McCarthyism and Anti-Communist Campaigns
The Cold War brought about an irrational fear of communism and communist activities in the United States. As we are learning this week, one of the most vocal instigators of this paranoia was Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy delivered a speech about the imminent threat of communism on February 9, 1950. Perform a search on the internet and locate and read Joseph McCarthy’s speech given in Wheeling, West Virginia on February 9, 1950. Copy and paste the following keywords into your Google search bar: “Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia.” The speech is also referred to as “Enemies from Within.”
Construct the case study by responding to the following prompts:
Explain how Senator Joseph McCarthy defined communist nations within the speech. What specific threats did these nations pose?
Assess if Senator Joseph McCarthy charges were accurate.
Analyze anti-communist sentiments during the Cold War era, were these sentiments valid. If so, how? If not, why not?
Explain if there are other examples of events similar to the Red Scare that have occurred throughout history and modern day.
Examine what happened to people who invoked the Fifth Amendment, refused to appear or were found in violation of the law as defined by the Congressional Committee.
Sample Answer
How Senator Joseph McCarthy defined communist nations within the speech. What specific threats did these nations pose?
In his speech, McCarthy named the Soviet Union, China, and Czechoslovakia as communist nations that posed a threat to the United States. He claimed that these nations were working together to infiltrate the U.S. government and other institutions. He also claimed that there were communists working in the State Department who were leaking classified information to the Soviet Union.
Assess if Senator Joseph McCarthy charges were accurate.
McCarthy’s charges were never proven, and many historians believe that they were false. There is no evidence that there was a large-scale communist conspiracy in the U.S. government. However, there were some communists who worked in the government, and they did provide some information to the Soviet Union.