Clearer Than Truth
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A01=John Philipp Baesler
Academic books on Cold War
American Cold War culture
American democracy under pressure
American exceptionalism questioned
American identity Cold War
American justice system Cold War
American security state
Anti-communism in the U.S.
Are polygraphs reliable
Author_John Philipp Baesler
authoritarian tendencies in democracy
Brainwashing and resistance
brainwashing anxieties
Category=NHK
Category=NHTW
CIA employee screening
Cold War and civil liberties
Cold War civil rights
Cold War espionage culture
Cold War history
Cold War ideology
Cold War legacy today
Cold War loyalty tests
Cold War myths and realities
Cold War narratives of truth and lies
Cold War politics
Cold War polygraph history
Cold War pseudoscience
Cold War psychology
Cold War social history
Cold War symbolism
Cold War technology
Cold War-era ideology battles
contested definitions of loyalty
contested legitimacy of science
contested truth claims
cultural history of fear
democracy under surveillance
distrust of authority figures
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethics of surveillance
FBI loyalty tests
fear of communist infiltration
Government surveillance history
Government use of polygraphs
Historical roots of surveillance
history of national security testing
History of surveillance
History of the polygraph
History of truth testing
How lie detectors work
human rights in the Cold War
Ideological control
interrogation devices
Justice and surveillance
justice system challenges
law enforcement practices
Legacy of Cold War surveillance
lie detection controversies
Lie detector Cold War
Lie detector machine
loyalty oath enforcement
Loyalty testing Cold War
McCarthy era
military intelligence practices
Misuse of scientific tools
National security
National security debates
national security paranoia
Paranoia in American history
political fear culture
political loyalty enforcement
political repression in America
Political technology books
Politics of technology
Polygraph Cold War
polygraph machine history
Polygraph surveillance
Post-911 surveillance
Presumption of innocence
propaganda and technology
Pseudoscience in government
psychological warfare tools
public trust in science
science and politics entangled
scientific authority debates
secrecy and transparency tensions
secrecy culture in Washington
Security clearance tests
Security vs. freedom
state power vs. individual rights
Surveillance state
surveillance technology origins
symbolic technologies of control
technology and civil liberties
Technology and privacy
technology as propaganda
truth and deception in politics
U.S. Cold War paranoia
U.S. intelligence agencies
workplace surveillance history
Product details
- ISBN 9781625343253
- Weight: 465g
- Dimensions: 152 x 226mm
- Publication Date: 21 May 2018
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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A person strapped to a polygraph machine. Nervous eyes, sweaty brow, the needle trembling up and down. Few images are more evocative of Cold War paranoia.
In this first comprehensive history of the polygraph as a tool and symbol of American Cold War policies, John Philipp Baesler tells the story of a technology with weak scientific credentials that was nevertheless celebrated as a device that could expose both internal and external enemies. Considered the go-to technology to test agents' and employees' loyalty, the polygraph's true power was to expose deep ideological and political fault lines. While advocates praised it as America's hard-nosed yet fair answer to communist brainwashing, critics claimed that its use undermined the very values of justice, equality, and the presumption of innocence for which the nation stood.
Clearer Than Truth demonstrates that what began as quick-fix technology promising a precise test of honesty and allegiance eventually came to embody tensions in American Cold War culture between security and freedom, concerns that reach deep into the present day.
In this first comprehensive history of the polygraph as a tool and symbol of American Cold War policies, John Philipp Baesler tells the story of a technology with weak scientific credentials that was nevertheless celebrated as a device that could expose both internal and external enemies. Considered the go-to technology to test agents' and employees' loyalty, the polygraph's true power was to expose deep ideological and political fault lines. While advocates praised it as America's hard-nosed yet fair answer to communist brainwashing, critics claimed that its use undermined the very values of justice, equality, and the presumption of innocence for which the nation stood.
Clearer Than Truth demonstrates that what began as quick-fix technology promising a precise test of honesty and allegiance eventually came to embody tensions in American Cold War culture between security and freedom, concerns that reach deep into the present day.
John Philipp Baesler is associate professor of history at Saginaw Valley State University.
