Joseph Mccarthy And The Red Scare

People that worked in the army or were part of the movie industry had to answer to this question (McCarthyism).

Senator Joseph McCarthy is notorious for his speech where he claimed to have a list of two hundred five communists. He became partially responsible for the communist witch hunts, which cost many people their jobs and their reputations. In his speech “Enemies From Within,” he uses metaphors and appeals to ethos and pathos in order to convince his audience that communism is a major threat to the US, and many powerful people are communist. The United States and USSR were allies during World War II, and only after the war did tensions arise. McCarthy uses metaphors to explain why communism was not treated as such a threat until after the war. He states that the apathy towards communism was due to an “emotional hangover” caused by the war, and “this

At the end of the 1940’s and the beginning of the 1950’s, the United States were in the midst of the Second Red Scare and a fear that Communism might over throw the American way of life. Cold War tensions were at an all time high, which only fueled the widespread fears of Communist subversion. It was here that Senator Joseph McCarthy became a public face when he began making claims that the U.S. Government, as well as many other areas of the country, including the entertainment industry, had been invaded by Soviet and Communist spies, looking to destroy America from within. Hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Hollywood Blacklisting, and anti-communist activity from the FBI soon followed. McCarthy was under intense analysis

McCarthyism has a lot to do with America 's history, even still today examples of McCarthyism are seen in america . Most victims of mccarthyism are hollywood actors and famous people because they impact american society more than regular people. Famous people such as Helen Keller, Leonard Bernstein , Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Artie Shaw, Zero Mostel, Charlie Chaplin, Langston Hughes, Orson Welles, and Dolores del Rio were blamed for supposedly being part of the communist party. But that was not all, there was also another 205 average people that were blamed for being a part of the communist party as well. McCarthy’s committee then started investigating the United States Army. His charges kept affecting more and more powerful people.

In the 1950’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy turned Americans against each other by installing fear in the people regarding toward Communism. During this time, in fact, people were getting blacklisted even if they weren't communist. In an incident at the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, McCarthy delivered a speech. The situation involving the Senator escalated when he stated that the State Department is infested with Communist. In this point in time, due to the false allegations, people went on a decade long period of witch hunts. Sam Roberts, the author of “A Decade of Fear” stated that in fact, “...thousands of alleged Communists in the U.S. were arrested and deported during what became known as the Red Scare.”

Hundreds of years later, the United States entered the time of the “Red Scare”. In this time, Americans were still very apprehensive of Communists. On April 22, 1954, Army hearings began. Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the United States Army of being too “soft” on communism. This really began in 1950, however, when McCarthy claimed that there were over 200 known communists in the Department of State (“Army-McCarthy” History.com). As Abigail did with the Witch trials, McCarthy began accusing innocents of crime to benefit his own personal agenda.

Beginning in the early 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy released a monumental rampage across the United States. For fear of governmental infiltration by Communists, an outbreak of accusations swept the nation as a result of the Wisconsin senator, and helped create what is known as the second Red Scare (“McCarthyism”)

Through the 1940s and 1950s, America was beleaguered with anxieties about the menace of communism arising in Eastern Europe and China. Profiting out of such worries of the nation, young Senator Joseph McCarthy made an open charge that hundreds of "card-carrying" communists had penetrate in the United States government. Although his allegations were found ultimately to be false and the Senate reproached him for improper ways, his ardent shakeup heralded as one of the most tyrannical era in 20th-century American politics. While the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAA) had been made in 1938 as a body to resist communists, McCarthy's charges enhanced the political nervousness of the epoch. The suspicious chase for moles,

Americans feared Soviets-so much it took over lives. Some has lost their careers because they were accused. For example, in 1950, 151 actors, writers, directors, producers, musicians, journalists, and other people involved with entertainment were accused of being reds with no evidence. The list was called the Hollywood blacklist. This list ended careers and took them off television or radio possibly forever. Some of the most famous entertainers in America could not get jobs because of this. "The Cold War Home Front: McCarthyism." states “When the TV series Danger tried to use one of these actors [on the list], Johnson [an official in the National Association of Supermarkets] told the show’s sponsor, the makers of Amni-dent toothpaste, that all grocery stores would put up a sign next to Amni-dent suggesting their programs employed communists. Meanwhile, they would put a sign next to a competitor’s toothpaste, Chlorodent, saying, ‘Its programs use only pro-American artists and shun Stalin's little creatures.’ The actor in question was quickly

