title: Søren Kierkegaard

text: Philosophers and theologians influenced by Kierkegaard are numerous and include major twentieth century theologians and philosophers. Paul Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism in the philosophy of science was inspired by Kierkegaard's idea of subjectivity as truth. Ludwig Wittgenstein was immensely influenced and humbled by Kierkegaard, claiming that "Kierkegaard is far too deep for me, anyhow. He bewilders me without working the good effects which he would in deeper souls". Karl Popper referred to Kierkegaard as "the great reformer of Christian ethics, who exposed the official Christian morality of his day as anti-Christian and anti-humanitarian hypocrisy". Hilary Putnam admired Kierkegaard, "for his insistence on the priority of the question, 'How should I live?'". By the early 1930s, Jacques Ellul's three primary sources of inspiration were Karl Marx, Søren Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth. According to Ellul, Marx and Kierkegaard were his two greatest influences, and the only two authors of which he read all of their work. Herbert Read wrote in 1945 "Kierkegaard’s life was in every sense that of a saint. He is perhaps the most real saint of modern times."


title: Søren Kierkegaard

text: Kierkegaard has also had a considerable influence on 20th-century literature. Figures deeply influenced by his work include W. H. Auden, Jorge Luis Borges, Don DeLillo, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, David Lodge, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Rainer Maria Rilke, J.D. Salinger and John Updike. What George Henry Price wrote in his 1963 book "The Narrow Pass" regarding the "who" and the "what" of Kierkegaard still seems to hold true today: "Kierkegaard was the sanest man of his generation...Kierkegaard was a schizophrenic...Kierkegaard was the greatest Dane...the difficult Dane...the gloomy Dane...Kierkegaard was the greatest Christian of the century...Kierkegaard's aim was the destruction of the historic Christian faith...He did not attack philosophy as such...He negated reason...He was a voluntarist...Kierkegaard was the Knight of Faith...Kierkegaard never found faith...Kierkegaard possessed the truth...Kierkegaard was one of the damned."


title: Søren Kierkegaard

text: Kierkegaard had a profound influence on psychology. He is widely regarded as the founder of Christian psychology and of existential psychology and therapy. Existentialist (often called "humanistic") psychologists and therapists include Ludwig Binswanger, Viktor Frankl, Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. May based his "The Meaning of Anxiety" on Kierkegaard's "The Concept of Anxiety". Kierkegaard's sociological work "Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age" critiques modernity. Ernest Becker based his 1974 Pulitzer Prize book "The Denial of Death" on the writings of Kierkegaard, Freud and Otto Rank. Kierkegaard is also seen as an important precursor of postmodernism. Danish priest Johannes Møllehave has lectured about Kierkegaard. In popular culture, he was the subject of serious television and radio programmes; in 1984, a six-part documentary, "Sea of Faith", presented by Don Cupitt, featured an episode on Kierkegaard, while on Maundy Thursday in 2008, Kierkegaard was the subject of discussion of the BBC Radio 4 programme presented by Melvyn Bragg, "In Our Time", during which it was suggested that Kierkegaard straddles the analytic/continental divide. The novel "Therapy" by David Lodge details a man experiencing a mid-life crisis and becoming obsessed with the works of Kierkegaard.


title: Søren Kierkegaard

text: Kierkegaard is considered by some modern theologians to be the "Father of Existentialism". Because of his influence and in spite of it, others only consider either Martin Heidegger or Jean-Paul Sartre to be the actual "Father of Existentialism". Kierkegaard predicted his posthumous fame, and foresaw that his work would become the subject of intense study and research.


title: Unitary state

text: A unitary state is a sovereign state governed as a single entity in which the central government is the supreme authority. The central government may create (or abolish) administrative divisions (sub-national units). Such units exercise only the powers that the central government chooses to delegate. Although political power may be delegated through devolution to regional or local governments by statute, the central government may abrogate the acts of devolved governments or curtail (or expand) their powers.


