Joseph McCarthy

Infobox Senator |name=Joseph Raymond McCarthy
nationality=American

---

|300px
jr/sr=United States Senator
state=Wisconsin
party=Republican
term_start=January 3, 1947
term_end=May 2, 1957
preceded=Robert M. La Follette, Jr.
succeeded=William Proxmire
date of birth=birth date|1908|11|14|mf=y
place of birth= Grand Chute, Wisconsin
dead=
date of death=death date and age |1957|5|2|1908|11|14
place of death=Bethesda, Maryland
spouse=Jean Kerr McCarthy
religion=Roman Catholic

---

Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period of intense anti-communist suspicion inspired by the tensions of the Cold War. [For a history of this period, see, for example: cite book
first = David
last = Caute
authorlink = David Caute
title= The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower
publisher= Simon & Schuster
year= 1978
id= ISBN 0671226827 cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8 cite book
last = Schrecker
first = Ellen
authorlink = Ellen Schrecker
year = 1998
title = Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America
publisher = Little, Brown
id = ISBN 0-316-77470-7] He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led to his being discredited and censured by the United States Senate. The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents. ["The American Heritage Dictionary" (2000) defines "McCarthyism" as "the practice of publicizing accusations of political disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence" and "the use of unfair investigatory or accusatory methods in order to suppress opposition." "Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged" (1961) defines it as "characterized chiefly by opposition to elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges."]

Born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, McCarthy earned a law degree at Marquette University in 1935 and was elected as a circuit judge in 1939, the youngest in state history. [cite web
url = http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/November-December-2003/story_morgan_novdec03.msp
title = Judge Joe; How the youngest judge in Wisconsin's history became the country's most notorious senator.
accessdate = 2006-08-02
author =
last = Morgan
first = Ted
authorlink =
coauthors =
date =
year = 2003
month = November/December
format =
publisher = Legal Affairs
pages =] At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and served during World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette, Jr. After several largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. [cite web
title = Communists in Government Service, McCarthy Says
publisher = United States Senate History Website
url = http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Communists_In_Government_Service.htm
accessdate = 2007-03-09]

However, McCarthy was never able to substantiate his sensational charges. In succeeding years, McCarthy made accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Truman, Voice of America, and the United States Army. He also used charges of communism, communist sympathies, or disloyalty to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. With the highly publicized Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, McCarthy's support and popularity began to fade. Later in 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67 to 22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. McCarthy died in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The official cause of death was acute hepatitis; it is widely accepted that this was brought on by alcoholism.See, for example: cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title =
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = pp 503-504
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X, cite book
last = Reeves
first = Thomas C.
title = The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography
publisher = Madison Books
pages = pp 669-671
year= 1982
id = ISBN 1-56833-101-0, cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 2000
pages = pp 302-303
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4]

Early life and career

McCarthy was the fifth born of seven children, born in the township of Grand Chute, Wisconsin on a farm near the town of Appleton, [cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = p. 79
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7] McCarthy's mother, Bridget Tierney, was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered high school when he was 20 and graduated in one year. McCarthy worked his way through college, from 1930 to 1935, studying first engineering, then law, earning a law degree at Marquette University in Milwaukee. [In "A Conspiracy So Immense," Oshinsky states that McCarthy chose Marquette University rather than the University of Wisconsin at Madison partially because Marquette was under Catholic control and partially because he enrolled during the Great Depression, when few working-class or farm-bred students had the money to go out of state for college.cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 11
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X] He was admitted to the bar in 1935. While working in a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign to become District Attorney as a Democrat in 1936. However, in 1939, McCarthy had better success: he successfully vied for the elected post of the non-partisan 10th District circuit judge. During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling. [ Oshinsky explains this (p. 17) as resulting partially from the financial pressures of the Great Depression. He also notes (p. 28) that even during his judgeship, McCarthy was known to have gambled heavily after hours.cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = pp. 17, 28
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X]

McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy due to the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases. He had inherited a docket with a heavy backlog and he worked constantly to clear it. At times he compensated for his lack of experience by demanding, and relying heavily upon, precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. Significantly, the Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a relatively low percentage of the cases he heard. [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 27
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X]

Military service

In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy was commissioned into the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from compulsory service. His position as a judge qualified him for an automatic commission as an officer, and he became a second lieutenant after completing basic training. He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville. McCarthy reportedly chose the Marines with the hope that being a veteran of this branch of the military would serve him best in his future political career.cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 1999
pages = p. 30
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4] He would leave the Marines with the rank of captain.It is well documented that McCarthy lied about his war record. Despite his automatic commission, he claimed to have enlisted as a "buck private." He flew 12 combat missions as a gunner-observer, earning the nickname of "Tail-Gunner Joe" in the course of one of these missions. [Oshinsky describes the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe" as the result of McCarthy's wish to break the record for most live ammunition discharged in a single mission.cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 32
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X] But he later claimed 32 missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross, which he received in 1952. McCarthy publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and countersigned by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. But it was revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, in his capacity as intelligence officer. A "war wound" that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or antiaircraft fire was in fact received aboard ship during an initiation ceremony for sailors who cross the equator for the first time. [cite web
url = http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/November-December-2003/story_morgan_novdec03.msp
title = Judge Joe; How the youngest judge in Wisconsin's history became the country's most notorious senator.
accessdate = 2006-08-02
last = Morgan
first = Ted
year = 2003
month = November/December
publisher = Legal Affairs]

McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated for the GOP nomination by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. He resigned his commission in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945. He was then re-elected unopposed to his circuit court position, and began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination. In this race he was challenging three-term senator and United States Progressive Party icon, Robert M. La Follette, Jr.

enate campaign

[
Robert M. La Follette, Jr., in the 1946 Republican primary in Wisconsin. Drawn by Clifford K. Berryman.]

In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years. [cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = pp. 97, 102
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7] The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe," using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner." Arnold Beichman later reported that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO," which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette. [cite web
url = http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/2913871.html
title = The Politics of Personal Self-Destruction
accessdate = 2008-02-25
last = Beichman
first = Arnold
authorlink = Arnold Beichman
year = 2006
month = February-March
publisher = Policy Review] In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won 61.2% to Democrat McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Senator Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.

