During the Cold War, The US was extremely paranoid of Soviet spies, and communism. This led Senator Joe McCarthy to enact multiple claims of communist spies in the government, and many were found guilty, and lost their jobs. This, along with other events similar to it, caused a crisis that led to problems still encountered today.
McCarthy wins the Wisconsin vote for senator by insulting his opponents failure to enlist in WWII, and bragging about his own war heroics
McCarthy gives a speech in West Virginia in which he holds a paper above his head and claims that he possesses a list of 205 communists in the State Department who are causing corruption and problems
The Senate launches an investigation into McCarthy's claims and finds no evidence of any problems. Many people begin to mistrust McCarthy, including President Eisenhower.
As McCarthy's second term as Senator starts, he is put in charge of the Committee on Government Operations, which allowed him to launch even more investigations, and get 2,000+ government employees fired without any real proof
McCarthy turns his attention to the armed forces, and many supporters grow angry at his antics in using questionable tactics to get a drafted colleague into high positions in the Army
Eisenhower and the Army work to discredit McCarthy and his supporters, by exposing his use of blackmail in order to get the Army to promote David Schine, and broadcasting the hearings McCarthy was carrying out on national television.
The Senate passed a motion of condemnation for McCarthy, and it succeeds in a vote of 67-22.
Ruined after his term ends, McCarthy takes to massive alcoholism, and is found dead of liver failure soon after.
President Dwight Eisenhower was not concerned about McCarthy's doings at first, given that there had been real communist spies in the State Department in the past(Alger Hiss most notably). There had also been Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's theft of classified information from the Manhattan Project(the project that built the atomic bomb), in which Eisenhower himself had not even considered sparing them from their death on the electric chair. But when McCarthy began getting more than 2,000 employees fired and publicly shamed without any real evidence, as well as causing antisemitism and homophobia in the government by accusing some employees because of their sexuality or background, that was when Eisenhower began to get involved.
As indicated in a Gallup Poll from 1954, McCarthy had the public support, with over 60% of Americans holding a "favorable opinion" of him. This support would have to be diminished before real steps could be taken. This compelled Eisenhower to help the Army in it's campaign to discredit Mccarthy and hi supporters(Army v. McCarthy)After this was taken care of, Eisenhower was able to use his executive power on McCarthy, saying in a letter to his Secretary of Defense, "You will instruct employees of your Department that in all of their appearances before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Operations(McCarthy) regarding the inquiry now before it, they are not to testify to any such conversations or communications or to produce any such documents or reproductions. This principle must be maintained regardless of who would be benefited by such disclosures(McCarthy)" A similar letter was also sent to the rest of the executive branch, and all administrative officials.
In November of 1953, David Schine was drafted into the US Army. Roy Cohn(McCarthy's lawyer) immediately began calling Schine's commander(Schine was Cohn's assistant), and soon, Schine was getting easy tasks, and high positions in his group. The Army(and Eisenhower) were suspicious of what was going on. Early April of 1954, McCarthy began his investigations into the Army. The hearings were broadcasted on television for 36 days, and McCarthy's brutal attacks on a young Army lawyer caused the Army's chief counsel to yell, "Have you no sense of decency sir?" these broadcasted hearings had many negative impacts on McCarthy's view in the eyes of everyone else, as well as the fact that Eisenhower and the Army dug up dirt on Cohn, and soon discovered that he had been using questionable methods such as blackmail, to get Schine the positions and tasks he had been given. they then leaked this to the press and Congress, and McCarthy and Cohn were accused of abuse of power.
In the 1950s, questionable methods of coersion were used in mass. As one example, the Army had discovered that over those phone calls to Schine's commander, Cohn had used threats and intimidation in order to get his assistant plum assignments and easy duty. This is only one of many accounts during the Red Scare of people using methods such as threats, bribery, and blackmail. Another account would be that President Eisenhower tried to get McCarthy to stop causing chaos, by trying to bribe him by promising a legislation that fulfilled what McCarthy supposedly wanted, a legislation banning communism in the US. Other less illegal methods were used by the US to simply promote the "evil" of communism, such as broadcasting ant-communist radio programs, publishing political cartoons displaying communism in a bad way, and spreading misinformation about it, and its variantss. This led to people getting the wrong idea about communism, as revered Robinson stated, "I think that there are a good many people who do not like anyone or anything; who are unhappy, dislocated personalities. This gives them a feeling of importance and power when they join a dissident movement. I think this is a very strong thing in the minds of a good many people who take the Communist ideological position"("United Front" 18). This opinion was shared by many at the time, and this idea was mainly caused by the propaganda the government spread.
The Army v. McCarthy hearings were the final blow for McCarthy's reputation and standing. A new Gallup poll taken during the haerings found that now around only 30% favored him, while the rest did not. A few months later, in December of 1954, the Senate passed a 67-22 vote to condemn McCarthy. After the term ended, Mccarthy had no more public power, and set to massive drinking. 3 years later, he died of liver failure, and was gone from the world, only remebered over 70 years later, when the "new" Age of McCarthyism began. An extremely similar event caused by President Donald Trump, as The Atlantic says, "Joseph McCarthy, like Trump, built his political career on demagoguery, intimidation, and a cult of personality—not tangible achievements or coherent ideas." The article goes on to explain more similarities between "Trumpism," and McCarthyism, pointing out how both men were extremely narcissistic, and relied on public support. "Trumpism" was what brought back everyones memory of the political crisis in the midst of the Cold War...
| Effect | Cause | Timeline |
| Rights Destroyed | McCarthys support causing people to be afraid to share opinions. Articles and flyers advertising that you report people who act like a communist sympathizer. | During and after the Cold War |
| Economic Mini-Disaster | Government funding set to rooting out communism and blacklisting things | During Cold War |
| Missed Major Changes in China | Due to focus on finding communist spies, the US missed Chinas change to a communist government | Late 1949 |
| Effect | Cause | When the Cause was and Where the Effects Began |
| Discrimination in the Government | Mccarthys hearings forced many of those questioned to reveal their sexual orientations, or culrural beliefs. this sparked much anti-semitism, homophobia, and other forms of hatred and discrimination in the government. | During the McCarthy Hearings |
| Changed Curriculums | During the Cold War, public schools and universities were forced to change their curriculums so that students had to take classes on the US government, and why communism was bad, in addition to their other classes.Most of these policies have still not been changed. | During Cold War |
| Newer Forms of McCarthyism | In addition to "Trumpism," there have been other incidents that people have called "Newer McCarthyisms," such as Elise Stefaniks criticism of Isrealian faith, and other university changes. | After the Original McCarthyism |
Professor Ellen Schrecker is a historian who studies social movements, political repression, and higher education. The main topic she studied was Mccarthyism. Ellen has many books on McCarthyism, as well as a few others on different topics. Ellen worked as a proffesor at Harvard for a while, before settling to just study and write her books. (insert talk about interview after getting questions answered)...