Abstract
The post-war American citizen is obviously linked to postwar anxiety. The trauma of war experiences, and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it obvious that peace had been won at the cost of innocence and insecurity. The bomb's potential for total world destruction brought the basic fragility and contingency of human life, as well as the impotence of reason to provide the meaning of existence. However, the terror and anxiety did not end with the declaration of peace. The Soviet Union became the new enemy, which thrust the democratic countries of the West into a Cold war. Moreover, the discovery that the Soviet Union possessed an atomic bomb intensified America's sense of anxiety and apprehension. It was in the face of these realities, that American postwar anxiety emerged. We must also to keep in mind the additional psychological factor.
