“Enemies from Within”: The Triumph and Tragedy of Joseph McCarthy

Andrew Dirkse

Junior Division

Historical Paper

Paper Length: 2,500 words

“I say one Communist in a defense plant is one Communist too many. One Communist on the faculty of one university is one Communist too many. One Communist among the American advisors at Yalta was one Communist too many. And even if there were only one Communist in the State Department, that would still be one Communist too many.”

—Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy, 19521

After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became rivals in the Cold War. During this ideological conflict, the rapid expansion of the capabilities and influence of Communism under the Soviet Union heightened an anti-Communist fear in the

United States known as the Red Scare. A senator from Wisconsin named Joseph Raymond

McCarthy took advantage of this scare and charged thousands of people, from government officials to entertainment industry leaders, with being Communists. From 1950 to 1954, Senator

Joseph McCarthy accused thousands of officials in the U.S. State Department and the Army of being Communists using smear tactics. These accusations led to triumph in the form of fame for

McCarthy but also caused tragedy for him as he was eventually censured.

“An Iron Curtain Has Descended”

The Red Scare that McCarthy used to further his popularity began as early as 1919: the year that started a bloody, six-year long civil war where Communists led by Vladimir Lenin took power in Russia and established the Soviet Union.2 Events such as the Seattle General Strike of

1 Wisconsin State Journal, Joseph McCarthy Files. Box 1, Folder 5. UW Green Bay Archives and Area Research ​ ​ Center. 2 David M. Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joseph McCarthy (New York: Macmillan, 1983), ​ ​ 87. 1

1919, where 60,000 “red” shipyard workers stopped working, and the Palmer Raids of 1919 and

1920, in which thousands of “radicals” were arrested, helped further the fear of Communist fifth columns and conspiracies.3

As the Red Scare grew more rampant, anti-Communist propaganda circulated throughout the country. A pamphlet entitled Fifth Column in the South began with a quotation from a speech ​ ​ by Alabamian politician and Speaker of the House of Representatives William B. Bankhead:

“There is abundant proof that lurking within the shadows of our government’s edifice, laying their mischievous plans at the proper time to sap and mine it, or to put the red torch of revolution and disunion against our democratic form of government, are those forces of evil, now commonly called ‘The Fifth Column’.”4 This propaganda, taking the form of posters, pamphlets, and even comic books, further supported the already rampant Red Scare in the United States.

In the early 1940s, during World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were technically both on the Allied side fighting against Germany, but they were far from allies. The conflict was really three-sided: Germany against the United States against the Soviet Union.5 The

Red Scare did not diminish, and this sentiment was reflected in a public opinion poll taken close to the end of World War II that listed four statements and asked Americans with which one they most closely agreed. Almost half the respondents selected the statement, “It is important for the

U.S. to be on friendly terms [with Russia after the war] … but not so important that we should make too many concessions to her.”6

3 Budd Bailey, Red Scare: Communists in America (New York: Cavendish Square, 2017), 18-24. ​ ​ 4 Joseph P. Kamp, “Fifth Column in the South,” Constitutional Educational League, 1940, accessed December 29, 2018, https://archive.org/details/FifthColumnInTheSouth. 5 Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator (New ​ ​ York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 72. 6 Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense, 95. ​ ​ 2

There was obviously a Red Scare running rampant throughout the United States, and it was confirmed to be worldwide when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared it in a speech at Westminster College, Missouri.7 Churchill stated in his famous 1946 speech that

“[n]obody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies” and that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent” between the democratic Western countries and the Eastern communist satellites of the Soviet Union.8

The “iron curtain” only grew as international events strengthened worldwide

Communism throughout the late 1940s. In 1948, the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin, the capital of Germany, forcing the United States and its allies to transport essential supplies into the city by airlift for almost one tense year until the Soviet Union lifted the blockade.9 The following year, the Soviet Union performed its first nuclear test,10 and Mao Zedong, leader of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, established the People’s Republic of China.11 In 1950, China signed a

“treaty of friendship, alliance, and mutual assistance” with the Soviet Union.12

While the influence of Communism grew worldwide, the “iron curtain” also manifested itself within the United States. In 1947, ten writers and directors nicknamed the “Hollywood

Ten” were blacklisted and charged with contempt of court after refusing to testify in front of the

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a government agency that investigated

