This article examines one event in a Victorian country town, Healesville. The dismissal of a doctor in 1961 and the hard-fought campaign for his reinstatement caused a corrosion of trust and the destruction of friendships in this otherwise tight community. Epithets were hurled, public meetings were stormy, and malevolence replaced calm debate. The article suggests that this case represents a striking example of how nascent Cold War paranoia was expressed in small communities and, in microcosm, how political passions, social activism and deep divisions could be generated by a local issue.