How did Joseph McCarthy rise to power?

Answer 1

Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957) led hearings in the Senate on communist influences in the US. He later chaired the Senate Committee on Government Operations and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the US Senate beginning with his second term in 1953.

McCarthy used his position to gain notoriety by hunting alleged Communists in the US government during the Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union. The fear of communist influences led many to support McCarthy. But when he tried in 1954 to challenge and coerce the leadership of the Army (whose former general Eisenhower was President), he was brought before his own committee and berated as cruel and vindictive. He was finally censured by the Senate in December, 1954.

McCarthy died before the end of his second term, of Alcoholism and hepatitis.