7 Bailey, Red Scare, 42. ​ ​ 8 Winston Churchill, “Iron Curtain Speech,” Central Intelligence Agency, accessed December 15, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1946-03-05.pdf. 9 Bailey, Red Scare, 54-55. ​ ​ 10 Ibid., 55. 11 Ibid., 55. 12 Chou En-Lai, A.Y. Vishinsky, “Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, February 1950,” Central Intelligence Agency, accessed December 21, 2018, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP80R01443R000300050007-8. 3

subversion within the United States,13 prompting an anti-Communist pamphlet to proclaim that

“Hollywood Reds are on the run!”14 In 1948, Alger Hiss, an American government official, was accused of Soviet espionage by Whittaker Chambers, a Soviet defector, and testified in front of

HUAC that he was innocent. However, Hiss was convicted of perjury in 195015 after Chambers produced classified documents hidden in a pumpkin on the latter’s farm.16 Finally, in 1949, a month after the explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb, it was discovered that Klaus Fuchs, a

British scientist, had been secretly sending classified information about the bomb to the Soviets.

A telegram from Moscow stated that “CHARL’Z’s [Fuchs’s codename at the time] information

[…] on the atomic bomb […] is of great value.”17

As the “iron curtain” cut the world in two, and Communists in high places in government were discovered, the time was perfect for McCarthy to make his accusations; he rose to the national spotlight after he gave his famous “Enemies from Within” speech.

“I Have Here in My Hand…”

On February 9, 1950, in Wheeling, West Virginia, in front of the Ohio County Women’s

Republican Club, Joseph McCarthy delivered a speech that made him triumph by immediately propelling him to national headlines.

13 Bailey, Red Scare, 50-52. ​ ​ 14 Myron C. Fagan, “Hollywood Reds Are on the Run,” Cinema Educational Guild, 1949, accessed December 29, 2018, https://archive.org/details/HollywoodRedsAreOnTheRunMyronCFagan. 15 Robert M. Benjamin, United States of America v. Alger Hiss, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 1950, accessed ​ ​ December 19, 2018, https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesofam00hiss. 16 Allen J. Matusow, Joseph R. McCarthy (Prentice Hall: New Jersey, 1970), 6-7. ​ ​ 17 “CHARL’Z’s Information on the Atomic Bomb and Method of Separation of ENORMOZ: Moscow Requests Further Details,” 1945, accessed December 19, 2018, https://archive.org/details/1945_10apr_atomic_bomb_info. 4

He began his speech by playing off of the fear of the Cold War: “This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps—a time of a great armaments race.”18 After that, he drew a stark difference between the two sides by calling one “our western

Christian world” and the other “the atheistic Communist world” and stating that “in less than 6 years the odds have changed from 9 to 1 in our favor to 8 to 5 against us.”19 The most impactful part of his speech, however, was this:

“While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been

named as active members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, 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 for and

shaping policy in the State Department.”20

These accusations should have been immediately dismissed by the public; the evidence was utterly lacking. The senator admitted that he had actually been holding a blank sheet of paper and using an old number of “bad risks” figured by the State Department four years earlier; he later claimed the number of Communists he had found was fifty-seven.21 Time magazine ​ ​ dismissed these unsubstantiated, unproven accusations, saying that “his charges were so completely without evidence to support them that he had probably damaged no reputations permanently except his own.”22 McCarthy won a race for district judge in 1939 by making

18 Joseph McCarthy, Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, ​ 1950-1951 (United States Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C., 1952), 7. ​ 19 McCarthy, Major Speeches and Debates, 8. ​ ​ 20 Herman, Joseph McCarthy, 99. ​ ​ 21 Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense, 109. ​ ​ 22 Time, vol. 15, no. 13, “McCarthy at the Barricades,” EBSCOhost, accessed December 30, 2018, ​ ​ http://centos007.auto-graphics.com/YYY/centos007/127402/web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=9d 0a066f-d485-4dc9-a5c9-5029b2d03d0a%40sdc-v-sessmgr02&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCxjcGlkLH VybCZjdXN0aWQ9czczMjQ5NjQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#AN=54157287&db=aph. 5

similar unverified accusations; he stated that his 66-year-old incumbent opponent, Edgar V.

Werner, was 73 years old, and therefore too old to hold the office.23 He also inflated his war record during his 1946 race for senator even though he mostly ran a desk job.24

Notwithstanding, McCarthy immediately drew national attention. The Associated Press ​ and eighteen other newspapers carried the transcript of the speech,25 the Nashville Tennessean ​ declared that the “State Department has 205 Commies”,26 and reporters begged him to show them the “list of 205 names.” McCarthy had risen to the national spotlight. ​ ​ This newfound fame was much unlike his earlier years in the Senate. After McCarthy was elected a senator in 1946, he dealt with unpopular issues that do not get much publicity such as postwar sugar rationing27 and resolving a World War II court case for a war crime: the

Malmedy massacre.28 Therefore, he triumphed by making himself popular.

