What are facts about senator Joseph McCarthy?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

The McCarthy 'Witch Hunts'

In 1950, McCarthy, a Republican Senator, claimed he had a list of 205 members of the Communist Party of the US, who worked for the State Department. He never had any evidence, but just waved his list for the cameras.

The HUAC summoned 2,375 men and women, which was enough to cost them their jobs. 400 Americans went to jail -- not having a fair trial -- what lawyers would risk his career defending suspected communists? McCarthy bullied, threatened and abused witnesses while he accused them of Communist sympathies. With the Korean War raging many Americans believed him.

Soon, however, public opinion turned against him. He made the outrageous claim that the army was infiltrated with communists! With the hearings televised, McCarthy came across as a vicious bully and a liar. By 1954, he was forced out of public life and died three years later, an alcoholic.

The effects of McCarthyism

9,500 civil servants were dismissed and 15,000 resigned; 600 teachers lost their jobs and many fine actors and scriptwriters were unable to work again. Charlie Chaplin, the biggest Hollywood movie star of the pre-war years (and also a Communist) left America in disgust.

The 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act forced organisations to give lists of members (they might be Communists) and the 1954 Communist Control Actbanned the Communist Party altogether. All these were legacies of McCarthyism. The biggest effect though, was the anti- democratic atmosphere that McCarthyism created. Anyone who was liberal, a trade unionist, civil rights worker, showed sympathy for the poor, was automatically a 'Commie'.

Answer 3

A true American patriot who knew how to fight the Reds from taking over our glorious nation.