1909-1957. US right-wing Republican
politician, whose unsubstantiated claim 1950
that the State Department and US army had
been infiltrated by Communists started a wave
of anticommunist hysteria, wild accusations,
and blacklists, which continued until he was
discredited 1954. He was censured by the US
senate for misconduct. A lawyer, McCarthy
became senator for his native Wisconsin in
1946, and in Feb 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
Hiss case. McCarthy continued a witch-hunting
campaign against, amonst others, members of
the Truman administration. When he turned his
attention to the army, and it was shown that
he and his aides had been falsifying
evidence, then President Eisenhower renounced
him and 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.