title: Unitary state

text: Unitary states stand in contrast with federations, also known as "federal states". A large majority of the world's sovereign states (166 of the 193 UN member states) have a unitary system of government.


title: Unitary state

text: A unitary system of government can be considered the opposite of federalism. In federations, the provincial/regional governments share powers with the central government as equal actors through a written constitution, to which the consent of both is required to make amendments. This means that the sub-national units have a right to existence and powers that cannot be unilaterally changed by the central government.


title: Unitary state

text: There are, however, similarities between federalism and devolution. Devolution within a unitary state, like federalism, may be symmetrical, with all sub-national units having the same powers and status, or asymmetric, with sub-national units varying in their powers and status. Many unitary states have no areas possessing a degree of autonomy. In such countries, sub-national regions cannot decide their own laws. Examples are Romania, Ireland and Norway.


title: Unitary state

text: "Italics": States with limited recognition from other sovereign states or intergovernmental organizations.


title: Unitary state

text: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an example of a unitary state. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a degree of autonomous devolved power, but such power is delegated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which may enact laws unilaterally altering or abolishing devolution (except in Scotland, where a referendum would be required to end devolution).


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago Alcântara do Nascimento (; born 11 April 1991), or simply Thiago (; ), is a professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Premier League club Liverpool and the Spain national team.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Born in Italy to Brazilian parents, he is the eldest child of former player Mazinho. Thiago joined Barcelona aged 14, and made his first team debut in 2009. After winning honours including four La Liga titles, the UEFA Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup for Barcelona, he was signed by Bayern Munich for €25 million in 2013. In Germany, Thiago won 16 trophies, including the Bundesliga seven times in a row, and the UEFA Champions League as part of a continental treble in his final year at the club. In 2020, he signed for Liverpool in a transfer worth an initial £20 million. With Liverpool, he won the FA Cup in 2022.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: After helping Spain to European Championships at under-19 and under-21 levels, he made his full international debut in 2011. Thiago was part of the provisional squad for Spain in the 2014 World Cup but withdrew due to a knee injury. Thiago was selected for UEFA Euro 2016, the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and UEFA Euro 2020.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago was born in San Pietro Vernotico, Italy, when his father Mazinho (player for the Brazilian national team from 1989 to 1994) was playing for nearby U.S. Lecce. He started at the lower levels of Flamengo in Brazil, and, at the age of five, moved to Spain with his father, and started playing with Galician team Ureca in Nigrán. In 2001, he played with Kelme CF when his father played for Elche CF. He returned to Flamengo aged 10 and, in 2005, once again moved back to Spain, signing with FC Barcelona.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 17 May 2009, aged 18, Thiago made his debut for the first team when he came on as a substitute for Eiður Guðjohnsen in the 74th minute at RCD Mallorca for his only appearance of the season. Barcelona, having already been declared champions of La Liga for the season, lost 1–2.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 20 February 2010, after coming on as a substitute for Yaya Touré in the 76th minute, Thiago scored his first goal for Barcelona in a 4–0 home win against Racing de Santander. He scored his third goal against Real Sociedad in a start on 29 April, although Barcelona lost 2–1. He ended the 2010–11 season with 17 games, three goals, and three assists, and was an unused substitute as Barcelona won the 2011 UEFA Champions League Final against Manchester United at Wembley Stadium.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago started the 2011–12 season with the first leg of the Spanish Supercopa match against rivals Real Madrid, being substituted for Xavi after 58 minutes, and was an unused substitute as they defeated FC Porto for the 2011 UEFA Super Cup. He then scored in Barcelona's first La Liga match of the season in a 5–0 home win against Villarreal CF. On 18 December, he started as Barcelona won 4–0 in the Club World Cup Final at International Stadium Yokohama. Thiago also netted Barcelona's fifth in a 7–0 win against Rayo Vallecano on 29 April from a close-range header. And did a dance with Dani Alves then stopped by Carles Puyol.