Joseph McCarthy was just an obscure backbench Senator from Wisconsin
looking for a political edge when he arrived in Wheeling, W.Va., to
address a Lincoln Day dinner. He wasn't even sure what he was going to
say, so he took along a speech on federal housing programs and another
on alleged communists in government. A local Republican advised that the
commie speech would have more oomph. And so that night, McCarthy, waving
a paper in the air, proclaimed, "I have here in my hand a list of 205
that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the
Communist Party ..."
Overnight, his speech sparked a media firestorm
that played to the basest fears of Americans swept up in a frightening
cold war and triggered loyalty oaths, blacklists and personal betrayals
that cost an estimated 10,000 Americans their jobs and some shattered
innocents their lives. In 1954 he turned his bullying on the U.S. Army
in widely watched television hearings that ultimately exposed McCarthy
for the fraudulent demagogue he was. He died a broken alcoholic three
years later, but his name remains synonymous with the most reviled style
of American politics.
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