Mistrust on all sides contributed to the buildup of fear during the time of the Cold War. One of the most prominent fears present within America during the Cold War was that from the late 1940s and to the early 1950s, known as the time of the Red Scare. That being the prospect of communist subversion at home and abroad seemed frighteningly real to many people in the United States. One individual who contributed to this fear was a man by the name of Joseph R. McCarthy. This man spent a total of five years attempting to expose communists and other left-wing “loyalty risks” present within the U.S. government for personal benefits. Due to his efforts, the term McCarthyism was coined for many anti-communist activities during this period of time. …show more content…
McCarthy had set out to use the threat he saw within American society for his own personal gain, this threat being the strong fear and presence provoked by communism. Joseph McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. As his first term came to an end and re-election began to get closer, McCarthy, whose first term was extremely unsuccessful, began to search for ways to ensure political success in his favor. This led to McCarthy’s choice of taking advantage of the nation’s wave of terror against communism. So on February 9, 1950, Joseph McCarthy claimed that he had a list of 205 people in the State department who were “known” members of the American Communist Party. This led the American public to go crazy with the thought of seditious communists living within the United States. (Hisotry.com) Nonetheless, McCarthy continued to push his way through until he became the chairman of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate, Widening his scope to “investigate” possible communist spy …show more content…
On top of McCarthy’s accusations made against those who were apart of the American government at the time, he also made a numerous amount of accusations against innocent civilians who were in no way themselves associated with communism. Two examples of individuals who were affected by Joseph McCarthy’s accusations were Owen Lattimore and Drew Pearson. Owen Lattimore was mostly known as an American author and an influential scholar of China. McCarthy accused Lattimore of being the top Russian espionage agent in the United States, which was perfect considering Lattimore’s outspokenness and liberal views. After facing a countless number of days in intense questioning, even when the he wasn’t in fact a part of the communist party, Owen Lattimore’s reputation and credibility among people was destroyed. Another victim of McCarthy’s accusations was Drew Pearson. Pearson was a critic who discredited McCarthy’s accusation regularly through his columns and radio broadcasts. McCarthy went on to make several speeches about Pearson’s so called involvement with the communist party. This led to a downfall in sponsorship and of daily listeners to Pearson’s radio
When the Tydings Committee issued a majority report dismissing all of McCarthy’s allegations and condemning them as “a fraud and a hoax perpetrated on the Senate of the United States and the American people.” Republican members of the American sub-committee condemned the majority report and the Democrats who signed it and McCarthy turned his defeat into a victory through the great publicity he received. Soon after Tydings report was considered pro-Communist. Like the Salem Witch Trials lack of substantial proof, many people were willing to believe McCarthy’s charges without any evidence. Soon world events seemed to be playing into McCarthy’s hands and he could use it all against the Truman administration. McCarthy’s fame grew and he because more careless, and instead of hinting nameless lists, he started naming names.
With the onset of the Cold War, a growing Red Scare would cripple American society – effectively plunging the nation into mass hysteria and unrest over the fallacious threat of communist infiltration. This reaction was precipitated by Republican senator, Joseph McCarthy, in his speech, “Enemies from Within”, delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia, on 9 February 1950. McCarthy paints communists in a particularly harsh light to generate anti-Soviet sentiment within the American public. He uses juxtaposition to engender both indignation and fear in the audience to achieve this effect.
McCarthy was a virtually unknown politician until February 1950, where in a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, he proclaimed “have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department” (History Matters). This speech coined the “Enemies from Within” propelled McCarthy to the political spotlight and gave him huge power along with the support of the American public. McCarthy, realizing he had a great political opportunity, and continued his “anti-communist” tirade accusing powerful people in hollywood and members of the armed forces as being communists or communist sympathizers. As his skeptics grew, so did his blacklist, with McCarthy accusing every single one of his critics as communists destroying their lives and careers in the process (Victims of McCarthyism). McCarthy used this tactic to discourage any opposition, with many potential critics seeing the potential implications of their skepticism, they simply redacted their statements or never spoke
Almost instantly after the end of World War Two, the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to tear away at the thin bond formed by the two counties' alliance in the war. McCarthy and many other republican politicians believed that the democratic party, along with President Harry S. Truman, were not harsh enough on the communist party and they strongly opposed Roosevelt's New Deal. When the Republicans took control of the presidency in 1952, "McCarthyism," as it is now known. This new movement, McCarthyism, accused some Americans of being communist’s sympathizers and people that were suspected o...