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 14 July 2013, Thiago signed a four-year deal with Bundesliga club Bayern Munich, for a €25 million fee. Bayern would pay €20 million to Barcelona directly with the remainder being covered by the proceeds of a friendly to be played between the two teams at some point in the following four years and by Thiago foregoing some money owed to him by Barcelona. The transfer came despite a new contract that Barcelona had given Thiago in 2011 which set his release clause at €90 million. Barcelona failed to fulfil clauses in the contract relating to the amount of playing time that Thiago received, and as a result his buy-out clause dropped to €18m. Guardiola had made Thiago a priority signing. Thiago made his Bayern debut in a 4–2 defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the 2013 DFL-Supercup on 27 July. He made his debut in the Bundesliga in a 0–1 win against Eintracht Frankfurt on 11 August 2013.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 21 December 2013, he scored his first competitive goal for Bayern Munich, in the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup Final against Raja Casablanca of Morocco, sealing the 2–0 win for the German club. On 29 January 2014, he scored his first Bundesliga goal, the scissor-kicked winner in stoppage time against VfB Stuttgart which was voted the Goal of the Month. He also had an assist to Claudio Pizarro for Bayern's first goal in the 2–1 win. Four days later, in a match against Eintracht Frankfurt, he set a Bundesliga record with 185 touches of the ball. On 23 February, in a 4–0 win over Hannover 96, Thiago scored his second and last goal of the Bundesliga season. His season ended due to a knee ligament tear against 1899 Hoffenheim six days later, although Bayern went on to win the league and cup. He finished the season with two goals in 16 Bundesliga matches, two German Cup matches, four Champions League matches, a goal in two FIFA Club World Cup, and an appearance in the German Super Cup.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: After over a year out injured, Thiago returned on 4 April 2015, replacing Philipp Lahm for the last 21 minutes of a 1–0 win at Borussia Dortmund. Four days later, he again replaced Lahm in a DFB-Pokal quarter-final at Bayer Leverkusen, scoring the winning goal in the penalty shootout after a goalless draw. On 15 April, he scored in the team's Champions League quarter-final first leg away to FC Porto, albeit in a 1–3 defeat. Six days later, he headed in Juan Bernat's cross for the opening goal of a 6–1 rout to overturn the first leg deficit against Porto, helping Bayern advance to the Champions League semi-finals. On 26 April, after VfL Wolfsburg lost to Borussia Mönchengladbach, Thiago won his second Bundesliga title for Bayern. He finished the season with two goals in 13 appearances.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 27 August 2015, Thiago signed a new four-year contract with Bayern. On 10 February 2016, he contributed a goal in 3–0 win over VfL Bochum in the DFB-Pokal quarterfinal match. He scored twice in a 5–0 home victory over Werder Bremen on 12 March. On 17 March, Thiago scored a goal in a brilliant comeback against Juventus as his side came from 2–0 down to gain a 4–2 victory in the Champions League round of sixteen tie. He finished the season with four goals and seven assists. In addition to playing in the German Super Cup, Thiago scored two goals in 27 Bundesliga matches, a goal in five German Cup matches, and a goal in nine Champions League matches.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago started the 2016–17 season under new club manager Carlo Ancelotti by winning the 2016 DFL-Supercup with a 2–0 victory against his club's rival Borussia Dortmund on 15 August 2016. On 21 September, he scored his first goal of the season in a 3–0 victory over Hertha BSC. Thiago contributed one goal and one assist in a 3–0 victory over RB Leipzig and was named Man of the match on 22 December. On 16 February 2017, he scored two goals and provided one assist as Bayern defeated Arsenal with a 5–1 victory in the first leg of the Champions League round of sixteen tie. On 28 April, he signed a new four-year contract until 2021. He scored nine goals and had nine assists throughout the season.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Because of an injury, Thiago could not play his club's first competitive match of the season, in the 2017 DFL-Supercup where Bayern won against Borussia Dortmund 5–4 on penalties on 6 August 2017. On 26 October, he scored an equalizing goal against RB Leipzig to make it 1–1 and later Bayern went on to win the DFB-Pokal second-round match 5–4 on penalties. On 23 November, he was substituted in the 44th minute of the match as he suffered a serious muscle injury in his thigh in Bayern's 2–1 away victory over R.S.C. Anderlecht in the Champions League group stage match and was confirmed by his club manager Jupp Heynckes that he will be out for a long period of time. Thiago was back in the starting lineup and made his first appearance since his injury in November in a 2–1 away victory over VfL Wolfsburg on 17 February 2018. On 4 April, he scored a header which secured Bayern Munich a 2–1 away victory over Sevilla FC in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie. He finished the season with seven goals in 31 appearances.