McCarthy, Joe (Joseph Raymond)

US right-wing Republican politician. His unsubstantiated claim in 1950 that the State Department had been infiltrated by communists started a wave of anticommunist hysteria, wild accusations, and blacklists, which continued until he was discredited in 1954. He was censured by the Senate for misconduct.

A lawyer, McCarthy became senator for his native Wisconsin in 1947, and in February 1950 caused a sensation by claiming to hold a list of about 200 Communist Party members working in the State Department. This was in part inspired by the Alger Hiss case. McCarthy continued a witch-hunting campaign against, among others, members of the Harry Truman administration. When he turned his attention to the army, and it was shown that he and his aides had been falsifying evidence, President Eisenhower denounced his tactics. By this time, however, many people in public life and the arts had been unofficially blacklisted as suspected communists or fellow travellers (communist sympathizers). McCarthyism came to represent the practice of using innuendo and unsubstantiated accusations against political adversaries.