Election box begin no change
title=Wisconsin U.S. Senate Election, 1946Election box candidate with party link no change
party = Republican Party (US)
candidate = Joseph McCarthy
votes = 620,430
percentage = 61.2% Election box candidate with party link no change
party = Democratic Party (US)
candidate = Howard McMurry
votes = 378,772
percentage = 37.3%

United States Senate

McCarthy's first three years in the Senate were unremarkable. McCarthy was a popular speaker, invited by many different organizations, covering a wide range of topics. His aides and many in the Washington social circle described him as charming and friendly, and he was a popular guest at cocktail parties. He was far less well-liked among fellow senators, however, who found him quick-tempered and prone to impatience and even rage. Outside of a small circle of colleagues, he was soon an isolated figure in the Senate. [cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 1999
pages = pp 44, 51, 55
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4]

He was active in labor-management issues, with a reputation as a moderate Republican. He fought against continuation of wartime price controls, especially on sugar. His advocacy in this area was associated by critics with a $20,000 personal loan McCarthy received from a Pepsi bottling executive, earning the Senator the derisive nickname "The Pepsi Cola Kid." [cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 2000
pages = p. 53
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4] He supported the Taft-Hartley Act over Truman's veto, angering labor unions in Wisconsin but solidifying his business base. [cite book
last = Reeves
first = Thomas C.
title = The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography
publisher = Madison Books
pages = pp 116-119
year= 1982
id = ISBN 1-56833-101-0]

In an incident for which he would be widely criticized, McCarthy lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. McCarthy was critical of the convictions because of allegations of torture during the interrogations that led to the German soldiers's confessions. He charged that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation. [cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 2000
pages = pp 54-55
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4] Shortly after this, a poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S. senator" currently in office. [cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 1999
pages = p. 51
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4]

The Wheeling speech

McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "I 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." [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 49
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9]

There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57.cite web
url = http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/government/mccarthy01.html
title = Congressional Record, 81st Congress, 2nd Session
accessdate = 2006-08-11
date= February 20, 1950
publisher = West Virginia Division of Culture and History] The origin of the number 205 can be traced: In later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks. [cite book
last = Cook
first = Fred J.
title = The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = Random House
year= 1971
pages = pp. 155-156
id = ISBN 0-394-46270-X]

At the time of McCarthy's speech, Communism was a growing concern in the United States. This concern was exacerbated by the actions of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the fall of China to the Maoists, the Soviets' development of the atomic bomb the year before and by the recent conviction of Alger Hiss and the confession of Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs. With this background and due to the sensational nature of McCarthy's charge against the State Department, the Wheeling speech soon attracted a flood of press interest in McCarthy.

The Tydings Committee

McCarthy himself was taken aback by the massive media response to the Wheeling speech, and he was accused of continually revising both his charges and his figures. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a few days later, he cited a figure of 57, and in the Senate on February 20, he claimed 81. During a 5-hour speech, [Also reported as up to 8 hours in length.] McCarthy presented a case-by-case analysis of his 81 "loyalty risks" employed at the State Department. It is widely accepted that most of McCarthy's cases were selected from the so-called "Lee list," a report that had been compiled three years earlier for the House Appropriations Committee. Led by a former FBI agent named Robert E. Lee, the House investigators had reviewed security clearance documents on State Department employees, and had determined that there were "incidents of inefficiencies" [cite book
last = Reeves
first = Thomas C.
title = The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography
publisher = Madison Books
pages = p. 227
year= 1982
id = ISBN 1-56833-101-0] in the security reviews of 108 employees. McCarthy hid the source of his list, stating that he had penetrated the "iron curtain" of State Department secrecy with the aid of "some good, loyal Americans in the State Department." [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 55
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9]

In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist." [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 56
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9]

In response to McCarthy's charges, the Tydings Committee hearings were called. This was a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee set up in February 1950 to conduct "a full and complete study and investigation as to whether persons who are disloyal to the United States are, or have been, employed by the Department of State." ["Congressional Record", 81st Congress, 2nd session, pp 2062-2068; quoted in: cite book
last = Reeves
first = Thomas C.
title = The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography
publisher = Madison Books
pages = p. 243
year= 1982
id = ISBN 1-56833-101-0] Many Democratic Party politicians were incensed at McCarthy's attack on the State Department of a Democratic administration, and had hoped to use the hearings to discredit him. The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Millard Tydings, was reported to have said, "Let me have him [McCarthy] for three days in public hearings, and he'll never show his face in the Senate again." [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 119
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X]

During the hearings, McCarthy moved on from his original unnamed Lee list cases and used the hearings to make charges against nine specific people: Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Haldore Hanson, Gustavo Duran, Owen Lattimore, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Schuman, John S. Service, and Philip Jessup. Some of them no longer worked for the State Department, or never had; all had previously been the subject of charges of varying worth and validity. Owen Lattimore became a particular focus of McCarthy's, who at one point described him as a "top Russian spy." Throughout the hearings, McCarthy employed colorful rhetoric, but produced no substantial evidence, to support his accusations.

From its beginning, the Tydings Committee was marked by partisan infighting. Its final report, written by the Democratic majority, concluded that the individuals on McCarthy's list were neither Communists nor pro-communist, and said the State Department had an effective security program. The Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's charges a "fraud and a hoax," and said that the result of McCarthy's actions was to "confuse and divide the American people [...] to a degree far beyond the hopes of the Communists themselves." Republicans responded in kind, with William E. Jenner stating that Tydings was guilty of "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history." [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 101
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9] The full Senate voted three times on whether to accept the report, and each time the voting was precisely divided along party lines. [cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
coauthors =
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
pages = p. 128
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8]

Fame and notoriety

From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.

McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled," McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year he published a book titled "McCarthyism: The Fight For America."

McCarthy has been accused of attempting to discredit his critics and political opponents by accusing them of being Communists or communist sympathizers. In the 1950 Maryland Senate election, McCarthy campaigned for John M. Butler in his race against four-term incumbent Millard Tydings, with whom McCarthy had been in conflict during the Tydings Committee hearings. In speeches supporting Butler, McCarthy accused Tydings of "protecting Communists" and "shielding traitors." McCarthy's staff was heavily involved in the campaign, and collaborated in the production of a campaign tabloid that contained a composite photograph doctored to make it appear that Tydings was in intimate conversation with Communist leader Earl Browder. [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 175
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X] A Senate subcommittee later investigated this election and referred to it as "a despicable, back-street type of campaign," as well as recommending that the use of defamatory literature in a campaign be made grounds for expulsion from the Senate. [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
authorlink =
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = pp 127-129
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9] [cite book
last = Cook
first = Fred J.
title = The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = Random House
year= 1971
pages = p. 312
id = ISBN 0-394-46270-X]

In addition to the Tydings-Butler race, McCarthy campaigned for several other Republicans in the 1950 elections, including that of Everett Dirksen against Democratic incumbent and Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas. Dirksen, and indeed all the candidates McCarthy supported won their elections, and those he opposed lost. The elections, including many that McCarthy was not involved in, were an overall Republican sweep. Although his impact on the elections was unclear, McCarthy was credited as a key Republican campaigner. He was now regarded as one of the most powerful men in the Senate and was treated with new-found deference by his colleagues. [cite book
last = Cook
first = Fred J.
title = The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = Random House
year= 1971
pages = p. 316
id = ISBN 0-394-46270-X]

Election box begin no change
title=Wisconsin U.S. Senate Election, 1952Election box candidate with party link no change
party = Republican Party (US)
candidate = Joseph McCarthy
votes = 870,444
percentage = 54.2%Election box candidate with party link no change
party = Democratic Party (US)
candidate = Thomas Fairchild
votes = 731,402
percentage = 45.6%

In 1950 McCarthy assaulted journalist Drew Pearson in the cloakroom of a Washington club, reportedly kneeing him in the groin. McCarthy, who admitted the assault, claimed he merely "slapped" Pearson. [cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
authorlink = |title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 2000
pages = p. 233
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4] In 1952 McCarthy would be re-elected to his senate seat by a margin of 54.2% to Democrat Thomas Fairchild's 45.6%.

In 1952, using rumors collected by Pearson, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy was a homosexual. The major journalistic media refused to print the story, and no notable McCarthy biographer has accepted the rumor as probable. [The allegation is specifically rejected incite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = p. 68
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7]

In 1953 McCarthy married Jean Kerr, a researcher in his office. He and his wife adopted a baby girl, whom they named Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy, in January 1957.