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 12 August 2018, Thiago played the first competitive match of the season under the new club manager Niko Kovač and also scored a goal in a 5–0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt as Bayern won the 2018 DFL-Supercup. On 18 May 2019, Thiago won his sixth consecutive Bundesliga title as Bayern finished two points above Dortmund with 78 points. A week later, Thiago won his third DFB-Pokal as Bayern defeated RB Leipzig 3–0 in the 2019 DFB-Pokal Final.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Amidst heavy media speculation linking him with a potential move to Liverpool, Thiago played for Bayern in the Champions League quarter-final against his former team Barcelona, participating in an 8–2 demolition of the Catalan outfit. Thiago started for Bayern in the 2020 Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain, playing 86 minutes before being substituted, as Bayern won their sixth Champions League, and completed a treble, having earlier clinched that season's Bundesliga and defeated Bayer Leverkusen in the DFB-Pokal final.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 18 September 2020, Premier League club Liverpool announced the signing of Thiago on a four-year contract. With the player only having a year left on his Bayern contract, Liverpool were able to purchase Thiago for just £20 million, with the potential for a further £5m in add-ons. Thiago made his debut for Liverpool on 20 September, coming off the bench at half-time as Liverpool won 2–0 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. With 75 successful passes, Thiago had the most passes completed by a player who played a maximum of 45 minutes in the Premier League since Opta started producing passing statistics in 2003. He has set the new record for most passes in 45 minutes as a substitute. On 29 September, Liverpool confirmed Thiago had tested positive for COVID-19.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 17 October 2020, Thiago played his second game for Liverpool in a 2–2 away league draw against local rivals Everton. He suffered a knee injury towards the end of the game as Richarlison made a tackle that would give him a straight red card after the challenge. Thiago ended up playing the last few minutes of the game. He would not play again for several months. He returned to make a substitute appearance in Liverpool's 0–0 draw with Newcastle United on 30 December. On 8 May 2021, Thiago scored his first goal for Liverpool to seal a 2–0 home league win over Southampton.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 24 November 2021, Thiago cut across the ball to score with a 25-yard strike (his first goal of the 2021–22 season) in a 2–0 home win for Liverpool against FC Porto in the UEFA Champions League group stage.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 27 February 2022, Thiago won his first piece of silverware with Liverpool in a 11–10 victory on penalties over Chelsea in the 2021–22 EFL Cup final after the game was still 0–0 at extra time. Thiago was due to start the final, but he sustained an injury in the warm-up and was replaced by Naby Keïta. Thiago did not make a single appearance in the cup run.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 14 May 2022, Thiago started for Liverpool in the 2022 FA Cup Final, winning over Chelsea in a 6–5 victory on penalties after the game ended 0–0 in extra time. Thiago scored his penalty, sending it past Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, which in turn gave Thiago his second trophy since joining Liverpool. On 17 May 2022, Thiago was named Liverpool's player of the month for April 2022.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: As he is Brazilian, was born in Italy and grew up in Spain, Thiago was eligible to represent Brazil, Italy and Spain, ultimately choosing the latter.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: He participated in the 2008 UEFA European Under-17 Championship with Spain, helping his country to eventual victory in the tournament, and scoring in the final. Thiago was ever-present during Spain's victorious 2011 UEFA European Under-21 Championship campaign, scoring the second goal of a 2–0 victory with a 40-yard free kick in the final against Switzerland. He was awarded the man of the match of the final.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 18 June 2013, he scored a hat-trick in the 2013 UEFA European Under-21 Championship Final as Spain defeated Italy 4–2 to win their fourth title.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: He made his first appearance for Spain's senior squad in a friendly against Italy on 10 August 2011, while his first competitive match was on 6 September 2011, in a Euro 2012 qualifying match 6–0 win against Liechtenstein.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago was named in Spain's 30-man provisional squad for the 2014 World Cup on 13 May of that year. However, two days later, he withdrew from the squad due to a knee ligament injury obtained while playing for Bayern in March. Bayern Chief Executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said, "A young man who wanted to come back at the World Cup, and suddenly his dreams are burst. We will take care of him now and make sure he is fit at the start of the season."


