Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), American politician, who led a campaign against supposed Communist “subversion” in the early 1950s.

McCarthy was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, on November 14, 1908, and educated at Marquette University. He practised law in Wisconsin until 1939, when he was elected circuit-court judge. During World War II he served in the United States Marine Corps, attaining the rank of captain during service in the Pacific theatre of operations. In 1946 he was elected on the Republican ticket to the US Senate and was re-elected in 1952.

McCarthy first attracted national attention in February 1950, with the charge that the Department of State had been infiltrated by Communists. The background to this allegation was some four years of intense and often hysterical speculation throughout the United States about the supposed influence of Communism on all walks of American life, leading to the public hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and high profile trials such as the Hiss case. Although his accusation was never substantiated, during the next three years he repeatedly accused various high-ranking officials of subversive activities, and it was a measure of the atmosphere of the times that his charges were taken seriously. In 1953, as chairman of the Senate subcommittee on investigations, McCarthy continued his accusations of Communist activity and influence (which came to include even President Eisenhower), and in April 1954 he accused the Secretary of the Army of concealing foreign espionage activities. In rebuttal the Secretary stated that members of the subcommittee staff had threatened army officials in efforts to obtain preferential treatment for a former unpaid consultant of the subcommittee who had been drafted.

During the ensuing Senate investigations, which were widely publicized in the press and given nationwide radio and television coverage, McCarthy was cleared of the charges against him but was censured by the Senate for the methods he had used in his investigations and for his abuse of certain senators and Senate committees. His influence both in the Senate and on the national political scene diminished steadily thereafter, although he remained in the Senate until his death in Bethesda, Maryland, May 2, 1957.