McCarthy also triumphed in that he had the support of almost all Republicans, with a few exceptions, the most notable being Senator Margaret Chase Smith. She stated in a June speech that she “did not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”29

By contrast, almost all Democrats did not approve of the senator’s accusations, especially

Democrat President Harry S. Truman. Two days after the speech in Wheeling, McCarthy sent a telegram to the president telling him to demand Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State, for “a list

23 Victoria Sherrow, Joseph McCarthy and the Cold War (Blackbirch Press: Connecticut, 1999), 20-21. ​ ​ 24 Bailey, Red Scare, 60. ​ ​ 25 Tom Wicker, Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joseph McCarthy (Harcourt: Florida, 2006), 13. ​ ​ 26 Herman, Joseph McCarthy, 99. ​ ​ 27 Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense, 63. ​ ​ 28 Herman, Joseph McCarthy, 54. ​ ​ 29 Margaret Chase Smith, “Declaration of Conscience,” U.S. Senate, accessed December 30, 2018, https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf. 6

of the 57 Communists”; “[f]ailure on your part,” he concluded, “will label the Democratic Party of being the bed-fellow of inter-national [sic] Communism.”30 In a draft of a probably unsent ​ ​ reply, Truman accused McCarthy of “trying to discredit his own Government before the world”, called the telegram “not true and […] insolent”, and declared that the senator was “not even fit to have a hand in the operation of the Government of the United States.”31 The opposition of the left and right wings concerning McCarthy was exemplified in the Tydings Committee: a subcommittee led by Democrat Senator Millard Tydings and created to investigate McCarthy’s claims. Its final report, which called the accusations “a fraud and a hoax”, was supported almost only by Democrats.32

Meanwhile, support for McCarthy among the public grew as the Korean War started in

June 1950.33 McCarthy used the war to bolster his claims when he sent a letter to President

Truman stating, “Today American boys lie dead in the mud of Korean valleys. […] They are dead today […] because the program adopted by this Congress to avoid just such a war in Korea, and signed into law by you, Mr. President, was sabotaged.”34

McCarthy triumphed by flinging himself to national headlines once again; the most significant reason for his success was that America had learned to hate Communism and do whatever was necessary to eliminate it during the Red Scare. As Time magazine pointed out, “he ​ ​

30 Joseph McCarthy, “Telegram from Senator Joseph McCarthy to President Harry S. Truman,” Harry S. Truman Library, accessed December 30, 2018, https://www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/mccarthy-telegram/images/telegram-page-6.gif. 31 Harry S. Truman, “Reply from Harry S. Truman to Senator Joseph McCarthy (Probably Unsent),” Harry S. Truman Library, accessed December 30, 2018, https://www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/mccarthy-telegram/images/truman-reply.gif. 32 Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense, 168. ​ ​ 33 Bailey, Red Scare, 65. ​ ​ 34 Wisconsin State Journal, Joseph McCarthy Files. Box 1, Folder 1. UW Green Bay Archives and Area Research ​ ​ Center. 7

got many a cheer from people who approved his target so much that they didn't criticize his aim.”35 However, McCarthy’s poor “aim” would soon bring about tragedy for himself.

“Have You No Sense of Decency?”

After the Wheeling speech, Joseph McCarthy continued to make Communist accusations while staying in the national spotlight; even in 1954, four years after the speech, half of the

American public viewed him favorably.36 However, public opinion of him dropped as he used the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), the Senate subcommittee of which he was chairman, to accuse the U.S. Army.37

McCarthy’s tussle with the Army began on March 11, 1954, when he and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, were charged with fifty-four counts of seeking preferential treatment for their associate, G. David Schine, by trying to allow him to skip his basic military training.38 In response, McCarthy claimed that the Army was blackmailing him; therefore, the

Army—McCarthy hearings convened five days later.39

These hearings were televised live on multiple TV channels, including ABC, NBC, and

DuMont. What made this fact so important was that the American people had never actually seen his accusations firsthand. McCarthy’s sloppy, often untruthful, and sometimes downright rude investigations were now on television screens nationwide.40

