 Hook’s theoretical interest in the issue of cultural freedom was overshadowed by his involvement in the forum of public policy. Hook’s rejection of Marxism led him to support the value of political freedom as an essential condition for a democratic society, whether in capitalist or socialist economic frameworks. The implication of this theoretical analysis, for Hook, was his support of the American commitment to political and cultural freedom as opposed to what he saw as a Soviet or communist commitment against political freedom in furthering the growth of a totalitarian state. For that reason, therefore, Hook could be counted as a “Cold Warrior” in support of the West during the Cold War. It should be noted that in the political terminology of the period, the identification of Hook as a Cold Warrior by persons who favored the use of that term did not mean a supporter of the Western democratic alliance or what was termed “the free world” against totalitarianism. Rather, “Cold Warrior” was used pejoratively to indicate a person who sought to influence American policy so that it would pursue a containment or adversarial strategy toward the Soviet Union as a corollary to an ideological and paranoiac interpretation of the Soviet Union as an aggressive and expansionist empire. Thus, critics of Cold Warriors and the Cold War saw the Soviet Union as an alternative, socialist system with which a realistic, moderate and non-ideological Western policy should pursue “constructive engagements” toward compromise, cooperation and mutual respect.