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 2 October 2015, with the team's place in the tournament already assured, Thiago was re-called by manager Vicente del Bosque for the first time since his injury, and ten days later featured in their 1–0 UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying win away to Ukraine. On 6 October 2017, he scored his first goal for his national team in the 26th minute against Albania in a World Cup qualifier. Álvaro Odriozola sent in a cross from the right side of the box and Thiago directed the ball into the bottom corner from close range with his head.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: In May 2018, he was named in Spain's 24-men squad for the warm up matches for 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Thiago was selected in the final 23-man squad for the 2018 World Cup. Thiago appeared in two matches, against Portugal and Morocco. In May 2021, Thiago was included in the 24-man squad for UEFA Euro 2020.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago is a highly creative and technically gifted playmaker, with excellent dribbling skills and ball control, which allows him to operate effectively in a deep-seated playmaking role as a central midfielder, although he is also capable of playing in a more advanced role as an attacking midfielder. Called "an extraordinary player" by Xavi in 2013, Thiago has been noted for his accurate distribution of the ball, as he possesses great passing technique and vision, and maintained a 90.2% pass success rate throughout the 2016–17 Bundesliga season, higher than any other player in Germany. Despite his reputation as a world class midfielder in the media, Thiago has often struggled with injuries throughout his career.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago is the son of the Brazilian former footballer and 1994 World Cup winner Mazinho. His mother, Valéria Alcântara, was a former Brazilian volleyball player. His younger brother, Rafinha, plays for Al-Arabi SC and the Brazilian national team. Rodrigo, who also played for Spain, is a lifelong friend and not a cousin as has been erroneously reported.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: On 27 June 2015, he married his girlfriend, Júlia Vigas, in a ceremony in Sant Climent de Peralta, Catalonia, Spain.


