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Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy was a Wisconsin senator during the Cold War. He became well known for his outspoken views on anti-communism. McCarthy made accusations that there were Russian spies and members of the Communist Party working in the State Department. He was censured by the Senate in in 1954.
274 Questions
Why is Joseph McCarthy in the history books?
Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was known for being VERY anti-communist. Attacks (and I don't mean physical) on suspected communist were even refered to as McCarthyism.
What accusations did Joseph McCarthy make againsty many Americans in the 1950s?
Joseph McCarthy was a US Senator in the 1950's, and McCarthyism was a political movement that McCarthy created, based upon a paranoid fear of communist subversion.
What were Joseph McCarthy's motives?
Joseph McCarthy was a senator from Wisconsin who led the Red Scare. This permeated all levels of society. McCarthy greatly exaggerated communism. He was an alcoholic. In 1950 he was facing a losing campaign. He claimed to know communists in the American government and also claimed that China fell to communism because of these people; He was lying though. Truman called him fraud but people still bought into his ideas. McCarthyism was successful because it offered easy answers and explanations for why China fell to communism and why we couldn't bring capitalism to Korea. There was partial truth to the need of fear, because there were spies caught spying on our atomic weapons. McCarthyism started to decline after Republicans cut off his support and he attacked the military and the Marshal Plan. As a result of McCarthyism, the state department loses the Asian experts and Americans learn a lesson that not everything is a communist plot.
What historical event is Joseph McCarthy known for?
He instigated a lot of accusations against people on the ground of them being communists despite there rarely ever being any solid evidence behind any of his claims.
He was a senator from Wisconson.
He was only stopped once he started turning his conspiracies on communism to point at the army.
How did Joseph's McCarthy career end?
He had little to no proof of his accusations. The media was showing this and discussing his harsh tactics.The senate censured him because of his vulgarity and he lost almost all of his power.Finally he ended up drinking himself to death.
How and why did Joseph McCarthy become notorious?
McCarthy was a US Senator from Wisconsin who made a name for himself in the 1950s as a staunch anti-communist. He made numerous unsubstantiated accusations of being communist sympathizers against members of the media and Hollywood.
What ultimately happened to Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigation on communists in the US?
Senator Joseph McCarthy investigation of communists in the US government and in the entertainment business ultimately came to an end when the US Congress censured him. His investigative tactics were judged to be extreme and President Eisenhower agreed with the censure.
How did Joseph McCarthy impact US society in the 1950s?
McCarthyism was a modern day witch hunt with anyone who had ever even talked to a communist being immediately guilty.
67 US Senators censured McCarthy.
Communist Americans and others who disagree with the majority, continue to live in the US. McCarthy's attempt to drive out people who didn't agree with him failed miserably.
What did Joseph McCarthy do during the cold war?
US citizens had to be carefull how they exercised their freedom of speech during the McCarthy era. Rumors and gossip concerning communism could get those individuals investigated as being communists.
NONSENSE!
McCarthy Vindicated At Last 12/18/2007 http://bit.ly/b2fmz8
"...These intercepted cables proved that there were over 350 Americans spying for the Soviets, and enabled investigators to identify about half of them. Joe McCarthy had access to the information contained in the top secret Venona intercepts, access given him by J. Edgar Hoover and others concerned with the extent of Soviet espionage and penetration, but he could not defend himself against charges of recklessly accusing people of being Soviet agents by revealing the source of his information without alerting the Soviets that some of their most important secrets were known to U.S. Intelligence..."
What was Arthur Miller's connection to the McCarthy hearings?
His mind slowly eroded until he became obsessed with yelling about demons under his bed in the middle of the streets. Shortly after that his imaginary friend stabbed him.
What was Joseph McCarthy's infamous list?
Nelson Algren, writer
Elmer Bernstein, composer and conductor
David Bohm, physicist and philosopher
Charlie Chaplin, actor and director
Aaron Copland, composer
Bartley Crum, attorney
Howard Da Silva, actor
Jules Dassin, director
Dolores del Río, actress
W. E. B. Du Bois, civil rights activist and author
Howard Fast, writer
John Garfield, actor
Jack Gilford, actor
Ruth Gordon, actress
Lee Grant, actress
Dashiell Hammett, author
Elizabeth Hawes, clothing designer, author, equal rights activist
Lillian Hellman, playwright
Lena Horne, singer
Langston Hughes, writer
Sam Jaffe, actor
Theodore Kaghan, diplomat
Garson Kanin, writer and director
Benjamin Keen, historian
Gypsy Rose Lee, actress and stripper
Cornelius Lanczos, mathematician and physicist
Arthur Laurents, playwright
Philip Loeb, actor
Joseph Losey, director
Burgess Meredith, actor
Arthur Miller, playwright and essayist
Zero Mostel, actor
J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, scientific director of the Manhattan Project
Dorothy Parker, writer
Linus Pauling, chemist, winner of two Nobel prizes
Samuel Reber, diplomat
Martin Ritt, actor and director
Paul Robeson, actor, athlete, singer, writer, political activist
Edward G. Robinson, actor
Waldo Salt, screenwriter
Pete Seeger, folk singer
Artie Shaw, jazz musician
Irwin Shaw, writer
William L. Shirer, journalist
Lionel Stander, actor
Paul Sweezy, economist and founder-editor of Monthly Review
Charles W. Thayer, diplomat
Tsien Hsue-shen, physicist
These are a few of them, but for more, go to the links below.
