McCarthyism and its effects on America.
America had known Red Scares before - most notably in the immediate aftermath of the First World War - but nothing had approached the ruthlessness and increasing lack of scruple of Senator Joseph McCarthy's crusade against Communism in the early 1950's.
Joseph Raymond McCarthy, U.S senator, in a highly publicised pursuit of a Communist "conspiracy" became considered a figure of notoriety. This witch-hunt and anti-Communist hysteria became known as McCarthyism. The term "McCarthyism" became a synonym for reckless smear tactics intended to destroy the victim's political standing and public character.
Joseph McCarthy was born on November 14, 1908. He began practicing as a lawyer while also playing at the game of politics. At 30, when he won victory in being voted a Republican candidate, McCarthy's basic personality was pretty well shaped - fluid, resourceful, ambitious, amoral.
During World War II, McCarthy served with the U.S Marines. In 1946 he successfully ran for senator. McCarthy had been a poor judge, involved in shady cases; he had falsified his war record to make it look more heroic; and he had cut moral corners in his campaigning. .
McCarthy's first years in the Senate were thoroughly mediocre and at least slightly shady. As a number of his past adventures, including some questionable tax returns, began catching up with him, he needed an issue that would obscure all this.
In the 1950's he found his issue, Communist power and subversion.
McCarthy, whose name has become a analogue for demagoguery, first caught the public eye during the feverish Red Scare that followed the conviction of the former State Department official Alger Hiss in 1950 on charges arising from espionage activity.
In a speech at Wheeling, on February 9th Senator McCarthy claimed to have in hand a list of 205 people in the State Department known to be members of the Communist party.