title: Thiago Alcântara

text: Thiago is multilingual; he is fluent in five languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, German, and English.


title: Tony Sirico

text: Gennaro Anthony Sirico Jr. (; July 29, 1942 – July 8, 2022) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri in "The Sopranos". He also made numerous appearances in the films of Woody Allen.


title: Tony Sirico

text: Sirico was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on July 29, 1942, to a family of Italian descent. He grew up in the East Flatbush and Bensonhurst neighborhoods of Brooklyn, and attended Midwood High School, but did not graduate. Sirico's brother, Robert Sirico, is a Catholic priest and co-founder of the free-market Acton Institute.


title: Tony Sirico

text: Sirico was convicted of several crimes and was arrested 28 times, including for disorderly conduct, assault, and robbery, before taking up acting. On February 27, 1970, he was arrested at a restaurant, and found with a .32 caliber revolver on his person. In 1971, he was indicted for extortion, coercion, and felony weapons possession, convicted, and sentenced to four years in prison, of which he served 20 months at Sing Sing.


title: Tony Sirico

text: According to a court transcript at the time of his sentencing, Sirico was the owner of a discotheque in Manhattan, and also had pending charges for criminal possession of a dangerous drug. Sirico stated that he was visited by an acting troupe composed of ex-convicts during his imprisonment, which inspired him to give acting a try. He appeared in the 1989 documentary "The Big Bang" by James Toback, in which he discussed his earlier life.


title: Tony Sirico

text: Sirico's first confirmed role in film was as an extra in the 1974 film "Crazy Joe", securing the role with the help of Richard Castellano. Michael Gazzo was Sirico's first acting coach. Sirico played gangsters in a number of films, and made-for-TV films, including "Goodfellas", "Mob Queen", "Mighty Aphrodite", "Love and Money", "Fingers", "The One Man Jury", "Defiance", "The Last Fight", "Innocent Blood", "Bullets over Broadway", "The Pick-up Artist", "Gotti", "Witness to the Mob", "The Search for One-eye Jimmy", "Cop Land", "Turn of Faith", "Hello Again", "Mickey Blue Eyes", and "Wonder Wheel". He also played policemen in the films "Dead Presidents" and "Deconstructing Harry". Sirico was a close friend of Woody Allen, and appeared in seven of his films.


title: Tony Sirico

text: Sirico's most acclaimed acting job was that of Paulie Gualtieri in David Chase's Emmy award-winning drama, "The Sopranos". He originally auditioned for the role of Uncle Junior with Frank Vincent, but Dominic Chianese landed the role. David Chase instead offered him the role of Paulie Gualtieri; Sirico agreed under the condition that his character "would not become a rat".


title: Tony Sirico

text: In animation, Sirico provided the voice of "Big Daddy" Fairywinkle in "The Fairly OddParents". On "Family Guy", he voiced the character of Vinny, who for three episodes in late 2013 was the family's pet dog, replacing Brian Griffin after his death; Brian would later be brought back via time travel. Sirico also made a live-action cameo in the episode "Stewie, Chris, & Brian's Excellent Adventure", where he threatens Stewie, who had insulted Italians, calling them "ridiculous people". Vinny would return in a cameo appearance at the end of the Season 15 premiere, "The Boys in the Band". Sirico would later voice characters on Seth MacFarlane's other animated series "American Dad!".


title: Tony Sirico

text: In 2018, he reunited with former "Sopranos" actors Federico Castelluccio and Vincent Pastore in "Sarah Q".


title: Tony Sirico

text: Sirico had two children, Joanne and Richard. In 1999, he and "Sopranos" co-star Vincent Pastore met with James Clemenza and his brother Jerry, Colombo crime family soldiers, at a Christmas party in Little Italy, Manhattan. Clemenza was under FBI surveillance at the time.


title: Tony Sirico

text: Sirico died on the afternoon of July 8, 2022, at an assisted living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, three weeks before his 80th birthday. No cause of death was given, but he had been diagnosed with dementia some years before his death. Sirico's funeral mass was held at the Basilica of Regina Pacis, and he was interred at Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, he was censured for refusing to cooperate with, and abusing members of, the committee established to investigate whether or not he should be censured. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, McCarthy commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1942, where he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron. Following the end of World War II, he attained the rank of major. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". Some of his claims of heroism were later shown to be exaggerated or falsified, leading many of his critics to use "Tail-Gunner Joe" as a term of mockery.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950, when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. This included a concurrent "Lavender Scare" against suspected homosexuals; as homosexuality was prohibited by law at the time, it was also perceived to increase a person's risk for blackmail.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt that same year, McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67–22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. He continued to speak against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown". Doctors had not previously reported him to be in critical condition. Some biographers say this was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy was born in 1908 on a farm in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, the fifth of nine children. His mother, Bridget McCarthy (nee Tierney), was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: He attended Marquette University from 1930 to 1935. McCarthy worked his way through college, studying first electrical engineering for two years, then law, and receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1935 from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy was admitted to the bar in 1935. While working at a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for district attorney as a Democrat in 1936. During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In 1939, McCarthy had better success when he ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge. McCarthy became the youngest circuit judge in the state's history by defeating incumbent Edgar V. Werner, who had been a judge for 24 years. In the campaign, McCarthy lied about Werner's age of 66, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office. Writing of Werner in "Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America," Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he (Werner) was disliked by lawyers. His judgements had often been reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the heavily backlogged docket he had inherited from Werner. Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he expedited them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority. When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding and relying heavily upon precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard, but he was also censured in 1941 for having lost evidence in a price fixing case.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: According to Morgan, writing in "Reds," McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero—join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?"