Joe McCarthy enjoyed a short reign in the spotlight of American politics in the early 1950s. His tactics, the baseless accusations of Communist ties, would come to be called McCarthyism and they set the tone of the American crusade against the ‘threat’ of Communism for years to come. The era in which the heavily anti-Communist McCarthyism reigned in America was one marked by fear, suspicion, and tightly geld ideals. Many found themselves under fire from the political witch hunts and more than one life was destroyed by the accusations brought upon it. The illegalization of the Communist movement and the misfortune that a Communist branding would cause were all unfortunate products of a fallacy filled mindset what stripped Americans of their

3 – 3. Many historians feel that Harry Truman as much as Joe McCarthy gave force to the postwar “Red Scare.” Explain why you agree or disagree.“In 1950, fewer than 50,000 Americans out of a total US population of 150 million were members of the Communist Party” (Wall). Yet, in the 1940's and 1950's, an anti-Communist movement swept the country. Political leaders feared communist had infiltrated government, and some even claimed proof that confidential government documents were given away to communist countries. In response to the hysteria, Senator Joseph McCarthy helped intensify the movement and many had their lives turned inside out and ruined. Similarly, President Truman issued an executive order to flush out government employees spying for the USSR. While Senator McCarthy’s hearings as chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and President Truman’s Federal Employees Loyalty Program added to

Section A: Wendy Wall, author of Anti-Communism in the 1950’s, goes into a detailed description of the effects of the “red scare” in society in the 1950’s. Two of the things constantly mentioned are the Federal Loyalty-Security Program and the House Un-American Activities Committees. Alexander Stafford, author of the article The Role of the Media During the Cold War, describes the effects of McCarthyism. Stafford explains how McCarthyism originated and how its negative connotation is the perfect example of corrupted power. This article fails to point out how exactly McCarthy abused his power over the people however.

McCarthy’s anti-communist propaganda achieved the opposite of its goals. Rather than strengthening democracy, it weakened democracy; rather than promoting the freedom of speech of which the United States was founded, it limited freedom of speech so greatly individuals were afraid to speak out; and rather than creating a sense of peace and security in the country, it created complete and utter chaos and anarchy. The Red Scare, created by Joseph McCarthy, threatened the rights every American citizen and damaged the names, lives, and reputations of many, many innocent

Also during this time from the late 1940s to the late 1950s began McCarthyism and the scare of Communism being the United States. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin would be pushed into the public spotlight by the issue of anti-Communism. It was discovered later that the FBI had helped give McCarthy the information to help him start his campaign against Communism. For several years, McCarthy operated to seek out and destroy the lives of people whom he or others had declared as being a Communist. Lytle mentions that McCarthy charged that Communists had penetrated the United States by becoming involved in churches, the army, the CIA, and the hydrogen bomb program. Even after McCarthy’s eventual political death, McCarthyism still went on and took longer to fade away. McCarthyism was the lasting legacy of McCarthy that put the nation in a frenzy. It was characterized by false accusations of neighbors, family members, and friends and being part of the Communist party. These accusations meant that these peoples’ lives were over. They had no more authority, respect, or even career opportunities after being accused, albeit falsely.

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was born on November 14, 1908 in Appleton, Wisconsin. He became the Senate of the United States in 1946. In 1952 after being reelected he became chair of the Senate's subcommittee on investigations which was him questioning various government form. Further on in his career he discovered that 205 Communists had infiltrated the United States Department, that then lead to the “Red Scare”. The discovery of Red Scare happened on February 9, 1950. Red Scare was a nationwide witch hunt for communist out of fear which was then called “McCarthyism”. During the McCarthyism time period many american were being questioned and accused of being communist without any actual evidence. Many of these American that were being accused