McCarthy and the Truman administration

There was considerable enmity between McCarthy and President Truman while they were both in office. McCarthy characterized Truman and the Democratic party as soft on, or even in league with, Communists, referring to "twenty years of treason" on the part of the Democrats. Truman, in turn, once referred to McCarthy as "the best asset the Kremlin has," calling McCarthy's actions an attempt to "sabotage the foreign policy of the United States" in a cold war and comparing it to shooting American soldiers in the back in a hot war. [cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
authorlink = |title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 2000
pages = p. 131
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4] It was the Truman Administration's State Department that McCarthy accused of harboring 205 (or 57 or 81) "known Communists," and Truman's Secretary of Defense George Catlett Marshall, who was the target of some of McCarthy's most colorful rhetoric. Marshall was also Truman's former Secretary of State and had been Army Chief of Staff during World War II. Marshall was a highly respected statesman and general, best remembered today as the architect of the Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction of Europe, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. McCarthy made a lengthy speech on Marshall, later published in 1951 as a book titled "America's Retreat From Victory: The Story Of George Catlett Marshall." Marshall had been involved in American foreign policy with China, and McCarthy charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the "loss of China" to Communism. In the speech McCarthy also implied that Marshall was guilty of treason;cite book
last = McCarthy
first = Joseph
title = Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950–1951
publisher = Gordon Press
year= 1951
pages = pp. 264, 307, 215
id = ISBN 0-87968-308-2] declared that "if Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest;" and most famously, accused him of being part of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man."

During the Korean War, when President Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur, McCarthy charged that Truman and his advisors must have planned the dismissal during late-night sessions when "they've had time to get the President cheerful" on Bourbon and Benedictine. McCarthy declared, "The son of a bitch should be impeached." [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 194
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X]

upport from Catholics and Kennedy family

One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which composed over 20% of the national vote. McCarthy identified himself as Catholic, and although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as his fame as a leading anti-Communist grew, he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers and Catholic journals. [cite book
last = Crosby
first =Donald F.
title =God, Church, and Flag: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the Catholic Church, 1950-1957
publisher =University of North Carolina Press
year= 1978
id = ISBN 0807813125] At the same time, some Catholics did oppose McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal "Commonweal." [cite book
last = Crosby
first =Donald F.
title =God, Church, and Flag: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the Catholic Church, 1950-1957
publisher =University of North Carolina Press
year= 1978
pages = pp. 200, 67
id = ISBN 0807813125]

McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and was a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice, [cite book
last = Morrow
first = Lance
title =The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Johnson, And Nixon in 1948
publisher =Perseus Books Group
year= 1978
pages = p. 4
id = ISBN 0465047246.] [cite book
last = Bogle
first = Lori
title =Cold War Espionage and Spying
publisher =Routledge
year= 2001
pages = p. 129
id = ISBN 0815332416.] and was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 240
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-Xcite book
last = Reeves
first = Thomas C.
title = The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography
publisher = Madison Books
pages = p. 443
year= 1982
id = ISBN 1-56833-101-0]

Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. Asked once by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. why he avoided criticism of McCarthy, Kennedy said, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero." [cite book
last = Johnson
first = Haynes
title =The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism
publisher = Harcourt
year= 2005
pages = p. 250
id = ISBN 0-15-101062-5]

McCarthy and Eisenhower

During the 1952 Presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor, George Marshall, which was a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he deleted this defense from later versions of his speech. [cite book
last = Wicker
first = Tom
year = 2002
title = Dwight D. Eisenhower: The American Presidents Series
publisher = Times Books
pages = p. 15
id = ISBN 0-8050-6907-0] [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
authorlink = |title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = pp 188+
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9] The deletion was discovered by a reporter for the "New York Times" and featured on their front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign. [cite book
last = Wicker
first = Tom
year = 2002
title = Dwight D. Eisenhower: The American Presidents Series
publisher = Times Books
pages = p. 15
id = ISBN 0-8050-6907-0]

With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to diminish his power and influence. But he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by giving the impression that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly. But Oshinsky disputes this last, stating that "Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal... Leadership, he explained, meant patience and conciliation, not 'hitting people over the head.'" [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 259
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X]

McCarthy won reelection in 1952 with only 54% of the vote, defeating former Wisconsin State Attorney General Thomas E. Fairchild but badly trailing a Republican ticket which swept the state of Wisconsin; all the other Republican winners, including Eisenhower himself, received at least 60% of the Wisconsin vote. [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 244
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X] Those who expected that party loyalty would cause McCarthy to tone down his accusations of Communists being harbored within the government were soon disappointed. Eisenhower had never been an admirer of McCarthy, and their relationship became more hostile once Eisenhower was in office. In a November 1953 speech that was carried on national television, McCarthy began by praising the Eisenhower Administration for removing "1,456 Truman holdovers who were [...] gotten rid of because of Communist connections and activities or perversion." He then went on to complain that John P. Davies was still "on the payroll after eleven months of the Eisenhower Administration," even though Davies had actually been dismissed three weeks earlier, and repeated an unsubstantiated accusation that Davies had tried to "put Communists and espionage agents in key spots in the Central Intelligence Agency." In the same speech he criticized Eisenhower for not doing enough to secure the release of missing American pilots shot down over China during the Korean War. [All quotes in this paragraph: cite book
last = Fried
first = Albert
year = 1997
title = McCarthyism, The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History
publisher = Oxford University Press
pages = pp 182-184
id = ISBN 0-19-509701-7]

By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catch-phrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-"one" years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office. [cite book
last = Fried
first = Albert
title = McCarthyism, The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 1996
pages = p. 179
id = ISBN 0-19-509701-7]

As McCarthy became increasingly combative towards the Eisenhower Administration, Eisenhower faced repeated calls that he confront McCarthy directly. Eisenhower refused, saying privately "nothing would please him [McCarthy] more than to get the publicity that would be generated by a public repudiation by the President." [ cite book
last = Powers
first = Richard Gid
title = Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism
publisher = Yale University Press
year= 1998
pages = p. 263
id = ISBN 0-300-07470-0] On several occasions Eisenhower is reported to have said of McCarthy that he did not want to "get down in the gutter with that guy." [cite book
last = Parmet
first = Herbert S.
title = Eisenhower and the American Crusades
publisher = Transaction Publishers
year= 1998
pages = pp 248, 337, 577
id = ISBN 0-7658-0437-9]

enate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

With the beginning of his second term as senator in 1953, McCarthy was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. According to some reports, Republican leaders were growing wary of McCarthy's methods and gave him this relatively mundane panel rather than the Internal Security Subcommittee--the committee normally involved with investigating Communists--thus putting McCarthy "where he can't do any harm," in the words of Senate Majority Leader Robert Taft. [cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
pages = p. 134
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8] However, the Committee on Government Operations included the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the mandate of this subcommittee was sufficiently flexible to allow McCarthy to use it for his own investigations of Communists in the government. McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and 27-year-old Robert Kennedy as an assistant counsel to the subcommittee.

