From 1950-1954, the McCarthy Hearings dominated the United States news cycle. On February 9th, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy spoke at the Republic Women’s Club of Wheeling in Wheeling, West Virginia, communicating to citizens the dangerous possibility of communist spies embedded in the U.S. government, and called for their eradication. As the paranoia spread of friends or even family members  secretly being communists, trials began to root out spies, who were often innocent. These trials communicated the power that McCarthy was able to wield by feeding upon fear that permeated the Cold War period.

(Flag of the Soviet Union/Communist Flag, below)