McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the name given to the intense anti-communism and the accusations of disloyalty that dominated American public life in the early 1950s, after Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that communists had infiltrated the State Department. Investigations by his Senate subcommittee and by the House Un-American Activities Committee, together with loyalty programs for government employees, led to careers being destroyed through blacklisting, especially in Hollywood, often on slight or no evidence. The televised Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954 exposed his methods to the public, helped by critical reporting from journalists such as Edward R. Murrow, and the Senate censured him in December 1954. The term is now used for unsupported accusations and attacks on political opponents.

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