This subcommittee would be the scene of some of McCarthy's most publicized exploits. When the records of the closed executive sessions of the subcommittee under McCarthy's chairmanship were made public in 2003–4, [See "Transcripts, Executive Sessions..." under Primary sources, below.] Senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following in their preface to the documents:

Senator McCarthy’s zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings... These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur. [cite web
author = Collins, Susan and Levin, Carl
coauthors =
title = Preface
work = Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations
publisher = U.S. Government Printing Office
year= 2003
url = http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Volume1.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2006-12-19]

The subcommittee first investigated allegations of Communist influence in the Voice of America (VOA), at that time administered by the State Department's United States Information Agency. Many VOA personnel were questioned in front of television cameras and a packed press gallery, with McCarthy lacing his questions with hostile innuendo and false accusations. [cite book
last = Heil
first = Alan L.
year = 2003
title = Voice of America: A History
publisher = Columbia University Press
pages = p. 53
id = ISBN 0-231-12674-3] A few VOA employees alleged Communist influence on the content of broadcasts, but none of the charges were substantiated. Morale at VOA was badly damaged, and one of its engineers committed suicide during McCarthy's investigation. Ed Kretzman, a policy advisor for the service, would later comment that it was VOA's "darkest hour when Senator McCarthy and his chief hatchet man, Roy Cohn, almost succeeded in muffling it." [cite book
last = Heil
first = Alan L.
year = 2003
title = Voice of America: A History
publisher = Columbia University Press
pages = p. 56
id = ISBN 0-231-12674-3]

The subcommittee then turned to the overseas library program of the International Information Agency. Cohn toured Europe examining the card catalogs of the State Department libraries looking for works by authors he deemed inappropriate. McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and the press. The State Department bowed to McCarthy and ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travelers, etc." Some libraries actually burned the newly forbidden books. [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
authorlink =
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 216
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9] Shortly after this, in one of his carefully oblique public criticisms of McCarthy, President Eisenhower urged Americans: "Don't join the book burners. […] Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book." [cite web
url =http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/stories/Ike-Milton-McCarthy.htm
title = Ike, Milton, and the McCarthy Battle
accessdate = 2006-08-09
date =
year =
month =
publisher = Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission]

Soon after receiving the chair to the Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy appointed Joseph Brown Matthews (generally known as J. B. Matthews) as staff director of the subcommittee. One of the nation's foremost anti-communists, Matthews had formerly been staff director for the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The appointment became controversial when it was learned that Matthews had recently written an article titled "Reds And Our Churches," [Often misidentified as "Reds "In" Our Churches;" see [http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=%22Reds+and+Our+Churches%22+Matthews&btnG=Search+Books this] versus [http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=%22Reds+in+Our+Churches%22+Matthews&btnG=Search+Books this] .] which opened with the sentence, "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen." A group of senators denounced this "shocking and unwarranted attack against the American clergy" and demanded that McCarthy dismiss Matthews. McCarthy at first refused to do this. But as the controversy mounted, and the majority of his own subcommittee joined the call for Matthews's ouster, McCarthy finally yielded and accepted his resignation. For some McCarthy opponents, this was a signal defeat of the senator, showing he was not as invincible as he had formerly seemed. [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 233
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9]

Investigating the Army

In the fall of 1953, McCarthy's committee began its ill-fated inquiry into the United States Army. This began with McCarthy opening an investigation into the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy, newly married to Jean Kerr, had aborted his honeymoon to open the investigation. He garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the Army researchers, but after weeks of hearings, nothing came of his investigations. [cite book
last = Stone
first = Geoffrey R.
title = Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism
publisher = W. W. Norton & Company
year= 2004
pages = p. 384
id = ISBN 0-393-05880-8]

Unable to expose any signs of subversion, McCarthy focused instead on the case of Irving Peress, a New York dentist who had been drafted into the Army in 1952 and promoted to major in November 1953. Shortly thereafter it came to the attention of the military bureaucracy that Peress, who was a member of the left-wing American Labor Party, had declined to answer questions about his political affiliations on a loyalty-review form. Peress's superiors were therefore ordered to discharge him from the Army within 90 days. McCarthy subpoenaed Peress to appear before his subcommittee on January 30, 1954. Peress refused to answer McCarthy's questions, citing his rights under the Fifth Amendment. McCarthy responded by sending a message to Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens demanding that Peress be court-martialed. On that same day, Peress asked for his pending discharge from the Army to be effected immediately, and the next day Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, his commanding officer at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, gave him an honorable separation from the Army. At McCarthy's encouragement, "Who promoted Peress?" became a rallying cry among many anti-communists and McCarthy supporters. In fact, and as McCarthy knew, Peress had been promoted automatically through the provisions of the Doctor Draft Law, for which McCarthy had voted. [cite book
last = Adams
first =John G.
title =Without Precedent: The Story of the Death of McCarthyism
publisher =W. W. Norton & Company
year= 1983
pages = pp. 120, 126
id = ISBN 039330230X]

McCarthy summoned General Zwicker to his subcommittee on February 18,. Zwicker, on advice from Army counsel, refused to answer some of McCarthy's questions and reportedly changed his story three times when asked if he had known at the time he signed the discharge that Peress had refused to answer questions before the McCarthy subcommittee. McCarthy compared Zwicker's intelligence to that of a "five-year-old child," and said he was "not fit to wear that uniform." [cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 1999
pages = p. 250
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4]

This abuse of Zwicker, a battlefield hero of World War II, caused considerable outrage among the military, newspapers, civilian veterans, senators of both parties and, probably most dangerously for McCarthy, President Eisenhower himself. [cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
coauthors =
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
pages = p. 138
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8] Army Secretary Stevens ordered Zwicker not to return to McCarthy's hearing for further questioning. Hoping to mend the increasingly hostile relations between McCarthy and the Army, a group of Republicans, including McCarthy, met with Secretary Stevens over a luncheon that included fried chicken and convinced him to sign a "memorandum of understanding" in which he capitulated to most of McCarthy's demands. After "The Chicken Luncheon," as it came to be called, McCarthy later told a reporter that Stevens "could not have given in more abjectly if he had got down on his knees." [cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = p. 30
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7] Reaction to this agreement was widely negative. Secretary Stevens was ridiculed by Pentagon officers, [cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
coauthors =
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
pages = p. 138
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8] and "The Times" of London wrote: "Senator McCarthy achieved today what General Burgoyne and General Cornwallis never achieved—the surrender of the American Army." [cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = p. 30
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7]

A few months later, the Army, with advice and support from the Eisenhower Administration, would launch a counterattack against McCarthy. It would do this not by directly challenging and criticizing McCarthy's behavior toward Army personnel, but by bringing charges against him on an unrelated issue.

The Army-McCarthy hearings

Early in 1954, the U.S. Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of improperly pressuring the Army to give favorable treatment to G. David Schine, a former aide to McCarthy and a friend of Cohn's, who was then serving in the Army as a private. McCarthy claimed that the accusation was made in bad faith, in retaliation for his questioning of Zwicker the previous year. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, usually chaired by McCarthy himself, was given the task of adjudicating these conflicting charges. Republican Senator Karl Mundt was appointed to chair the committee, and the Army-McCarthy hearings convened on April 22, 1954.

