Senator Joe McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1947 as a Wisconsin Republican. During his tenure, the bombastic McCarthy played upon America’s fears of “communist traitors everywhere” to gain unheard of political power. He abused his oversight authority by accusing thousands of government staff members and ordinary citizens of secretly being communists, spies, or left-leaning sympathizers. He skillfully used the press to amplify lies and feed the people’s frenzy of fear, suspicion and anger.
During this “Red-Scare” period, Americans lived in fear of being Black-Listed by Joe McCarthy as a communist. Lives and careers were destroyed even by the mere accusation, without any real proof. For a time, he was above the law; for to criticize McCarthy meant being accused of being a communist sympathizer, or worse. Who was this politician who so skillfully manipulated the truth and stoked fear to gain power? And how did he accomplish it?
Joseph R. McCarthy was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin to an Irish farming family. Rather than work on the farm, he went to law school instead. He became the youngest circuit court judge in the state when he beat the incumbent by smearing him during the campaign. When World War II erupted, he enlisted in the Marines as a lieutenant. McCarthy served as an intelligence officer on a bomber squadron in the South Pacific, earning the nickname “Tail-Gunner Joe.” He was never actually the tail-gunner though, only an intelligence observer.
After the war, he returned to being a judge while running for U.S. Senator at the same time. McCarthy heavily exaggerated his military service during the campaign. He lied about having flown twice as many mission as he actually did. He lied about a broken leg, calling it a “War Wound,” when he actually broke it during a ship-board party. He lied about receiving a letter of commendation from Admiral Chester Nimitz and had forged his commanding officer’s signature.
None of his lies came out until much later, so McCarthy won the election in 1946.
In February 1950, he gave a now famous speech at a Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, that thrust him into the national spotlight. Waving a piece of paper in the air, he shouted that that he had a list of 205 Communists! working in the State Department. He never gave his list to the press, OR to the Senate Subcommittee that was formed to investigate his accusations. Regardless, simply by making the shocking allegations, Senator Joe McCarthy was now the darling of the press and public.
During the 1950’s Cold War with the Soviet Union, communist traitors seemed a frighteningly real possibility. McCarthy told the public to be fearful of communist influence. THEY could be lurking anywhere – journalists, school teachers, college professors, labor organizers, liberal elites, the gay community – all with the goal of communist domination! After all, in 1949, Communists established the People’s Republic of China. In 1950, North Korea’s communist army invaded South Korea, starting a war.
This American paranoia—The Red Scare—reached a fever pitch in 1950. Joe McCarthy expertly took advantage. He launched a series of highly publicized probes into alleged communist infiltration in the State Department, White House, and even the U.S. Army. McCarthy took to the press with his fear-mongering, becoming the voice of the Red Scare, creating suspicion across the US. Insinuations alone were enough to convince Americans that their country must be overwhelmed with traitors and spies.
Initially, no one in the Eisenhower Administration dared tangle with McCarthy for fear of being labeled a communist. Senator Joe McCarthy spent five years exposing supposed communists in the government and American society. In the public’s eye, a staunch anticommunist like Joseph McCarthy – a “War-Hero” – Tail-Gunner Joe, was just the patriot for the job. Hearst newspapers, the Fox News of the day, amplified every word he said.
The press labeled his harsh methods, “McCarthyism.”
A Senate subcommittee launched to investigate his list found no proof of any subversive activity. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, disapproved of McCarthy’s tactics saying, “I will not get into the gutter with this guy.” Nevertheless, fellow Republican McCarthy continued his campaign, planting seeds of falsehoods and suspicion in American minds. His base of loyal supporters hung on every word he said.
Joe McCarthy was elected to a second term in 1952 and married one of his staff members. In 1953, he was put in charge of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. This allowed him to launch investigations into his alleged “communist infiltration of the federal government.” In hearing after hearing, he belligerently interrogated witnesses, often in a blatant violation of their civil rights. Despite a lack of any proof, more than 2,000 government employees lost their jobs as a result of McCarthy’s hearings.
Republicans had gained control of the Senate that year and Senator McCarthy also became chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). He hired a young lawyer, Roy Cohn, as his chief counsel to investigate suspected communists further. Cohn was famous as one of the prosecutors who had successfully tried Russian spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
McCarthy ruled the PSI like a baron. He denied members full access to the information being gathered. In July 1953, the three Democratic senators resigned en masse. McCarthy plowed ahead with 11 hearings examining the State Department, which he alleged employed traitorous communists or sympathizers. None were found, but one government staffer, Raymond Kaplan, committed suicide.
Senator Joe McCarthy also launched an inquiry into the U.S. Information Service Libraries. What he called “Red Books,” written by alleged communist sympathizers, were banned and removed from shelves. McCarthy called the authors in to testify and interrogated them about their leftist, liberal-leaning beliefs.
In other hearings, McCarthy targeted professors, especially those at prestigious Ivy League universities. In hearings, he challenged the principles of academic and intellectual freedom. A number of professors lost their jobs, even though he’d provided no evidence of them being communists. 106 witnesses invoked the Fifth Amendment. Senator McCarthy ridiculed them, labeling them “Fifth Amendment Communists,” and stating that it was equal to an admission of guilt.
