McCarthyism and the Red Scare
On 9 February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin gave a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia claiming to have a list of 205 (later 57, later 81 — the number changed repeatedly) Communists working in the State Department. The claim was unsupported, but it ignited a national panic. McCarthy had correctly identified a political moment: the Soviet atomic bomb test (1949), Mao's victory in China (1949), and the Rosenberg spy case created genuine anxiety about Communist infiltration. McCarthyism — the broader phenomenon of anti-Communist accusation and blacklisting — actually preceded McCarthy. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had been active since 1938; the Hollywood blacklist (1947) had already destroyed careers based on political association. McCarthy amplified and radicalised a pre-existing political climate. McCarthy's method was accusation without evidence, exploiting Senate immunity from defamation suits. Targets ranged from genuine Communists or former Communists to people with any left-wing association. Hundreds lost employment in government, military, academia, and entertainment. Few were convicted of actual espionage; most charges were based on political association or refusal to cooperate with congressional committees. The Army-McCarthy hearings (April–June 1954) were the turning point. McCarthy's decision to investigate the Army produced daily television coverage; 80 million Americans watched. The Army's counsel, Joseph Welch, confronted McCarthy's attacks on a young lawyer with: 'Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?' The television exposure revealed McCarthy's methods as bullying and mendacity rather than patriotism. He was censured by the Senate on 2 December 1954 and died of liver failure in 1957. McCarthyism's institutional consequences included the formal loyalty-security programme for federal employees, FBI surveillance of academics and activists, and the effective destruction of the American political left as a public force for a generation.
- Year: 1950 CE
- Category: Political