Why were people so willing to believe Joseph McCarthy's accusations?
There were about 300 people that were accused by Joseph McCarthy as either being Communist or sympathizing with Communism. When the lists were made public, all of these individuals were illegally blacklisted. This means that they were fired from their jobs, shunned, and were unable to find other work. Some people were given the opportunity to clear their name in a long, drawn-out process. Very few people actually cleared their name this way. Most people were just forced to suffer through the blacklisting. McCarthy's accusations irreparably damaged many careers. The reputations and livelihoods of hundreds of people were ruined.
Why did Joseph McCarthy believe Hollywood might play a big role in a communist uprising in America?
Senator Joseph McCarthy did not believe that Hollywood stars would play a part of any communist uprising. He knew there would be none. Hollywood stars and writers came to his attention because a number of Hollywood "people" were members of the US Communist Party.
It depends on which Joseph Mc coy your reffering to. Dr. Joseph McCoy-once leader of the McCoy gang died at age 36 in Southern ,Il.
What was the main idea behind Joseph McCarthy?
Senator McCarthy's motives for his hearings were for, as he stated, to uncover communists in the US government and in the film industry as well. His hearings finally caused him to be censored by the Senate & criticized by US President Eisenhower. McCarthy ruined the lives of many people during these hearings. As an aside, Robert F. Kennedy and attorney Roy Cohen were for a time on McCarthy's staff.
Why do you think they were also called the McCarthy witch trials?
They were not. The Salem witch Trials were compared to the MaCarthy trials because of the fear of something considered evil infiltrating a community. They are not related, just similiar.
What kinds of professionals were targeted by McCarthy and accusations?
The most well-known example of a profession affected by McCarthyism was the film and entertainment industry. Throughout the Cold War, a blacklist of names of suspected Communists in Hollywood was kept. It should be noted that this was done not by Senator McCarthy, but by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a group that few people today seem to remember. The Hollywood Ten (the height of the blacklist period) was during McCarthy's reign.
McCarthy also went after the army. The quote "have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" was from the Army-McCarthy hearings. In the end, however, McCarthy came out the worse in the encounter.
McCarthy also attacked artists, musicians, and university professors.
Who was Joseph McCarthy and what was he famous for?
Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was known for leading the Congressional investigations into Communist influences in the US during the early 1950's. The worldwide competition between the US and the USSR was called the "Cold War" and involved many such allegations against Communist Party members and suspected sympathizers, as well as blackmailed or corrupted officials. The House UnAmerican Activities Committee and Senate Committee on Government Operations were the primary venues for Congressional hearings, which were later denounced as "witch hunts" by the news media and the US government.
Details
McCarthy made a speech in Wheeling, WV, in 1950 saying that there were over 200 members of the Communist Party in the U.S. State Dept.. This number has not been substantiated. Once he got a lot of media attention, he revised that number to under one hundred. There is reason to believe that McCarthy as a Republican wanted to embarrass the Truman administration and break the two decades of Democratic control of the presidency. He had also been polled as the worst senator in office by the Senate press corps a few years earlier, so he undoubtedly was trying to save his own political skin
Following WW II, there was a lot of concern about the USSR and communists taking over the United States. People were convicted of giving the secrets of the atomic bomb to the USSR. The House UnAmerican Activities Committee held hearings concerning the activities of some members of government. Following the publicity McCarthy received, HUAC and the Tydings Committee stepped up their investigations. McCarthy kept changing the number of people he accused of being communists in the government and never disclosed the source of this information. He also quoted hearsay as facts, which as a lawyer he should have known not to do.
In 1952, McCarthy was made chair of the Senate Committee on Government Operations with the notorious Roy Cohn as legal counsel. With this committee and with the new television technology, he continued to receive public attention. He also widened his investigation to include people outside the government and eventually the Army. Altogether McCarthy's name is associated with anti-communist rabble-rousing and hearings reminiscent of the Salem witch trials. The McCarthy Era only lasted a few years, but many people (especially in the entertainment industry) lost their jobs and were blacklisted for a decade. Notable were the "Hollywood Ten". Eventually, the Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's accusations as fraud. McCarthy later died of the effects of alcoholism.
The McCarthy Era inspired Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible", Lillian Helman's book, "Scoundrel Time" and movies like "The Manchurian Candidate".
Truth in the McCarthy Allegations
Yes, there was a Red Scare in the Government and in Hollywood during the early 50's. Spies were everywhere. The Democrats and the news media made McCarthy look like an idiot, but years later, it was shown that such coordinated spying did actually take place. Many US diplomatic and military secrets are still leaked to Russia or China by enemy agents and paid US conspirators.
When were the McCarthy Trials?
The McCarthy Witch trials are actually considered McCarthyism. This is the practice of accusing individuals of disloyalty, treason and subversion without any factual evidence. This originates from a period in the U.S known as the Second Red Scare, from the 1940's and 1950's.
Name the People who were accused by Joseph McCarthy?
Anyone who seemed abnormal to society or refused to conform to the materialistic, superficial living which prevailed at that time.
