McCarthyism

Named for the US Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican of Wisconsin, McCarthyism was a period of intense anti-communism in the United States primarily from 1950 to 1954, when the U.S. government was actively engaged in countering American Communist Party subversion, its leadership, and others suspected of being Communists or Communist sympathizers. During this period people from all walks of life became the subject of aggressive "witch-hunts," often based on inconclusive or questionable evidence. It grew out of the Second Red Scare that began in the late 1940s.

External links

• "Have You No Sense of Decency": The Army-McCarthy Hearings Transcript
• Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McCarthy Hearings 1953-54)
• McCarthy Hearings