As the Cold War took shape following World War II, the anti-communist movement in the United States renewed its efforts domestically against communist influences that posed a threat to American culture and institutions. Popularly labeled as the age of “McCarthyism” after its chief proponent and personification, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, anti-communist efforts during the period extended as far back as the First Red Scare during World War I. In 1938, Congressman Martin Dies, chairman of the newly formed House Committee on Un-American Activities (H.C.U.A.), began new investigations into radicals and subversives within the United States, particularly in Hollywood. In 1950, Senator Pat McCarran paved the way for a similar committee in the Senate, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (S.I.S.S.), with the Internal Security Act, otherwise known as the McCarran Act. In conjunction with anti-communist efforts throughout the country, the two Congressional committees pursued those linked to communism. Under these circumstances, Senator McCarthy came to the forefront of the movement.
McCarthy in the Spotlight
During a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, on February 9, 1950, Senator McCarthy claimed that the U.S. government, specifically the State Department, employed a number of card-carrying communists. Amid the backdrop of events that lent support to American fears of communist domination – the Soviets’ development of the atomic bomb; the fall of China to communists; and allegations surrounding Alger Hiss, a State Department employee, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as Soviet spies – reaction to the speech pushed the anti-communist movement to an all-new high with McCarthy as its newly appointed crusader “ . . . ready to commit himself with reckless, career-dominating totality to the Communist issue.” (Fried, p. 120) Under his chairmanship of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy conducted highly publicized hearings that investigated subversive activities by suspected communists in both the public and private sphere. The most series accusation alleged an infiltration of the military by communist agents in an attempt to overthrow the government. After an exchange of charges and counter-charges between McCarthy and Army officials, including Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, the publicly televised Army-McCarthy Hearings began on April 22, 1954, to address the issue. They would last until June 17, 1954.
McCarthy’s Downfall
Significant in scope and meaning, the hearings ultimately precipitated McCarthy’s downfall. Many watching on television came to perceive the Senator as a visibly drunk bully, from either power or drink, who was deceitful and uncontrolled in his accusations. Newspapers covering the hearings frequently re-enforced the notion by painting an unfavorable picture of him – something few in the industry would have done just a few years earlier at the height of his power. On December 2, 1954, with his popularity and influence waning, the Senate voted by a two-thirds majority to censure him for his actions. Although he did not face expulsion, McCarthy’s position as a major figure in national politics in effect came to an end until his death on May 2, 1957. Correspondingly, the Second Red Scare went with him as quickly as the public spectacle it became, though investigations of communist subversion discretely continued well into the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Conclusion
Sharp disagreement lingers on the period’s meaning and impact in U.S. history. Throughout the key years 1950-1954, numerous Americans faced accusations of being communists. Subject to aggressive investigations, targets often confronted questionable and inconclusive evidence that exaggerated the truth and affected all facets of their daily lives with little recourse. The debate still markedly divides those who depict the period as a time of political hysteria and those who maintain that the threat of domestic communism was a legitimate concern to the security of the United States.
References:
Fitzgerald, Brian. McCarthyism: The Red Scare. Minneapolis: Compass Point Books, 2007.
Fried, Richard M. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Haynes, John Earl. Red Scare or Red Menace?: American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996.
Maus, Derek C., ed. Living Through The Red Scare. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
