McCarthyism

Joseph McCarthy was a senator of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1957. He published a list of names that he said were communists, which started a wave of fear and insecurity about the government in the US. This was during the period of the red scare, which made the american people very suspicious. Because of this a number of hearings, questionings and such started, and many people were interrogated and asked if they had anything to do with communism. A consequence of this was intensification of the actions of House of Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC), who were in charge of all of these hearings, which were a great number. People who were called to these hearings had to testify publicly and were asked the question "Are you now or have you been a member of the Communist party?" T his resulted in the blacklisting of many Hollywood stars, such as directors and actors. This ruined their careers, since they were fired or refused by directors.

This resulted in the formation of the Federal Loyalty Programme, were government people were called in continuously to testify in order for the to stay loyal to the government. 2000 people resign as a result of this, and 200 were fired. This created insecurity among the people of America, and the programme increased the fever of the Red Scare.

Notable people who were killed as a result of the fear of communism were the Rosenbergs, who were executed for (claimed) espionage for the Soviet Union.

VENONA were a top-secret programme that worked with deciphering Soviet communications. They also provided information about spies within the Manhattan project.

The McCurrant Internal Security Act, which was a law that said that all communist groups had to register and they had to have all their document public, so that the government could see what was going on at all times.

The Fall of McCarthyism:

McCarthy said that a lot of people were communist, but people started to lose faith in him when he couldn't point out a single name on his list that he knew for sure to be communist. When he wanted hearings from the army, most people was fed up with his accusation. The result was the Army-McCarthy from April 2 to June 17 1954. The hearings were televised, and they made sure that McCarthy didn't really know what he was talking about, which made most people to loose faith in him. People found him rude and vulgar.

For more detailed analysis of McCarthyism's impact, see: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schrecker-legacy.html