1983, Peter Biskind, Seeing Is Believing→ISBN, page 111:
It has long seemed evident, from the moment the first blob oozed its way across the screen, that the little green men from Mars stood in the popular imagination for the clever red men from Moscow. The media portrayed Communists […]
(Can we date this quote?), Greg Urban, Metaculture: How Culture Moves Through the World→ISBN, page 115:
One, I recall vividly, told me how to recognize a communist and had sketches of dangerous-looking red men hiding under beds and in closets.