McCarthyism
Joseph McCarthy
• Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin
begins witch hunt for communists in
government positions
• “I have here in my hand a list of 205 that
were known to the Secretary of State as
being members of the Communist party and
who, nevertheless, are still working and
shaping the policy of the State Department”
McCarthyism
• McCarthy began a series of attacks on
Democrats, left-leaning government workers
and anyone he deemed, in his own judgment,
to be a communist sympathizer
• The numbers of people on his lists were
always fluctuating wildly and were also not
shown to anyone as evidence
• At first treated as a crude outsider by the
Republican party, as the public demand for
headlines increased, they embraced him
McCarthyism
• McCarthy goes so far as to accuse George
Marshall, the architect of postwar Europe, of
being an agent of communism
• Eisenhower refuses to defend Marshall, the
driving force behind his fast-track career, at
the 1952 Republican National convention
(Why would Eisenhower do this?)
• After using McCarthy and his rhetoric to win
the Presidency in 1952, the Republicans
abandon him
McCarthyism
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4 reasons why McCarthyism was effective:
The legitimate but greatly exaggerated concern
about atomic spies
An undercurrent of anti-Semitism and nativism
because labor organizers and communist party
members had Jewish and Eastern European
backgrounds
Southern and Western dislike of Ivy League
elites
It was reassuring if Soviet and Chinese successes
were the result of American traitors rather than
communist strengths
Results of the Early Cold War
• Both sides enjoyed renewed vigor from
economic and diplomatic gains
• They didn’t need to have a hot war because
they were getting what they want
• For U.S.S.R., it was the Eastern Bloc
• For U.S., it was strengthening NATO countries
and Japan while solidifying itself as a
superpower both politically and militarily