The hearings lasted for 36 days and were broadcast on live television, with an estimated 20 million viewers. After hearing 32 witnesses and two million words of testimony, the committee concluded that McCarthy himself had not exercised any improper influence on behalf of David Schine, but that Roy Cohn had engaged in "unduly persistent or aggressive efforts." The committee also concluded that Army Secretary Robert Stevens and Army Counsel John Adams "made efforts to terminate or influence the investigation and hearings at Fort Monmouth," and that Adams "made vigorous and diligent efforts" to block subpoenas for members of the Army Loyalty and Screening Board "by means of personal appeal to certain members of the [McCarthy] committee."

But of far greater import to McCarthy than the committee's inconclusive final report was the negative effect that the extensive exposure had on his popularity. Many in the audience saw him as bullying, reckless and dishonest, and the daily newspaper summaries of the hearings were also frequently unfavorable to McCarthy. [cite book
last = Morgan
first = Ted
title = Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America
publisher = Random House
year= 2004
pages = p. 489
id = ISBN 0-8129-7302-X] [cite book
last = Streitmatter
first = Rodger
title = Mightier Than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped American History
publisher = Westview Press
year= 1998
pages = p. 167
id = ISBN 0-8133-3211-7] Late in the hearings, Senator Stuart Symington made an angry but prophetic remark to McCarthy: "The American people have had a look at you for six weeks," he said. "You are not fooling anyone." [ cite book
last = Powers
first = Richard Gid
title = Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism
publisher = Yale University Press
year= 1998
pages = p. 271
id = ISBN 0-300-07470-0] In Gallup polls of January 1954, 50% of those polled had a positive opinion of McCarthy. In June, that number had fallen to 34%. In the same polls, those with a negative opinion of McCarthy increased from 29% to 45%. [cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
coauthors =
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
pages = p. 138
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8] An increasing number of Republicans and conservatives were coming to see McCarthy as a liability to the party and to anti-communism. Congressman George H. Bender noted, "There is a growing impatience with the Republican Party. McCarthyism has become a synonym for witch-hunting, star chamber methods and the denial of...civil liberties." [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 264
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9]
Frederick Woltman, a reporter with a long-standing reputation as a staunch anti-communist, wrote a five-part series of articles criticizing McCarthy in the "New York World-Telegram." He stated that McCarthy "has become a major liability to the cause of anti-communism," and accused him of "wild twisting of facts and near facts [that] repels authorities in the field." [cite book
last = Cook
first = Fred J.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = Random House
year= 1971
pages = p. 536
id = ISBN 0-394-46270-X, cite web
last =
first =
title = About McCarthy
work =
publisher = TIME Magazine
date= July 19, 1954
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,857509-2,00.html
accessdate = 2006-12-18]

The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army's chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down." McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, which Attorney General Brownell had called "the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party." In an impassioned defense of Fisher that some have suggested he had prepared in advance and had hoped not to have to make, [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 259
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 462
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X] Welch responded, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or your recklessness [...] " When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman "call the next witness." At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called. [cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
pages = p. 464
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X]

Edward Murrow, "See It Now"

One of the most prominent attacks on McCarthy's methods was an episode of the TV documentary series "See It Now", hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow, which was broadcast on March 9, 1954.

Titled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy", the episode consisted largely of clips of McCarthy speaking. In these clips, McCarthy accuses the Democratic party of "twenty years of treason," describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of,' the Communist Party," and berates and harangues various witnesses, including General Zwicker.

In his conclusion, Murrow said of McCarthy:

His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. [...]

We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. [cite web
title = Transcript - See it Now: A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
publisher = CBS-TV
date=March 9, 1954
url = http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy.html
accessdate = 2008-03-09]

The following week "See It Now" ran another episode critical of McCarthy, this one focusing on the case of Annie Lee Moss, an African-American army clerk who was the target of one of McCarthy's investigations. The Murrow shows, together with the televised Army-McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the major causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against McCarthy, in part because for the first time his statements were being publicly challenged by noteworthy figures. To counter the negative publicity, McCarthy appeared on "See It Now" on April 6, 1954, and made a number of charges against the popular Murrow. This response did not go over well with viewers, and the result was a further decline in his popularity.

Public opinion

Censure and the Watkins Committee

Several members of the U.S. Senate had opposed McCarthy well before 1953. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" on June 1, 1950, calling for an end to the use of smear tactics without mentioning McCarthy or anyone else by name. Six other Republican Senators, Wayne Morse, Irving M. Ives, Charles W. Tobey, Edward John Thye, George Aiken and Robert C. Hendrickson joined her in condemning McCarthy's tactics. McCarthy referred to Smith and her fellow Senators as "Snow White and the six dwarfs." [cite book
last = Wallace
first = Patricia Ward
title = Politics of Conscience: A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith
publisher = Praeger Trade
year= 1995
pages = p. 109
id = ISBN 0-275-95130-8]

On March 9, 1954, Vermont Republican Senator Ralph E. Flanders gave a humor-laced speech on the Senate floor, questioning McCarthy's tactics in fighting communism, likening McCarthyism to "housecleaning" with "much clatter and hullabaloo." He recommended that the Senator turn his attention to the worldwide encroachment of Communism outside North America. [cite book
last = Flanders
first =Ralph
title =Senator from Vermont
publisher =Little, Brown
year= 1961
location =Boston
id =] [cite web
last =
first =
title = Text of Flanders's speech
date= March 9, 1959
url = http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/Flanders3-9-1954Speech.jpg
accessdate =] In a June 1, 1954 speech Flanders compared McCarthy to Hitler, accusing him of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them." [cite book
last = Woods
first = Randall Bennett
title = Fulbright: A Biography
publisher = Cambridge University Press
year= 1995
pages = p. 187
id = ISBN 0-521-48262-3] On June 11, 1954, Flanders introduced a resolution to have McCarthy removed as chair of his committees. Although there were many in the Senate who believed that some sort of disciplinary action against McCarthy was warranted, there was no clear majority supporting this resolution. Some of the resistance was due to concern about usurping the Senate's rules regarding committee chairs and seniority. Flanders next introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy. The resolution was initially written without any reference to particular actions or misdeeds on McCarthy's part. As Flanders put it, "It was not his breaches of etiquette, or of rules or sometimes even of laws which is so disturbing," but rather his overall pattern of behavior. Ultimately a "bill of particulars" listing 46 charges was added to the censure resolution. A special committee, chaired by Senator Arthur V. Watkins, was appointed to study and evaluate the resolution. This committee opened hearings on August 31, 1954. [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
authorlink =
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = pp. 277 et seq.
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9] After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on two of the 46 counts: his contempt of the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration, which had called him to testify in 1951 and 1952, and his abuse of General Zwicker in 1954. The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. In place of this count, a new one was drafted regarding McCarthy's statements about the Watkins Committee itself. [cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = pp. 229-230
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7]

The two counts on which the Senate ultimately voted were:
*That McCarthy had "failed to cooperate with the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration," and "repeatedly abused the members who were trying to carry out assigned duties..."
*That McCarthy had charged "three members of the [Watkins] Select Committee with 'deliberate deception' and 'fraud'...that the special Senate session...was a 'lynch party,'" and had characterized the committee "as the 'unwitting handmaiden,' 'involuntary agent' and 'attorneys in fact' of the Communist Party," and had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity." [cite web
url =http://www.historicaldocuments.com/JosephMcCarthyCensure.htm
title = Senate Resolution 301: Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy
accessdate = 2008-03-09
publisher = HistoricalDocuments.com]

