The Iron Curtain During The Cold War

Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin was the person that was partially responsible for the fear instilled in American citizens thinking that communists lived among them. McCarthy appeared on television making countless accusations of many people ranging from politicians to actors. He made it a point to tell the citizens that the United States government was not properly dealing with communism. Although all these accusation were made, McCarthy was never able to adequately back up these claims. Aside from McCarthyism, which is now a term used for “unsubstantiated accusations,” the US Government set up a committee called the House Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC) to do investigations. One major case was the case against Alger Hiss. He was an American government official who was accused an tried for espionage and served a 5 year sentence. The creation of committees specifically dedicated to finding those that may be communist spies in the United States shows exactly how far the paranoia in our country went. McCarthy never had a single piece of evidence to expose the people he wrongfully accused but people were quick to jump and agree with him out of their own fear. McCarthy was able to convince thousands that what he was saying was true because of the status of his targets which made it more believable. Just because of all the mass hysteria that was happening overseas involving

After WW2 on february 9, 1950 Joseph McCarthy gave a speech “Enemies from Within” when communism was the biggest threat to the whole world. Joseph McCarthy was a Republican Senate who got famous after his speech. He claimed that there were people in U.S. government who are a member of communist society and also mentioned in his speech that he have a list 57 people. In the speech Joseph McCarthy is appealing to the Republicans and christians, trying to influence them to take action and fight against communism. He uses people's emotional fear to turn them against each other. In his speech he uses allusion, metaphor, and rhetorical appeals.

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

Although prosperity filled the 50s, controversy and dissatisfaction surrounded it also. As the picture "Senator McCarthy Extinguishes the Torch of Liberty" conveys, McCarthyism hushed the freedom of speech. (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey A127)The man who gave McCarthyism a name, Joseph McCarthy, ruined many lives by accusing tons of Americas of being Communists for about 5 years. The post-cold war paranoia about spies and infiltrates in the American government escalated the allegations to a whole other level, despite the lack of evidence. Many people lost their jobs, went to jail, or became shunned by the public. Senator McCarthy conducted countless numbers of speeches, investigations, and hearings. His actions proved to be so terrifying that very few spoke out against him. Only when taking the claims to the military did the people finally take a stand. Weeks afterward, the Senate condemned McCarthy for “practicing conduct unfit for a member.”

This is where McCarthy starts the real setup for his bombshell. He is quoted, "When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be because of enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within." (Chafe 50). He then says that these traitors are not the minority of this country but are of the wealthiest of this country, and have the finest jobs in the Government. So he is telling these people that it is not them, but those rich people in the government who are selling out this country. This is where he drops the bomb. McCarthy insinuates that one of the most important government agencies, the State Department "is infested with Communists" (Chafe 50). He then says that he had a list of 57 people he believed to be "either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party" (Chafe 50). The truth is there was no list, no names, it was just

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

During the 1950s there was a rise in the fear of communism called “The Red Scare”. Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the many people who contributed to people’s fear by making a list of people who he said were communists even though there was no proof in most cases. In an article by Alan Brinkley called “The 1950s Part One: McCarthy and The Red Scare”, it informs, “McCarthy was only one of many who helped create the great fear. The Red Scare was visible in almost every area of American life” (Brinkley). This quote tell us that in the 1950s even though Senator Joseph McCarthy was a huge contributor to The Red Scare. His list of suspected communists made rumors spread and the people on the list get questioned and even go to jail when in some cases they were innocent. It also says in the article by USHistory.org called “McCarthyism: Witch Hunting and Blacklisting in America”, that, “In the 1950s anyone who was considered a communist could be questioned and thrown in jail” (USHistory.org). Which means that his allegations could have easily put people in prison.