...y Wheeling speech created nationwide hysteria, and with its impeccable timing just days after the conviction of the State Official Alga Hiss for lying under oath about his association with the communist Soviet as a spy, fueled the fight on communism. (citation) McCarthy war on communism during the “Second Red Scare” did not leave any individual safe from accusations. He attacked government agents, entertainment industry workers, educators, union members, and alienated the left-wing Democrats. McCarthy helped to create the atmosphere of suspicion and panic with his growth in media coverage. McCarthy’s words made for big headlines and the media was quick to cover his stories. This exposure helped facilitate American approval of McCarthy and empowered him to make more accusations on those suspected of subversion. In 1953, McCarthy headed the Government Operations Commit
As a counter product of this McCarthy intensified the Red Scare more and more. His ideals got through to the citizens creating more accusers and accusations. This only of course led to more and more fingers being pointed. The Red Scare was alive and well before McCarthyism but in the creation of McCarthy’s over the top actions he made it worse for the country as a whole, creating more and more fear inside the American
McCarthy had a way of carrying himself that radiated confidence, and had the ability to convince a whole crowd of something he had pulled out of his hat just moments prior. McCarthy had an elegant way about him, and this aided him in convincing thousands of people that an anti-communism speech was truly what was appropriate for Honest Abe’s birthday. McCarthy’s mentioning of Christianity can be found throughout his speech, such as his comment of, “…that this is the time for the show-down between the democrat Christian world and the communistic atheistic world.” McCarthy introduced the idea of communism being synonymous with Atheism by
McCarthy conducted “witch hunts” in an effort to seek out and eliminate suspected Communists. Congressional hearings were in effect, not hearings, but trials for crimes that were not really crimes, with congressmen serving as prosecutor, judge, and jury. Unable to deprive a person of their life and liberty, they deprived him of his livelihood. If the person refused to give the names of other Communists, he or she would automatically be considered guilty. Witnesses at the trials were immediately classified as either friendly or unfriendly.
As for McCarthy he accuses anyone he sees. He even began to question the integrity of
From 1949 to 1954, the citizens of the United States were overcome with terror of the possibility of being accused of Communism. Joseph McCarthy was an anti-communist zealot obsessed with rooting out perceived Communist spies and activities in the United States. Common opinion showed that McCarthy was a bully and a liar. The Senate condemned him for it because at the time, there was no evidence to support him. However, in recent years, evidence has come out that confirms the basis of what McCarthy said.
McCarthy was elected senate after becoming a lawyer in his sate of Wisconsin. During the first few years of his term nothing major really happened until 1950. In a speech to the Women’s club of wheeling in West Virginia he stated that he had a list in his hand of about 205 known members of the communist party working for the United States department. President Harry Truman had signed an executive order that said that all communists or fascists could not obtain a United States government job. The FBI played a big role in the investigation of this list McCarthy contained. McCarthy’s friend j. Edgar Hoover, which was a violent ant-communist in the federal government, could not wait to expose the people McCarthy accused of being communists. McCarthy’s list created a nationwide scar among the people of the United States. Everything McCarthy said was a lie and he had no evidence to show that the people he accused were really communist but, because of the start of the Korean War and the arrest of two American soldiers accused of spying on the Soviet Union American citizen...
being a Communist, with the only source being a report on how his father reads a Serbian newspaper. (Clooney) Without genuine evidence from a credible source, an argument is as good as a blatant claim. McCarthy’s “evidence” is in fact unsubstantiated in itself. Therefore, his accusations contain no basis, and lack the foundation needed to provide solid and subs...
The attitude of the citizens of the United States was a tremendous influence on the development of McCarthyism. The people living in the post World War II United States felt fear and anger because communism was related with Germany, Italy, and Russia who had all at one point been enemies of the United States during the war. If the enemies were communists then, communists were enemies and any communists or even communist sympathizers were a threat to the American way of life. "From the Bolshevik Revolution on, radicals were seen as foreign agents or as those ...
The United States was in a state of scare when they feared that communist agents would come and try to destroy our government system. An example of this scare was the Cold war. During the cold war the U.S. supported the anti-communist group while the Soviet Union favored the communist party. Many people who still supported the communist party still lived in the U.S. When the U.S. joined the Cold war, trying to rid the communist party from Europe and Asia, the U.S. were afraid that the people living in the United States that still supported communism were spies that would give intel back to the Soviet Union to try to destroy their government. If anybody was a suspected communist, if somebody just didn’t like somebody, or if they were even greedy they could accuse the person of communism and the person would be thrown in the penitentiary, thus, starting the second red scare.
In 1956 Arthur Miller was subpoenaed by HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) and refused to identify writers that were believed to hold communist sympathies. Due to his refusal he was convicted of contempt of congress. The next year, however, the United States Supreme Court overturned this conviction. Under the leadership of McCarthy the committee had so much power that just knowing someone who was suspected of having ties to the communist party was a danger. The lives and careers of hundreds of Americans were ruined because of being blacklisted. Prison, bankruptcy, passport revocation, unemployment were threats made against people for them to testify and “name names.”