35 Time, vol. 55, no. 25, “Cheers for McCarthy,” EBSCOhost, accessed January 2, 2019, ​ ​ http://centos007.auto-graphics.com/YYY/centos007/453364/web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=e2 769e7f-d111-4b7e-998d-e7a6fe898ef2%40pdc-v-sessmgr02&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCxjcGlkLHV ybCZjdXN0aWQ9czczMjQ5NjQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#AN=54158291&db=f6h. 36 Wicker, Shooting Star, 164-165. ​ ​ 37 Bailey, Red Scare, 87. ​ ​ 38 Wicker, Shooting Star, 144. ​ ​ 39 Sherrow, Joseph McCarthy and the Cold War, 62-64. ​ ​ 40 Herman, Joseph McCarthy, 258-259. ​ ​ 8

During the hearings, McCarthy was revealed as temperamental and easily flustered, at one point exclaiming to Army counsel John G. Adams, “We caught you red handed!”41 He made personal attacks instead of providing evidence. He even attempted to use a doctored photograph of Schine and the Secretary of the Army, Robert T. Stevens, smiling at each other to his benefit.

The photo was supposed to make the two appear to be friends, but it was discovered that Stevens had actually been looking at a third person who had been cropped out of the picture.42 As

McCarthy’s national figure was being forever tarnished, he stated, “I must admit I am somewhat at a loss to know what to do at this moment.”43

However, the most memorable point of the hearings came when McCarthy pressed

Joseph N. Welch, another Army counsel, for information on Fred Fisher, a member of Welch’s firm. Fisher had been on the Lawyer’s Guild, an organization that HUAC considered “the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party.”44 As McCarthy pressed on, in spite of Cohn shaking his head as a plea to relent, Welch delivered a stinging blow to the senator that resonated in viewers’ minds: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”45

McCarthy’s reputation had been tragically and irrevocably destroyed by the hearings. His approval ratings plummeted to 34 percent,46 almost everyone agreed that he acted in a disorderly manner, and an article in The Daily Worker titled “Throw the Bum Out” declared, “The country ​ ​ has seen enough of the sordid McCarthy conspiracy not to be content with this trick […] [The

41 Herman, Joseph McCarthy, 259. ​ ​ 42 Wicker, Shooting Star, 152. ​ ​ 43 Ibid., 157. 44 Matusow, Joseph R. McCarthy, 95. ​ ​ 45 Sherrow, Joseph McCarthy and the Cold War, 65. ​ ​ 46 Wicker, Shooting Star, 165. ​ ​ 9

voters] should insist on a swift vote of censure before November!”47 McCarthy was censured, or strictly disapproved of, by the Senate, not in November, but in December 1954.48 Whereas once the Republicans senators had been fervent supporters of McCarthy, on the censure vote, they were evenly split. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower remarked, “It’s no longer

McCarthyism; it’s McCarthywasm.”49 ​ ​ ​ ​ After McCarthy was censured, he lost all of his power—the tragic opposite of his triumphant fame almost five years earlier. He still delivered speeches, but no reporters came; he also started to drink heavily.50 As one reporter recalled his meeting with McCarthy in 1957, “I did not know then that I had glimpsed not only what was left of Joe McCarthy—but also what power comes to, perhaps what we all come to.”51 The senator faced the ultimate tragedy as he died later that year due to inflammation of the liver caused by his alcoholism.52

McCarthy’s accusations brought him triumph by boosting his popularity, but they also caused tragedy for him when he was censured. Even though the “era of McCarthyism” ended over sixty years ago, his legacy is still felt today. His name has become a word, “McCarthyism,” that is used to refer to the use of smear tactics and attacks on one’s character.53 Some present-day politicians have been accused of this, including President Donald J. Trump.54 Roy Cohn even became President Trump’s lawyer for thirteen years.55 Although McCarthy has been dead for

47 Wisconsin State Journal, Joseph McCarthy Files. Box 1, Folder 6. UW Green Bay Archives and Area Research ​ ​ Center. 48 Mark Landis, Joseph McCarthy: The Politics of Chaos (Associated University Presses: New Jersey, 1973), 142. ​ ​ 49 Bailey, Red Scare, 97. ​ ​ 50 Herman, Joseph McCarthy, 298. ​ ​ 51 Wicker, Shooting Star, 4. ​ ​ 52 Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense, 505. ​ ​ 53 “McCarthyism,” Merriam-Webster, accessed January 17, 2019. 54 Michael Kruse, “Trump’s Strange Tweet about Joseph McCarthy,” Politico Magazine, accessed January 7, 2019. ​ ​ 55 Matt Flegenheimer, Jonathan Mahler, “What Donald Trump Learned from Joseph McCarthy’s Right Hand Man,” The New York Times, accessed January 7, 2019. ​ 10

over sixty years, his story is an instructive warning against hitting the right “targets” while using inaccurate “aim”.