Why didn’t President Eisenhower do more to confront McCarthy?
Despite the President being Republican as well, Ike refused to engage McCarthy. Eisenhower did not want to appear “soft” on communists. He hoped the Senate would simply censure the reckless senator. But over half the Republican senators supported McCarthy’s efforts. Battling McCarthy would only stir up a civil war inside the GOP. By avoiding the senator, some have argued that Eisenhower allowed McCarthyism to spread unchecked. What then could be done about him?
Tail-Gunner Joe instituted his own downfall when he decided to also attack the U.S. military. In August 1953, Senator Joe McCarthy held a closed-door session investigating the Army. He claimed to have received a phone call from an Army informant with intel on communist infiltration of the Army Signal Corps. When pressed for details, Senator McCarthy provided nothing.
Alleging that a communist spy ring was operating at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, Senator McCarthy questioned several civilian employees. He told the press exaggerated claims about the damaging evidence he obtained. The Army suspended 42 Signal Corps employees, despite the FBI finding NO evidence of a spy ring. Allegations of McCarthy’s anti-Semitism arose when it was discovered that 39 of those suspended were Jews.
On November, 1953, Senator Joe McCarthy met with U.S Army Secretary Robert Stevens. He demanded information about the Army’s loyalty investigations, despite them being classified as secret by a Presidential Executive Order. Witnesses called to testify at PSI public hearings, refused to defy the presidential order, making McCarthy furious.
Then in March 1954, news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, host of the popular TV show “See It Now,” had enough. He dedicated an entire evening program to condemning McCarthy and his hearings. Murrow was one of the most respected and trusted journalists in the country. The broadcast exposed Senator McCarthy’s lies and ruthless tactics. Mr. Murrow explained:
“The line between a congressional committee investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.”
Edward R. Murrow, host of CBS See it Now, March 1954.
This was the first domino to tip over. McCarthy’s aura of invulnerability began to erode. Democratic Senator John McClellan provided the press with transcripts of Roy Cohn’s threatening phone calls to Army officials. Due to the growing factual disputes, the other PSI members voted unanimously for Senator McCarthy to step down as a both member and chair. He had no choice but to comply.
The Army-McCarthy Hearings continued for 35 days, beginning April, 1954.
They were broadcast live on TV and 20 million Americans watched. Despite losing his position on PSI, McCarthy used a variety of his usual tactics to dominate the hearings. He interrupted multiple witnesses, frequently crying “Point of Order” to manipulate facts. Americans were shocked to see him bullying witnesses and make baseless accusations and lies without facts.
The U.S. Army countered by compiling a damaging dossier on Roy Cohn, showing that he used threats and intimidation to force witnesses to testify. The Eisenhower White House secretly leaked this dossier to both the press and Congress. McCarthy and Cohn now stood accused of rampant abuse of power.
Americans also saw the contrast between his conduct and the Army’s unflappable attorney, Joseph Welch. The most dramatic moment of the hearings came on June 1954. Welch asked why, if the senator had evidence of a spy ring he did not inform the Army. Joe McCarthy challenged that a young lawyer at Mr. Welch’s firm, Fred Fisher, had once been a member of a supposedly “subversive” group. An exacerbated Welch responded:
“Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel … You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?”
Joseph Welch, U.S. Army attorney at Army-McCarthy Hearings, June 1954
The hearings ended that month. The hearing’s final report absolved the Army of any wrongdoing. The Army-McCarthy hearings struck many observers around the world as a shameful moment in American politics.
By the time the hearings were over, Senator Joe McCarthy had lost most of his allies. On July 1954, Republican Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy for his “inexcusable, reprehensible, vulgar and insulting conduct.” In December 1954, the Senate finally voted 67 to 22 to condemn Joe McCarthy, with all Democrats voting for the measure and the Republicans evenly split.
McCarthy, his credibility in tatters, was now ruined.
The era of McCarthyism was over. He was powerless, ignored by his fellow senators and the press for the remainder of his term. Joe McCarthy was an alcoholic and his mental and physical health declined after his fall from grace. He died three years later while still in office, at age 48, of hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver related to his excessive drinking.
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine later described his tenure as “a shameful chapter in American history, … a time with little regard for due process or constitutional rights, a time when character assassination, mud-slinging, and guilt by association trumped truth and fairness.”
In the 15 months that McCarthy chaired the PSI, he called over 500 people to appear. Nearly 400 were questioned at 160 closed sessions and 200 public hearings, producing over 9,000 pages of transcript. By federal statute, all hearing records were sealed for 50 years. It was not until 2004 that those records were unsealed. The Senate prefaced the release with a joint statement and warning for the future:
“Senator McCarthy’s zeal to uncover supposed subversion led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people never involved..… These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget, nor permit to reoccur.”
U.S. Senate on the release of the McCarthy Hearings transcripts in 2004.