intelligence gatherers and covert action specialists of the CIA, was one group that largely bridged this schism. Most early CIA officers were politically and socially liberal, while fiercely anti-communist. Most regarded the spread of communism as a clear and present danger, fully believed that the Kremlin sought world domination, yet also loathed Joe McCarthy and regarded the domestic Red Scare that he and others traded in as a destructive sideshow.
