📜 Lists and numbers
An exact number sounded like hard evidence, even when it kept changing. Each new figure brought a new headline. When one charge was questioned, McCarthy did not defend it. He simply moved on to the next.
The Red Scare and McCarthyism » McCarthy's Methods and the Growth of Opposition
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 1, Depth study 7, Key topic 1
- What Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed in his Wheeling speech of 1950
- The methods he used: lists, accusations without proof, hearings and attacks on critics
- Who stood up to him, and why opposition grew so slowly
- How to answer a 6-mark 'What impression' question
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Unlock This CourseA senator in search of an issue
At the start of 1950 Joseph McCarthy was a little-known Republican senator from Wisconsin. He had been elected in 1946 and would have to win his seat again in 1952. He needed an issue that would get him noticed. The spy cases had just given him one. Americans were frightened, and a politician who claimed to know where the Communists were hiding was sure of an audience.
Key terms:
- McCarthyism: accusing people of being Communists or disloyal without proof.
- Smear: an untrue or unproven charge made to damage someone's good name.
- Guilt by association: treating someone as guilty because of the people or groups they have been linked with.
- Fifth Amendment: the part of the US Constitution that lets a person refuse to answer questions that might be used against them.
The Wheeling speech, February 1950
On 9 February 1950 McCarthy spoke to a Republican women's club in Wheeling, West Virginia. He claimed to hold a list of 205 people in the State Department who were known to be members of the Communist Party and were still working there. It was a sensational charge, and newspapers across the country reported it.
The number did not stay still. A day later, in Salt Lake City, he spoke of 57 Communists. On 20 February he talked in the Senate for about six hours about 81 cases. He never made a list public. His figures came from old government security checks that were several years out of date, and many of the people in them had already been cleared or had left their jobs.
McCarthy's methods
📢 Accusations without proof
In March 1950 he called Owen Lattimore, a university expert on China, the 'top Russian espionage agent' in the USA. No evidence of spying was ever found. McCarthy relied on smears and on guilt by association. He made many charges inside the Senate, where the law protects what senators say, so the people he named could not sue him.
📺 Hearings in the spotlight
After the Republicans won the 1952 elections, McCarthy became chairman of a Senate investigations subcommittee in January 1953. With his young lawyer, Roy Cohn, he questioned hundreds of witnesses. Some hearings, such as those on the Voice of America (the government's overseas radio service), were shown on television. He interrupted and bullied witnesses. Those who used the Fifth Amendment were labelled 'Fifth Amendment Communists', as if silence proved guilt.
🔥 Attacks on critics
Anyone who questioned McCarthy was accused of being 'soft on Communism'. No one was too important. In June 1951 he told the Senate that General George Marshall, who had led the US Army in the Second World War and was now Secretary of Defense, was part of 'a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man'.
His investigators also went after books. In 1953 Cohn toured the libraries that the State Department ran in Europe, hunting for works by authors he thought were Communists. Nervous officials removed many books from the shelves, and a few were even burned.
Why the methods worked
McCarthy's timing was perfect. He spoke at Wheeling less than three weeks after Alger Hiss was convicted, and the Korean War began that June. Newspapers helped him too. A charge made by a senator was news, so it went on the front page straight away. The denial came later and was given far less space. Many Republicans disliked his manners but found him a useful weapon against President Truman's Democrats. And he was popular: in a poll in January 1954, half of Americans said they had a favourable opinion of him.
The growth of opposition
Opposition began almost at once, but for years it was too weak to stop him.
- The Tydings Committee: a Senate committee led by the Democrat Millard Tydings looked into the Wheeling charges. In July 1950 it called them 'a fraud and a hoax'. McCarthy hit back. In the November 1950 election, a campaign paper with a faked photograph showing Tydings beside a Communist leader was used against him, and Tydings lost the seat he had held since 1927.
- The Declaration of Conscience: on 1 June 1950 Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican and the only woman in the Senate, made a speech backed by six other Republican senators. Without naming McCarthy, she said she did not want her party to win power through 'Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear'. McCarthy mocked the group as 'Snow White and the Six Dwarfs'.
- The President and the press: Truman told reporters in March 1950 that McCarthy was the greatest asset the Kremlin (the Soviet government) had. In the same month the Washington Post cartoonist Herblock invented the word 'McCarthyism', painting it on a barrel of tar.
- Senator Benton: in 1951 the Democrat William Benton asked the Senate to expel McCarthy. McCarthy campaigned against him, and Benton lost his seat in 1952.
The fates of Tydings and Benton taught other politicians a lesson: crossing McCarthy could end your career. That fear is the main reason opposition grew so slowly. Even Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican elected President in 1952, held back. He disliked McCarthy, yet during his campaign in Wisconsin he cut a passage praising Marshall from a speech, and as President he would not criticise McCarthy by name. The nearest he came was in June 1953, when he told students at Dartmouth College, 'Don't join the book burners.'
By the end of 1953, though, the mood was shifting. McCarthy was now attacking a government run by his own party, and more Republicans, journalists and ordinary viewers were uneasy about what they saw. Then he chose his biggest target yet, the US Army. You will see how that ended in McCarthy's Downfall and the Impact of McCarthyism.
Common mistakes
Don't write that McCarthy 'found' 205 Communists. He claimed to have a list, the number kept changing, and he never proved that a single person he named was a spy. Don't say nobody opposed him before 1954 either: Tydings, Smith, Truman and Benton all spoke out in 1950-51. The point to explain is why their opposition failed at first.
Exam-style question
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book)
McCarthy's so-called evidence was a sham. At Wheeling he boasted of a list of 205 names, yet within days the number had shrunk to 57, and no list was ever shown. He simply hurled one wild charge after another, counting on the newspapers to print each one before anyone could check it. Those who dared to question him were smeared as friends of Communism. He was less an investigator than a bully who had found a microphone.
What impression does the author give about McCarthy's methods? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
Model answer
The author gives the impression that McCarthy's methods were dishonest and bullying. The language is strongly critical. His evidence is called 'so-called' and 'a sham', which suggests it was fake, and the verbs 'boasted' and 'hurled' make him sound reckless, not careful. Describing his charges as 'wild' implies they had no basis. The author also selects details that damage McCarthy, such as the number that 'had shrunk' from 205 to 57 and the fact that 'no list was ever shown'. The final image of 'a bully who had found a microphone' sums up the hostile tone. The extract leaves out anything that might explain his support, such as the real fear of spies at the time, so the reader sees only a liar and a bully.
What lifts this to the top level: it names one clear impression, then explains how the author creates it through word choice, tone, the details chosen and what is left out, instead of just repeating what the extract says.
Exam tip
This question tests how the author writes, not what you know about McCarthy. Start with 'The author gives the impression that...', quote two or three loaded words such as 'sham' or 'hurled' and say what each one suggests, then finish with one thing the author has left out.