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what did Joseph McCarthy do on 9 Feb 1951?
he made an anti-communist speech to a Republican women's group, announcing he had the names of 205 known communists working in the State Department.
what did McCarthy do when reporters asked to see the list?
he pretended to have left it on an aeroplane.
did he have a lot of support?
Despite this muddle of ill-substantiated facts, he had a lot of support; the Tydings Committee was set up to investigate his charges.
what did he do in the following months?
he led a series of investigations of suspect communists and his apparent conviction and use of speeches, interviews and television appearances carried many ordinary people along with him. In many parts of the country, vigilante groups of 'red baiters' hounded people at work and at home, often violently.
14 July
the Tydings Committee issued a majority report (the Republicans would not sign it) saying McCarthy's accusations were a muddle of half-truths and lies. Even so, he remained powerful until he turned to investigating the army in 1953.
where these investigations popular?
These investigations were televised and some 20 million people watched them.
how did the red scare die down?
His treatment of the interviewees was so unreasonable that he lost support, the Senate passed a vote of censure against him and the Red Scare died down.
what was the republican strategy and did it work?
strategy of accusing the Democrats of waging the Cold War with insufficient vigour worked well. A spring 1948 poll found that 73 per cent of Americans considered Truman too soft on Communism. This strategy provided an opportunity for Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy.
why did McCarthy need some good publicity?
Washington correspondents voted him 'the worst' Senator
February 1950 speech
he claimed there were Communists in the Truman State Department. In the next four years, he encouraged a witch-hunt seeking Communists in positions of influence and 'McCarthyism' dominated US politics.
what happened to politicians who criticised McCarthy?
they were likely to be ruined. For example, after the Democrat-dominated Tydings Committee reported that McCarthy's claims were 'a fraud and a hoax, McCarthy supporters circulated a faked photograph of Senator Tydings in conversation with American Communist Party leader Barl Browder. Tydings failed to get re-elected in November 1950.
what was McCarthys impact on society?
McCarthy had a great impact upon American society. From 1952-4, he was influential on congressional committees investigating Communists. These contributed to around 500 state and local government employees, 600 schoolteachers and 150 college professors losing their jobs.
Freedom of speech
was curtailed in the world's leading democracy and the fear that McCarthyites would accuse him of being soft on Communism contributed to Truman's decision to take the nation into the Korean War.
what did McCarthy make it difficult to do?
for any President to relax Cold War tensions through diplomacy.
what did Eisenhower consider McCarthy?
'an embarrassment to the administration, but hesitated to criticise him, saying it would have made the Presidency ridiculous to'get into a pissing contest with that skunk.
what did Eisenhower correctly anticipate?
that McCarthy's extremism would lose him his support.
spring 1954
McCarthy led a congressional investigation into supposed subversives on New Jersey army bases. When Eisenhower denied McCarthy access to administration personnel and records on national security grounds (this constituted a considerable expansion of executive power and worried Congress), it rendered the hearings pretty meaningless and reduced McCarthy to blustering and bullying. That alienated many in the TV audience.
august poll 1954
revealed 50 per cent of Americans and 62 per cent of Republicans still admired McCarthy, his poll ratings were falling and in 1955, the Senate censured him and he sank into relative obscurity.
