Abstract
The Cold War is, together with the World Wars, probably the most important episode in Europe's and the United States XXth century diplomatic history. The conflict has an impressive amount of dimensions, motives and outcomes, most of which are probably still unknown. This being said, one still cannot help but raise the simple question: what was the Cold War all about? The conflict analyses are numerous but common knowledge tends to state that the Cold War was a conflict between the East and the West whose respective protagonists were the USSR and the United States. A fight for global influence without direct confrontation. We are going to get deeper into the fight for symbolic influence over the world, and this more specifically from the American point of view. We will analyze the meaning of the figure of Communism in American politics, official rhetorics and the domestic political climate during the Cold War. The aim of this paper is not to give general answers, but rather to raise questions about the significance of Communism in the US-USSR bilateral relations and the general outcome of the conflict. Is the picture of Communism a result of the bilateral climate? Is the bilateral climate submissive to the leaders views on ideology?