11

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources

Benjamin, Robert M. United States of America v. Alger Hiss. College of Criminal Justice, 1950. ​ ​ archive.org, archive.org/details/unitedstatesofam00hiss. Accessed 19 Dec. 2018. ​ This short document about the Alger Hiss case helped me better understand how the case

propelled the Red Scare in the United States. It helped me develop my historical context.

"CHARL'Z's Information on the Atomic Bomb and Method of Separation of ENORMOZ:

Moscow Requests Further Details." 1945. archive.org, ​ ​ archive.org/details/1945_10apr_atomic_bomb_info. Accessed 19 Dec. 2018. Letter.

This letter sent to Klaus Fuchs from the Soviet Union provided me with quotes that

demonstrated how significant the information Fuchs sent to the Soviet Union was to the

development of the first Soviet atomic bomb. It helped me develop my historical context.

"Cheers for McCarthy." Time, vol. 55, no. 25. EBSCOhost. Accessed 2 Jan. 2019. ​ ​ ​ ​ This magazine article provided me a strong quote to cite in my concluding sentence. It

perfectly showed how McCarthy used ineffective methods to address a significant

problem in the United States: Communism.

Churchill, Winston. "Iron Curtain Speech." 5 March 1946. Central Intelligence Agency, ​ ​ archive.org/details/CIA-RDP80R01443R000300050007-8. Accessed 15 Dec. 2018.

Speech.

This was an online transcript of Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech. It provided

quotes that helped me prove my point that the Red Scare grew after World War II.

12

En-Lai, Chou, and A. Y. Vishinsky. Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance ​ between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, February 1950. Central ​ ​ Intelligence Agency, archive.org/details/CIA-RDP80R01443R000300050007-8. ​ Accessed 21 Dec. 2018.

This was the text of the treaty between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of

China signed in 1950. Reading the treaty per se helped me better understand the ​ ​ international significance of the treaty and how it fueled the Red Scare.

Fagan, Myron C. Hollywood Reds Are on the Run. Cinema Educational Guild, 1949. archive.org, ​ ​ ​ ​ archive.org/details/HollywoodRedsAreOnTheRunMyronCFagan. Accessed 29 Dec.

2018.

This pamphlet celebrating the blacklist of the Hollywood Ten who refused to testify

before HUAC helped me understand how the blacklist furthered the Red Scare. It also

slightly helped me develop my point of how propaganda influenced the Red Scare.

Kamp, Joseph P. Fifth Column in the South. Constitutional Educational League, 1940. ​ ​ archive.org, archive.org/details/FifthColumnInTheSouth. Accessed 29 Dec. 2018. ​ I was able to use this pamphlet as an example of the Red Scare propaganda that flowed

throughout the United States during the 1940s. It also contained a quote from William B.

Bankhead that confirmed my point that anti-Communist paranoia aided McCarthy's rise

to fame.

13

McCarthy, Joseph. Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the ​ United States Senate, 1950-1951. Washington, D.C., United States Government Printing ​ Office, 1952.

This collection of full-length speeches made by McCarthy provided me quotes from his

"Enemies from Within" speech that proved the seriousness of his accusations. It also

showed how the speech gained him popularity.

McCarthy, Joseph. "Telegram from Senator Joseph McCarthy to President Harry S. Truman." 11

Feb. 1950. Harry S. Truman Library, ​ ​ www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/mccarthy-telegram/images/telegram-page-6.gif

. Accessed 30 Dec. 2018. Letter.

This was a collection of six images from the telegram that McCarthy sent to President

Truman after the Wheeling speech. It gave me some powerful quotes with which to prove

my point that McCarthyism survived even with opposition from the president.

"McCarthy at the Barricades." Time, vol. 15, no. 13. EBSCOhost. Accessed 30 Dec. 2018. ​ ​ ​ ​ This article from Time magazine provided a perspective of skepticism over McCarthyism ​ ​ that I was able to include in my article. I was able to use it in an ironic context as it

predicted McCarthy’s popularity would fade when it actually rose dramatically.

