On July 30, 1954, Vermont Senator Ralph Flanders called for the censure of Joseph McCarthy. He was officially censured on December 2, on a vote of 67 to 22.

     While McCarthy claimed it would not affect him or what he was trying to do, it was clear that McCarthy’s censure took away any power or authority that he had once had.

“McCarthyism has become McCarthywasm.”
- Dwight Eisenhower to his cabinet (McCarthy, PBS)

    Joseph McCarthy died on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48 due to alcohol-related ailments—a fitting, yet bleak, end to his reign of terror.

      Many say the Senator’s alcoholism worsened after this. McCarthy and his wife, Jean Kerr, adopted a child in January of 1957.