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The McCarthy Red Scare

Thesis

Few times has there been a US Senator who has captured the public eye or taken as much power. During the time he served as the senator of Wisconsin from 1947 to his death in 1957, Joseph McCarthy single-handedly used smear tactics and fear mongering to spread baseless lies and accusations throughout the country and create mass hysteria about the communist infiltration of the US. All Joseph McCarthy did was turn a bad situation worse. Only when those brave enough to debate him took action was he finally defeated.

Senior Individual Website

Word Count: 1,194

Media Time: 2:58

Process Paper Count: 487

Molly Schmidt

(Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., gestures during a Senate subcommittee hearing on McCarthy’s charges of communist infiltration of the U.S. State Department, AP Testing)

Context

    During the Cold war, as the Soviet Union spread its ideas of communism to eastern Europe, fear circulated about its popularity reaching the US. There was also fear that Soviet spies were stealing atomic secrets from the US. It should be noted that communist agents did exist in the US government at the time. Most notably, Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were guilty of espionage for the Soviet Union (though Hiss was only convicted of perjury).

Rather than sincerely addressing this problem, McCarthy took advantage of it to gain notoriety.

"The Red Iceberg", Impact Publications

"Anticommunist Liturature 1950s", Cohen

The Beginning: Early Life and Introduction to Politics