In 1945 after WWII the United States and the Soviet Union became divided as far as how they felt Europe should be divided. This began the period of conflict called the Cold War. The Cold War was “a state of political hostility between countries characterized by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare”(dictionary.com).The USSR believed in communism, where the US believed in democracy. The US was between two potentially hostile nations, the US designed a Buffer Zone to prevent any overt acts of aggression.At the end of WWI,I almost all of the eastern European countries were occupied by Russia these countries were known as Satellite States. The distrust between the two nations began at the Yalta Conference which included the three big powers: Churchill (Great Britain),Stalin (Soviet Union), and Roosevelt (United States of America). Stalin wanted more control as far how Europe progressed after WWII, where Roosevelt believed Europe should hold free election and determine their political system and rivalry between the two superpowers and began the Cold War. Some might blame the Americans for the causing for the Cold War because of the American’s wanted to occupy the countries, but the Soviet Union bares the responsibility for the Cold War because of their actions in Eastern Europe, by the military expansionism of Stalin and his successors, and the principles presented in the Iron Curtain Speech .

Joseph McCarthy did not become well known until 1950. He was a senator from Wisconsin. The reason why he became well known was because he supposedly had a list of people who were Communists but living and working in the United States. He was determined to make it his mission to find and deport or destroy these people. This time in American history became known as the Red Scare. He was chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigation Subcommittee. He destroyed many innocent people lives with his witch hunt. After much debate and investigation, there was no such list and there were no Communists living amongst American citizens. He was ostracized by many. The tactics he used to try and find the so called Communists living amongst American

Throughout the early 1950's, the nation was deeply engrossed in fears of a Communist takeover. At a time when America's fears were at their very height, Joseph McCarthy, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin pushed America's fears to an extreme. As a ploy to get himself re-elected, and to make America hate Communism as much as he did, the Senator devised a devious scheme. McCarthy, while giving a speech, held up a piece of paper and exclaimed, "I have here a list of 57 known Communists who are currently employed by the U.S. State Department" (Fried, 89). A few days later, McCarthy raised the number of people on the list from 57 to 205. The reaction to McCarthy's announcement was absolute panic. Until that time, the

McCarthyism shook up the United States during the 1950’s. The Man all behind it was Senator McCarthy.McCarthy was a senator which lots of great achievements! He was the youngest member of the Senate. For the most part McCarthy flew under the radar and did not really make his presence known, “He helped pass a bill to end sugar rationing.” Majorly all he did was under the radar until that one day when he gave that speech in West Virginia on February 9,1950.As McCarthy gave that speech he held up this paper and 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

In 1950, Joseph R. McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin, began to accuse the current Secretary of State at the time, Dean Acheson, that he had knowingly employed communist sympathizers within his party. His attempts at rooting out any genuine Communists failed however. Either way, many Republican politicians saw the advantage this kind of attack could give them against the Democratic party. This tactic became known as McCarthyism during the Cold War. As the so-called “Red Scare” was getting worse and worse, many innocent, and some not so innocent, political faces, stars of Hollywood, and writers and/or journalists were named in an attempt to silence them. Eisenhower reluctantly ignored McCarthy, to mostly remain bipartisan, and also stay off his of his radar. His only real statement about McCarthy was him famously saying, “I will not get in the gutter with that guy.” Eventually, Joseph McCarthy managed to dig his own grave by extending his Red conspiracy to the U.S. Army. The whole scandal was televised for the whole nation to watch, as McCarthy slowly turned inside out. The Senate finally fought back and condemned him and his actions for “unbecoming of a member”. Three years later, on May 2nd, 1957, McCarthy died of chronic alcohol poisoning. However, not without leaving a long lasting legacy of being the face of one of the infamous misuses of national fear and free speech in American

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.

	In February of 1950, in Wheeling, West Virginia, McCarthy delivered a speech where he made the first of a series of claims that he had the names of 205 "known communists" who were employed by the State Department. This fueled one of the many controversies, over McCarthy, because there wasn't

The Iron Curtain was just the reign of the Soviet Union over eastern europe. Europe was divided into two parts, the western parts, the UK, France, Western Germany, and so forth and Western Europe and the Soviet Union. This was Soviet Unions way of spreading comminism, by taking them over. Some of the Soviet Union pawns or satallite states were Poland, Czechoslovakia, and countries around their. But the biggest different in life was the government differences, the Eastern parts of Europe and the Soviet Union were Communist and the Western was Capitalist/Democratic.