The McCarthyism

Résumé du document

McCarthyism is a short period of the American History profoundly marked by the fight against communism and everything that could be linked to the Soviet government. This movement was named in 1950 after the appearance of Senator Joseph McCarthy on the media scene. During this real period of paranoia anybody could be accused of being a communist, and could become a traitor to the United States and to the nation. However, we cannot reduce American anticommunism to McCarthyism. In fact, these four years of political, cultural and media crisis are the result of a long process which began at the beginning of the 20th century.

Extraits

[...] Even the General Marshall was attacked because he did not support Tchang Kaï-chek in China. McCarthy who often had not any initial charges was largely using rhetoric during his hearings to unsettle the defendant. The point was that finding a Communist in the Government was the best way to boost a political career. And finally, McCarthy was re-elected in Wisconsin in 1952. The fall of the Senator But one day, McCarthy went too far. At the beginning he was sustained by the Republican Party because he had helped to criticize the Truman Administration. [...]

[...] II) the McCarthyism, the climax of the second red scare The “witch hunt” It is this HUAC which began the “witch hunt” by accusing ten important people of Hollywood to be communist in 1947 (they were called the Hollywood ten). Three of them (Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner and Edward Dmytrik) were imprisoned because they had refused to say if they had been or not members of the Communist Party. Another affair which made a lot of noise before the arrival of McCarthy was the Alger Hiss affair. [...]

[...] At first, McCarthy was tolerated by the Republicans. But when the Senator began to attack the Army, the Republican administration reacted. A Special Senate Investigation was set up and this time McCarthy was its target. He was accused of forcing the Army to give a preferential treatment to David Schine who was the former assistant of McCarthy's adviser. The investigation began in spring 1954. Nevertheless, McCarthy had already been criticized in March 1954 by the journalist Edward R. Murrow who showed in his program it different extracts of McCarthy hearings in which he was insulting the witnesses. [...]

[...] The Murrow Report and the Schine affair destroyed McCarthy popularity. In December 1954 he was censured by the Senate with 67 votes against 22 votes. It was the end of his political career. He died three years later in a total indifference in 1957 after having sunk in alcoholism. Conclusion To conclude, I will say that we mustn't consider McCarthyism as an epiphenomenon which was totally disconnected from its historical context because we have seen that McCarthyism is a process which had begun a long time before the Senator. [...]

[...] On the ninth of February 1950, McCarthy, who was Senator of Wisconsin made a speech in Wheeling (in Virginia) during which he showed a list of 205 names of people who where supposed to be communist and working at the State Department (McCarthy did not give the names, and when he wrote to Truman the 205 names became 57 names which shows that he had absolutely no proof). But it was the explicit beginning of the McCarthyism. This announcement had a huge media impact and the real terror was born. “Black lists” began to circulate with the names of people who were said to be communist and denunciation became common and could be used as a defence in front of the tribunal. [...]