McCarthyism

Anticommunist crusade led by Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy (1908–1957) in the 1950s and characterized by extreme zeal and paranoia in searching for communist influences on American culture. McCarthy's campaign of slander gave rise to the term McCarthyism, which suggested a government witch hunt that sought to punish unpopular political stances.

McCarthyism was a product of the intense Cold War rivalry between the capitalist West, led by the United States, and the communist East, led by the Soviet Union. The political and military rivalry between these two superpower nations produced strong nationalist and anticommunist feelings in the United States. The U.S. government was concerned about the forcible spread of communism around the globe, and many Americans felt that communism represented a threat to their way of life. This led to a time known as the Red Scare.

The Red Scare was marked by active suppression of the Communist Party of the United States by the U.S. government. It also featured an intense effort to identify and remove suspected communists from positions in government, the military, and the media. The most ardent anticommunists, such as Senator McCarthy, felt that communism represented an immediate threat to national security and claimed the existence of a vast web of communist spies and sympathizers in powerful and influential positions in American society. He and his allies in the Congress soon began a campaign to root out communist influence in the United States.

In 1938, the House of Representatives had created the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which was charged with monitoring disloyalty to the U.S. government. During the 1950s, this meant identifying and sanctioning individuals suspected of being communists. In one of its most infamous episodes, HUAC called hundreds of members of the film and television industries to testify before Congress and name colleagues who might have communist sympathies. Because of the hearing, dozens of writers, actors, directors, and other members of the broadcast industry were blacklisted and unable to work in their profession for years—some never again. The investigations created an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion that still stirs strong feelings among those who experienced or remember it.

In 1950, the U.S. Senate created a body called the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, which had the same mission as HUAC. McCarthy, a junior senator from Wisconsin looking to make a name for himself, managed to get an appointment to the committee. By 1953, he had become chairman and turned the committee into a personal platform, staging widely publicized hearings on communists in government. McCarthy's charges of a widespread communist infiltration of the U.S. government brought him regular newspaper headlines and radio coverage.

In 1954, McCarthy hoped to take advantage of the medium of television to bring his anticommunist crusade to Americans. He called a series of hearings on communist influence in the U.S. Army that were televised by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). A new network, ABC hoped to attract daytime viewers with live coverage of the fiery McCarthy tearing into witnesses and raising the temperature of the Senate.

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