14

Smith, Margaret Chase. "Declaration of Conscience." U.S. Senate, ​ ​ www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf. Accessed 30

Dec. 2018. Speech.

This was the original transcript of the "Declaration of Conscience" speech made by

Senator Margaret Chase Smith in opposition to McCarthy's smear tactics. It gave me a

powerful quote with which to summarize the anti-McCarthy feelings of the 1950s.

Truman, Harry S. "Reply from Harry S. Truman to Senator Joseph McCarthy (Probably

Unsent)." 12 Feb. 1950. Harry S. Truman Library, ​ ​ www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/mccarthy-telegram/images/truman-reply.gif.

Accessed 30 Dec. 2018. Letter.

The Web site states that President Truman probably never sent this reply to McCarthy's

telegram. However, it does contain strong language that I was able to use to clarify that

the president was in opposition to McCarthy and his accusations.

"Wisconsin State Journal." Joseph McCarthy Files, UW Green Bay Archives and Area Research

Center, Box 1. Manuscript.

This collection containing speeches, letters, newspaper articles, and telegrams was

originally sent by Joseph McCarthy to the Wisconsin State Journal for publishing. It gave ​ ​ me a powerful quote with which to begin my paper and a quote from the Daily Worker to ​ ​ prove my point that McCarthy's popularity sank after the hearings with the Army.

15

Secondary Sources

Bailey, Budd. Red Scare: Communists in America. New York, Cavendish Square, 2017. ​ ​ This book focused mainly on the Red Scare events leading up to McCarthy's accusations

and provided me with powerful examples of the Red Scare. Some examples were the

Seattle General Strike, the Palmer Raids, and the Hollywood blacklist.

Flegenheimer, Matt, and Jonathan Mahler. "What Donald Trump Learned from Joseph

McCarthy's Right Hand Man." 20 June 2016. The New York Times. ​ ​ This online article helped me prove that President Trump has been accused of

McCarthyism by including the fact that Roy Cohn, McCarthy's chief counsel, was the

president's lawyer at one time. It also gave me a sense of how McCarthyism is treated in

the media today, adding to my historical significance.

Herman, Arthur. Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated ​ Senator. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2000. ​ This book followed the general timeline of the McCarthy era, from the anti-Communist

hysteria of the 1940s to McCarthy's censure in 1954. It provided facts about World War

II that helped me prove the point that the war fueled the Red Scare in the United States.

Kruse, Michael. "Trump's Strange Tweet about Joseph McCarthy." Politico Magazine. ​ ​ This online article provided a specific example, namely, President Trump, to prove my

point that modern-day politicians are still accused of McCarthyism. It also showed that

McCarthy is still significant today as he is still mentioned in news articles decades after

his death.

16

Landis, Mark. Joseph McCarthy: The Politics of Chaos. New Jersey, Associated UP, 1973. ​ ​ This book covered all major points of the McCarthy era. One paragraph in particular

from this book helped me effectively summarize my main points and bring an effective

conclusion to my paper.

Matusow, Allen J. Joseph R. McCarthy. New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1970. Great Lives Observed. ​ ​ This book was actually a collection of quotes from primary sources. It gave me the

important quote about the Lawyers' Guild that showed why McCarthy pressed on for

information about Fred Fisher, which lead to Welch's famous quote: "Have you no sense

of decency?"

"McCarthyism." Merriam-Webster. Accessed 17 Jan. 2019. ​ ​ The official Merriam-Webster Web site provided me the official definition

of McCarthyism, which helped me prove my point that part of McCarthy's legacy was the ​ ​ "ism" that was named after him.

Oshinsky, David M. A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joseph McCarthy. New York, ​ ​ Macmillan, 1983.

This book contained a very complete coverage of the life of Joseph McCarthy. It also

provided a useful survey statistic that helped me prove my point that the Red Scare

helped Joseph McCarthy gain popularity.

Sherrow, Victoria. Joseph McCarthy and the Cold War. Connecticut, Blackbirch Press, 1999. ​ ​ This book provided much of my information on the Army hearings. It also helped me

prove my point that McCarthy's behavior during the hearings caused his tragic downfall

and censure.

17

Wicker, Tom. Shooting Star: The Brief Arch of Joseph McCarthy. Florida, Harcourt, 2006. ​ ​ Written by a reporter who visited McCarthy in his later years, this book provided a

detailed chronology of the McCarthy era. It also gave me a very powerful quote with

which to confirm my point that Joseph McCarthy's physical health declined tragically as

his popularity waned.

18