On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" Senator Joseph McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats present unanimously favored condemnation and the Republicans were split evenly. The only senator not on record was John F. Kennedy, who was hospitalized for back surgery; Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted. [Oshinsky [1983] (2005), pp. 33, 490; Michael O'Brien, "John F. Kennedy: A Biography" (2005), pp. 250-54, 274-79, 396-400; Reeves (1982), pp. 442-43; Thomas Maier, "The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings" (2003), pp. 270-80; Crosby, "God, Church, and Flag," 138-60.] Immediately after the vote, Senator H. Styles Bridges, a McCarthy supporter, argued that the resolution was "not a censure resolution" because the word "condemn" rather than "censure" was used in the final draft. The word "censure" was then removed from the title of the resolution, though it is generally regarded and referred to as a censure of McCarthy, both by historians [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
authorlink =
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 310
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9] and in Senate documents. [cite web
last =
first =
title = Senate Report 104-137 - Resolution For Disciplinary Action
work =
publisher = Library of Congress
year= 1995
url = http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp104&sid=cp104susc7&refer=&r_n=sr137.104&item=&sel=TOC_91694&
accessdate = 2006-10-19] McCarthy himself said, "I wouldn't exactly call it a vote of confidence." But he added, "I don't feel I've been lynched." [cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = p. 231
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7] The Senate had invoked censure against one of its members only three times before in the nation's history.

Final years

After his censure, McCarthy continued senatorial duties for another two and a half years, but his career as a major public figure had been unmistakably ruined. His colleagues in the Senate avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or were received with conspicuous displays of inattention. [cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
authorlink = |title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
pages = p. 318
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9] The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. President Eisenhower, free of McCarthy's political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now "McCarthywasm." [cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
coauthors =
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
pages = p. 141
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8]

Still, McCarthy continued to rail against Communism. He warned against attendance at summit conferences with "the Reds," saying that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers...without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder." [cite book
last = Graebner
first = Norman A.
coauthors =
year = 1956
title = The New Isolationism: A Study in Politics and Foreign Policy since 1950
publisher = Ronald Press
pages = p. 227
id = ] He declared that "coexistence with Communists is neither possible nor honorable nor desirable. Our long-term objective must be the eradication of Communism from the face of the earth."

McCarthy's biographers are agreed that he was a changed man after the censure; declining both physically and emotionally, he became a "pale ghost of his former self" in the words of Fred J. Cook. [cite book
last = Cook
first = Fred J.
title = The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = Random House
year= 1971
pages = p. 537
id = ISBN 0-394-46270-X] It was reported that McCarthy suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and was frequently hospitalized for alcoholism. [ cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=The Passing of McCarthy. |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867634-2,00.html |quote=Last week, in the U.S. Naval Hospital at Bethesda, Maryland, her fifth-born, Joseph Raymond McCarthy, overtaken by cirrhosis of the liver, received the last rites of his Roman Catholic faith and a scant 62 minutes later died at 48. |publisher=Time (magazine) |date=May 13, 1957 |accessdate=2008-03-19 ] Numerous eyewitnesses, including Senate aide George Reedy and journalist Tom Wicker, have reported finding him alarmingly drunk in the Senate.Journalist Richard Rovere (1959) wrote:

He had always been a heavy drinker, and there were times in those seasons of discontent when he drank more than ever. But he was not always drunk. He went on the wagon (for him this meant beer instead of whiskey) for days and weeks at a time. The difficulty toward the end was that he couldn't hold the stuff. He went to pieces on his second or third drink. And he did not snap back quickly. [cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
pages = pp. 244-245
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7]

McCarthy died in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The official cause of his death was listed as acute hepatitis: an inflammation of the liver. It was hinted in the press that he died of alcoholism, an estimation that is accepted by contemporary biographers. He was given a state funeral attended by 70 senators, and St. Matthew's Cathedral performed a Solemn Pontifical Requiem before more than 100 priests and 2,000 others. Thousands of people viewed the body in Washington. He was buried in St. Mary's Parish Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin, where more than 30,000 filed through St. Mary's Church to pay their last respects. Three senators — George Malone, William E. Jenner, and Herman Welker — had flown from Washington to Appleton on the plane carrying McCarthy's casket. Robert Kennedy quietly attended the funeral in Wisconsin. McCarthy was survived by his wife, Jean, and their adopted daughter, Tierney.

In the summer of 1957, a special election was held to fill McCarthy's seat. In the primaries, voters in both parties turned away from McCarthy's legacy. The Republican primary was won by Walter J. Kohler, Jr., who called for a clean break from McCarthy's approach; he defeated former Congressman Glenn Robert Davis, who charged that Eisenhower was soft on Communism. The Democratic winner was William Proxmire, who called McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate and to America." On August 27, Proxmire won the election. [Citation|last =Nichols|first =John|title =In 1957, a McCarthy-free morning in America|newspaper =The Capital Times|year =2007|date =July 31, 2007|url = http://www.madison.com/tct/archives/index.php?archAction=arch_read&a_from=search&a_file=%2Ftct%2F2007%2F07%2F31%2F0707310204.php&var_search=Search&keyword_field=In%201957,%20a%20McCarthy-free%20morning%20in%20&pub_code_field=tct&from_date_field=&to_date_field=&var_start_pos=0&var_articles_per_page=10]

Ongoing debate

In the view of some modern conservative authors, McCarthy's place in history should be re-evaluated. Ann Coulter's book "" is a notable example of this. Coulter, a controversial right-wing author, devotes a chapter to her defense of McCarthy, and much of the book to a defense of McCarthyism. She states, for example, "Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis." [cite book
last = Coulter
first = Ann
authorlink = Ann Coulter
title = Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism
publisher = Three Rivers Press
year= 2003
id = ISBN 1-4000-5032-4] Other authors who have voiced similar opinions include William Norman Grigg of the John Birch Society, [cite web
last = Grigg
first = William Norman
authorlink = William Norman Grigg
title = McCarthy's "Witches"
work =
publisher = The New American
date= June 16, 2003
url = http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/06-16-2003/vo19no12_witches.htm
accessdate = 2006-08-28] and M. Stanton Evans [cite web
last = Evans
first = M. Stanton
title = McCarthyism: Waging the Cold War in America
work =
publisher = Human Events
date= May 30, 1997
url = http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=455
accessdate = 2006-08-28; also: cite book
last = Evans
first = M. Stanton
title = Blacklisted By History: The Real Story of Joseph McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies
publisher = Crown Forum
year = 2007
id = ISBN 1-4000-8105-X]

These authors frequently cite new evidence, in the form of Venona decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee, asserting that these have vindicated McCarthy, showing that many of his identifications of Communists were correct. It has also been said that Venona and the Soviet archives have revealed that the scale of Soviet espionage activity in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars suspected, [cite book
author = Haynes, John Earl and Klehr, Harvey
year = 2000
title = Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America
publisher = Yale University Press
location =
id = ISBN 0-300-08462-5] [cite book
last = Weinstein
first = Allen
coauthors = Vassiliev, Alexander
year = 2000
title = The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America--The Stalin Era
publisher = Modern Library
id = ISBN 0-375-75536-5] and that this too stands as a vindication of McCarthy.

