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Birth and Early Life of Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy was born on a farm in the Town of Grand Chute, near Appleton, Wisconsin, on November 15, 1908. He was the 4th of 7 children. At age 14, McCarthy drops out of school and runss a grocery store in Manawa. Het returns to finish high school after 2 years. -
McCarthy Takes Office
Joseph McCarthy takes office as a Republican senator from Wisconsin. In a primary election, McCarthy had defeated Sen. Robert La Follette Jr., son of one of the icons of American liberalism. Branding himself as “Tail Gunner Joe,” McCarthy had run a vicious, negative campaign against his opponent with accusations that La Follette gained from war. -
Blacklisting
The heads of several major Hollywood movie studios gather to respond to recent hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC. Several prominent writers, actors and directors – a group that would later become known as the Hollywood Ten – refused to testify at the hearings about their alleged ties to the Communist Party. At the Waldorf, the studio heads decide they will refuse to hire anyone with Communist connections or anyone who won’t testify before HUAC -
Alger Hiss
At a HUAC hearing, former Communist Party member Whittaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss, a former high-level State Department official, of being a Communist. Over the next several months, the committee hears dramatic allegations about Hiss’ double life as a Communist sympathizer working within the U.S. government.Hiss is later convicted. -
McCarthy's Famous List
During a speech , little-known Sen. McCarthy claims he has a list of 205 active Communist Party members and Soviet spies working in the State Department. In a follow-up to his speech, McCarthy speaks to the Senate for five hours, claiming he has a list of 81 people who pose a risk to the State Department -
Tydings Committee
McCarthy begins testifying before the Tydings Committee – which was established in response to the senator’s allegations and named for its chairman, Sen. Millard Tydings. Although McCarthy reveals the names of nine supposed Communists in the State Department, the committee does not find any truth to the allegations. Thanks to increasing press coverage, McCarthy’s fanatic behavior rapidly gains popularity -
McCarthy Assaults Journalist
Taking his combative nature with the press to the next level, McCarthy assaults muckraker Drew Pearson in the men’s cloakroom of the Sulgrave Club in Washington. Although Pearson sued McCarthy, the senator was never punished for his actions. -
The Rosenburgs
The Rosenbergs are convicted of espionage.Two years later, they would be executed, the first civilians to be sentenced to death for espionage in American history.11 Many historians have concluded that Julius Rosenberg was, in fact, a Soviet spy but that Ethel, while she knew of her husband’s activities, did not actively participate in them. -
McCarthy Re-Elected
Press coverage, focusing mostly on McCarthy’s diatribes against his political opponents, helps McCarthy win re-election.He defeats Len Schmitt in the Republican primary and Democratic challenger Thomas Fairchild in the general election. -
La Follette Suicide
Robert La Follette Jr., McCarthy’s opponent in the 1946 campaign, is found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. La Follette had told friends that he feared he might have to testify before McCarthy about Communist infiltration of the committee he chaired while he was in Congress. -
Radulovich Story
CBS broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, host of the popular show “See It Now,” airs the story of the wrongful discharge of Air Force Lt. Milo Radulovich. Radulovich becomes an example of the negative consequences of McCarthy’s anti-Communist hysteria. Within a month of Murrow’s report, the Air Force reinstates Radulovich. -
Army-McCarthy Hearings
Prompted by reporting from both Murrow and Marder – both of whom chronicled and scrutinized Joseph McCarthy’, the Senate begins holding hearings to investigate the senator’s controversial accusations. The Army-McCarthy hearings were the first televised hearings in U.S. history, watched by 20 million people. -
McCarthy Condemned
The Senate votes 67 to 22 in favor of condemning McCarthy for false accusations and his crass demeanor throughout the Army-McCarthy hearings. -
Death of McCarthy
Disgraced, McCarthy falls from the public eye and dies of alcoholism-related cirrhosis at the age of 48