These viewpoints are considered revisionist by most historians, [See, for example: cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
pages = pp. ix - xi (Preface to the 2005 edition)
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X, and Citation
last = Evans
first = M. Stanton
year =2007
title = Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies
publisher = Crown Forum
isbn = 9781400081059
pages = 16; "defenders of McCarthy in the academic/media world today are so microscopically few as to be practically non-existent."] and have been specifically challenged by Kevin Drum [cite web
last = Drum
first = Kevin
authorlink = Kevin Drum
coauthors =
title = Sex And Communism
work =
publisher = Washington Monthly
date= June 20, 2003
url = http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2003_06/001468.php
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2006-09-07] and Johann Hari. [cite web
last = Hari
first = Johann
authorlink = Johann Hari
coauthors =
title = The Exhumation of Joe McCarthy
work =
publisher = History News Network
date= March 26, 2004
url = http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/4324.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2006-09-07] Historian John Earl Haynes has also argued against this "rehabilitation" of McCarthy, saying that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus," thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping. [cite web
last = Haynes
first = John Earl
title = Exchange with Arthur Herman and Venona book talk
month= February | year= 2000
url = http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page58.html
accessdate = 2007-07-11] With regard to Coulter's views in particular, the response among scholars has been all but universally negative, even among authors generally regarded as conservative or right-wing. [See, for example: Citation
last = Rabinowitz
first = Dorothy
author-link = Dorothy Rabinowitz
title = A Conspiracy So Vast
newspaper = The Wall Street Journal
date = July 7, 2003
url = http://www.opinionjournal.com/medialog/?id=110003713, Citation
last = Horowitz
first = David
author-link = David Horowitz
title = The Trouble with “Treason"
publisher = FrontPageMagazine.com
date = July 08, 2003
url =http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8793]

Although there are some cases where Venona or other recent data has increased the weight of evidence against a person named by McCarthy, there are few, if any, cases where McCarthy was responsible for identifying a person, or removing a person from a sensitive government position, where later evidence has increased the likelihood that that person was a Communist or a Soviet agent. [cite web
last = Haynes
first = John Earl
title = Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Lists and Venona
publisher =
year= 2006
url = http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html
accessdate = 2006-08-31]

HUAC

McCarthy is often incorrectly described as part of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (technically HCUA, but generally known as HUAC). The HUAC is best known for the investigation of Alger Hiss and for its investigation of the Hollywood film industry, which led to the blacklisting of hundreds of actors, writers and directors. The HUAC was a House committee, and as such had no formal connection with McCarthy, who served in the Senate.

McCarthy in popular culture

From the beginning of his notoriety, McCarthy was a favorite subject for political cartoonists. In 1953, the popular daily comic strip "Pogo" introduced the character Simple J. Malarkey, a pugnacious and conniving wildcat with an unmistakable physical resemblance to McCarthy.

Later in his career, McCarthy increasingly became the target of ridicule and parody. He was impersonated by nightclub and radio impressionists and was satirized in "Mad" magazine, on "The Red Skelton Show", and elsewhere. Several comedy songs lampooning the senator were released in 1954, including "Point of Order" by Stan Freeberg and Daws Butler, "Senator McCarthy Blues" by Hal Block, and unionist folk singer Joe Glazer's "Joe McCarthy's Band", sung to the tune of "McNamara's Band." Also in 1954, the radio comedy team Bob and Ray parodied McCarthy with the character "Commissioner Carstairs" in their soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife". That same year, the Canadian Broadcasting Company radio network broadcast a satire, "The Investigator", whose title character was a clear imitation of McCarthy. A recording of the show became popular in the United States, and was reportedly played by President Eisenhower at cabinet meetings. [cite book
first = Thomas
last = Doherty
title= Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture
publisher= Columbia University Press
pages = p. 213
year= 2005
id= ISBN 0-231-12953-X]

A more serious fictional portrayal of McCarthy played a central role in the 1959 novel "The Manchurian Candidate" by Richard Condon. The character of Senator John Iselin, a demagogic anti-communist, is closely modeled on McCarthy, even to the varying numbers of Communists he asserts are employed by the federal government. In the 1962 film version, the characterization remains; in this version, a Heinz ketchup bottle inspires Iselin and his wife to settle on "57" as the number of subversives he claims are on the federal payroll.

McCarthy was portrayed by Peter Boyle in the 1977 Emmy-winning television movie "Tail Gunner Joe", a dramatization of McCarthy's life. Archival footage of McCarthy himself was used in the 2005 movie "Good Night, and Good Luck" about Edward R. Murrow and the "See It Now" episode that challenged McCarthy.

ee also

* McCarthyism
* House Un-American Activities Committee

Notes

References and further reading

econdary sources

*cite book
last = Bayley
first = Edwin R.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Joe McCarthy and the Press
publisher = University of Wisconsin Press
year= 1981
id = ISBN 0-299-08624-0
*cite book
last = Belfrage
first = Cedric
authorlink = Cedric Belfrage
title = The American Inquisition, 1945-1960: A Profile of the "McCarthy Era"
publisher = Thunder's Mouth Press
year= 1989
id = ISBN 0-938410-87-3
*cite book
last = Buckley
first = William F.
authorlink = William F. Buckley, Jr.
year = 1954
title = McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning
publisher = Regnery Publishing
id = ISBN 0-89526-472-2
*cite book
last = Cook
first = Fred J.
title = The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = Random House
year= 1971
id = ISBN 0-394-46270-X
*cite book
last = Coulter
first = Ann
authorlink = Ann Coulter
title =
publisher = Three Rivers Press
year= 2003
id = ISBN 1-4000-5032-4
*cite book
last = Crosby
first = Donald F.
coauthors =
year = 1978
title = God, Church, and Flag: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the Catholic Church, 1950-1957
publisher = University of North Carolina Press
id = ISBN 0-8078-1312-5
*Crosby, Donald F. "The Jesuits and Joe McCarthy." "Church History" 1977 46(3): 374-388. Issn: 0009-6407 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-6407(197709)46%3A3%3C374%3ATJAJM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I Fulltext: in Jstor]
*cite book
last = Daynes
first = Gary
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Making Villains, Making Heroes: Joseph R. McCarthy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Politics of American Memory
publisher = Taylor & Francis
year= 1997
id = ISBN 0-8153-2992-X
*cite book
last = Evans
first = M. Stanton
title = Blacklisted By History: The Real Story of Joseph McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies
publisher = Crown Forum
year = 2007
id = ISBN 1-4000-8105-X
*cite book
last = Freeland
first = Richard M.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism: Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and Internal Security, 1946-1948
publisher = New York University Press
year= 1985
id = ISBN 0-8147-2576-7
*cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Men Against McCarthy
publisher = Columbia University Press
year= 1977
id = ISBN 0-231-08360-2
*cite book
last = Fried
first = Richard M.
coauthors =
year = 1990
title = Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective
publisher = Oxford University Press
id = ISBN 0-19-504361-8
*Gauger, Michael. "Flickering

*cite book
last = Griffith
first = Robert
title = The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate
publisher = University of Massachusetts Press
year= 1970
id = ISBN 0-87023-555-9
*cite book
author = Haynes, John Earl and Klehr, Harvey
year = 2000
title = Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America
publisher = Yale University Press
id = ISBN 0-300-08462-5
*cite book
last = Herman
first = Arthur
authorlink = Arthur Herman
title = Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator
publisher = Free Press
year= 1999
id = ISBN 0-684-83625-4
*cite book
last = Latham
first = Earl
title = Communist Controversy in Washington: From the New Deal to McCarthy
publisher = Macmillan Publishing Company
year= 1969
id = ISBN 0-689-70121-7
*Murphy, Brenda. "Congressional Theatre: Dramatizing McCarthyism on Stage, Film, and Television." Cambridge U. Press, 1999.
*cite book
last = O'Brien
first = Michael
title = McCarthy and McCarthyism in Wisconsin
publisher = Olympic Marketing Corp
year= 1981
id = ISBN 0-8262-0319-1
*cite book
last = Oshinsky
first = David M.
authorlink = David Oshinsky
title = A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 2005
origdate= 1983
id = ISBN 0-19-515424-X
*cite book
author= Powers, Richard Gid
title=Not Without Honor: A History of American AntiCommunism
publisher=Free Press
year=1997
id= ISBN 0-300-07470-0
*cite book
last = Ranville
first = Michael
title = To Strike at a King: The Turning Point in the McCarthy Witch-Hunt
publisher = Momentum Books Limited
year= 1996
id = ISBN 1-879094-53-3
*cite book
last = Reeves
first = Thomas C.
title = The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography
publisher = Madison Books
year= 1982
id = ISBN 1-56833-101-0
*cite book
last = Rosteck
first = Thomas
title = See It Now Confronts McCarthyism: Television Documentary and the Politics of Representation
publisher = University of Alabama Press
year= 1994
id = ISBN 0-8173-5191-4
*cite book
last = Rovere
first = Richard H.
authorlink = Richard Rovere
title = Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = University of California Press
year= 1959
id = ISBN 0-520-20472-7
*cite book
last = Schrecker
first = Ellen
authorlink = Ellen Schrecker
year = 1998
title = Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America
publisher = Little, Brown
id = ISBN 0-316-77470-7
*cite book
last = Strout
first = Lawrence N.
title = Covering McCarthyism: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950-1954
publisher = Greenwood Press
year= 1999
id = ISBN 0-313-31091-2
*cite book
last = Wicker
first = Tom
authorlink = Tom Wicker
year = 2006
title = Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy
publisher = Harcourt
id = ISBN 0-15-101082-X

Primary sources

*cite web
title = Transcripts, Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations
publisher = U.S. Government Printing Office
year= 2003
url = http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/McCarthy_Transcripts.htm
format =
accessdate = 2006-12-19
*cite web
url = http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/senate12cp107.html
title = Senate Committee Transcripts, 107th Congress
accessdate = 2006-08-11
publisher = Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
pages =
*cite web
url = http://www.trumanlibrary.org/index.php
title = Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum
accessdate = 2006-08-11
*cite web
url = http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/60.htm
title = Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954)
accessdate = 2006-08-10
publisher = The United States Department of State
pages =
*cite book
last = McCarthy
first = Joseph
title = Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950–1951
publisher = Gordon Press
year= 1951
id = ISBN 0-87968-308-2
url = http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=9034820
*cite book
last = McCarthy
first = Joseph
title = America's Retreat from Victory, the Story of George Catlett Marshall
publisher = Devin-Adair
year= 1951
id = ISBN 0-8159-5004-7
*cite book
last = McCarthy
first = Joseph
title = McCarthyism, the Fight for America
publisher = Devin-Adair
year= 1952
id = ISBN 0-405-09960-6
*cite book
last = Adams
first =John G.
title =Without Precedent: The Story of the Death of McCarthyism
publisher =W. W. Norton & Company
year= 1983
id = ISBN 039330230X
*cite book
last = Watkins
first = Arthur Vivian
title = Enough Rope: The inside story of the censure of Senator Joe McCarthy
publisher = Prentice-Hall
year= 1969
id = ISBN 0-13-283101-5
*cite book
last = Fried
first = Albert
title = McCarthyism, The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History
publisher = Oxford University Press
year= 1996
id = ISBN 0-19-509701-7
*cite video
people = Edward R. Murrow & Fred W. Friendly (Producers)
title = Edward R. Murrow: The McCarthy Years
medium = DVD (from 'See it Now' TV News show)
publisher = CBS News/Docurama
location = USA
year= 1991

External links

*CongBio|M000315 Retrieved on 2008-07-11
*findagrave|691 Retrieved on 2008-07-11
* [http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=907&letter=M Joseph McCarthy, Dictionary of Wisconsin History, Wisconsin State Historical Society]
*cite web
last = Morgan
first =Ted
title =Judge Joe: How the youngest judge in Wisconsin's history became the country's most notorious senator
publisher =Legal Affairs Magazine
year= 2003
url =http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/November-December-2003/story_morgan_novdec03.msp
accessdate =
*cite web
last =Tanenhaus
first =Sam
title = Un-American Activities
publisher =New York Review of Books
date =
url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13910
accessdate = A lengthy review of Arthur Herman's "Joseph McCarthy"
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3002239.stm BBC coverage]
* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthy.htm Spartacus Biography]
* [http://history1900s.about.com/cs/joemccarthy/ The History Net page on McCarthy]
* [http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html The McCarthy-Welch exchange]
* [http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/Mss/JRM/mss-JRM.html Joseph McCarthy Papers, Marquette University Library]
* [http://digitalmarquette.cdmhost.com/JRM/ Senator Joe McCarthy: Audio Excerpts, 1950-1954]
*
* [http://www.infoage.org/mccarthy.html Infoage] Information on McCarthy's investigations of the Signal Corps, including transcripts of the hearings and more recent interviews.
* [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy.html Transcript: "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" - Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, CBS Television, March 9, 1954] via UC Berkeley library
* [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy2.html Transcript: "Joseph R. McCarthy: Rebuttal to Edward R. Murrow", See It Now, CBS Television, April 6, 1954] via UC Berkeley library
*cite journal
title =The Passing of McCarthy (Obituary)
journal =TIME Magazine
date = May 13, 1957
url =http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867634,00.html
accessdate =

Defense of McCarthy:
*By "Human Events Online", a conservative weekly:
** [http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=689 "Editor Taints Recently Published Hearings: How Senate Historian Botched Data on McCarthy"]
** [http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=474 "Levin and Collins Trigger Disinformation: Senate Historian Clams Up When Queried On McCarthy"]
*By "Opinion Editorials", a conservative website:
** [http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/burns_20030513.html The 1950s Reign Of Terror Was AGAINST McCarthy - Not By Him!]
* [http://www.opinionjournal.com/medialog/?id=110003713 A Conspiracy So Vast] by Dorothy Rabinowitz
* [http://www.yuricareport.com/RevisitedBks/CoulterTreason.html Has she no shame?] by Joe Conason
* [http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8793 The Trouble with “Treason”] by David Horowitz

Criticism of McCarthy:
* [http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/mccarthy-bio.html Excerpt] from Richard Rovere's book "Senator Joe McCarthy"
* [http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/stone_mccarthyism.html Essay on McCarthyism and modern threats to liberty]

Persondata
NAME=McCarthy, Joseph Raymond
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Wisconsin politician
DATE OF BIRTH=birth date|1908|11|14|mf=y
PLACE OF BIRTH=Grand Chute, Wisconsin, United States
DATE OF DEATH=death date|1957|5|2|mf=y
PLACE OF DEATH=Bethesda, Maryland, United States