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron VMSB-235 in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 – February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he had signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it during the process of just signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"—a badly broken leg—that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette Sr.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943 (over $604,000 in 2017 dollars). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May, McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe", using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner". Journalist Arnold Beichman later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won 61.2% to Democrat McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Senator Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In 1950, McCarthy assaulted journalist Drew Pearson in the cloakroom at the Sulgrave Club, reportedly kneeing him in the groin. McCarthy, who admitted the assault, claimed he merely "slapped" Pearson. In 1952, using rumors collected by Pearson as well as other sources, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy was a frequent patron at the White Horse Inn, a Milwaukee gay bar, and cited his involvement with young men. Greenspun named some of McCarthy's alleged lovers, including Charles E. Davis, an ex-Communist and "confessed homosexual" who claimed that he had been hired by McCarthy to spy on U.S. diplomats in Switzerland.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy's FBI file also contains numerous allegations, including a 1952 letter from an Army lieutenant who said, "When I was in Washington some time ago, [McCarthy] picked me up at the bar in the Wardman [Hotel] and took me home, and while I was half-drunk he committed sodomy on me." J. Edgar Hoover conducted a perfunctory investigation of the Senator's alleged sexual assault; Hoover's approach was that "homosexuals are very bitter against Senator McCarthy for his attack upon those who are supposed to be in the Government."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Although some notable McCarthy biographers have rejected these rumors, others have suggested that he may have been blackmailed. During the early 1950s, McCarthy launched a series of attacks on the CIA, claiming it had been infiltrated by communist agents. Allen Dulles, who suspected McCarthy was using information supplied by Hoover, refused to cooperate. According to the historian David Talbot, Dulles also compiled a "scandalous" intimate dossier on the Senator's personal life and used the homosexual stories to take him down.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In any event, McCarthy did not sue Greenspun for libel. (He was told that if the case went ahead he would be compelled to take the witness stand and to refute the charges made in the affidavit of the young man, which was the basis for Greenspun's story.)


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In 1953, he married Jean Fraser Kerr, a researcher in his office. In January 1957, McCarthy and his wife adopted an infant with the help of Roy Cohn's close friend Cardinal Spellman. They named the baby girl Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Senator McCarthy's first three years in the Senate were unremarkable. McCarthy was a popular speaker, invited by many different organizations, covering a wide range of topics. His aides and many in the Washington social circle described him as charming and friendly, and he was a popular guest at cocktail parties. He was far less well liked among fellow senators, however, who found him quick-tempered and prone to impatience and even rage. Outside of a small circle of colleagues, he was soon an isolated figure in the Senate.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy was active in labor-management issues, with a reputation as a moderate Republican. He fought against continuation of wartime price controls, especially on sugar. His advocacy in this area was associated by critics with a $20,000 personal loan McCarthy received from a Pepsi bottling executive, earning the Senator the derisive nickname "The Pepsi-Cola Kid".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy supported the Taft–Hartley Act over Truman's veto, angering labor unions in Wisconsin but solidifying his business base.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In an incident for which he would be widely criticized, McCarthy lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. McCarthy was critical of the convictions because the German soldiers' confessions were allegedly obtained through torture during the interrogations. He argued that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Shortly after this, a 1950 poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S. senator" currently in office.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy biographer Larry Tye has written that antisemitism may have factored into McCarthy's outspoken views on Malmedy. Although he had substantial Jewish support, notably Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Industries, Rabbi Benjamin Schultz of the American Jewish League Against Communism, and the columnist George Sokolsky, who convinced him to hire Roy Cohn and G. David Schine, McCarthy frequently used anti-Jewish slurs. He also received enthusiastic support from antisemitic politicians including Ku Klux Klansman Wesley Swift, and according to friends would display his copy of "Mein Kampf," stating, "That’s the way to do it." Tye cites three quotes from European historian Steven Remy, chief Malmedy prosecutor COL Burton Ellis JAG USA, and massacre victim and survivor Virgil P. Laru, Jr:


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile beginning on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The origin of the number 205 can be traced: in later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: At the time of McCarthy's speech, communism was a significant concern in the United States. This concern was exacerbated by the actions of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets' development of a nuclear weapon the year before, and by the contemporary controversy surrounding Alger Hiss and the confession of Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs. With this background and due to the sensational nature of McCarthy's charge against the State Department, the Wheeling speech soon attracted a flood of press interest in McCarthy's claim.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy himself was taken aback by the massive media response to the Wheeling speech, and he was accused of continually revising both his charges and figures. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a few days later, he cited a figure of 57, and in the Senate on February 20, 1950, he claimed 81. During a five-hour speech, McCarthy presented a case-by-case analysis of his 81 "loyalty risks" employed at the State Department. It is widely accepted that most of McCarthy's cases were selected from the so-called "Lee list", a report that had been compiled three years earlier for the House Appropriations Committee. Led by a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent named Robert E. Lee, the House investigators had reviewed security clearance documents on State Department employees, and had determined that there were "incidents of inefficiencies"


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: in the security reviews of 108 employees. McCarthy hid the source of his list, stating that he had penetrated the "iron curtain" of State Department secrecy with the aid of "some good, loyal Americans in the State Department". In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In response to McCarthy's charges, the Senate voted unanimously to investigate, and the Tydings Committee hearings were called. This was a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations set up in February 1950 to conduct "a full and complete study and investigation as to whether persons who are disloyal to the United States are, or have been, employed by the Department of State".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Many Democrats were incensed at McCarthy's attack on the State Department of a Democratic administration, and had hoped to use the hearings to discredit him. The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Millard Tydings, was reported to have said, "Let me have him [McCarthy] for three days in public hearings, and he'll never show his face in the Senate again."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: During the hearings, McCarthy made charges against nine specific people: Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Haldore Hanson, Gustavo Durán, Owen Lattimore, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Schuman, John S. Service, and Philip Jessup. They all had previously been the subject of charges of varying worth and validity. Owen Lattimore became a particular focus of McCarthy's, who at one point described him as a "top Russian spy".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: From its beginning, the Tydings Committee was marked by intense partisan infighting. Its final report, written by the Democratic majority, concluded that the individuals on McCarthy's list were neither Communists nor pro-communist, and said the State Department had an effective security program. The Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's charges a "fraud and a hoax", and described them as using incensing rhetoric -- saying that the result of McCarthy's actions was to "confuse and divide the American people ... to a degree far beyond the hopes of the Communists themselves". Republicans were outraged by the Democratic response. They responded to the report's rhetoric in kind, with William E. Jenner stating that Tydings was guilty of "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The full Senate voted three times on whether to accept the report, and each time the voting was precisely divided along party lines.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. McCarthy also began investigations into homosexuals working in the foreign policy bureaucracy, who were considered prime candidates for blackmail by the Soviets. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In Congress, there was little doubt that homosexuals did not belong in sensitive government positions. Since the late 1940s, the government had been dismissing about five homosexuals a month from civilian posts; by 1954, the number had grown twelve-fold. In the opinion of one writer, "Mixed in with the hysterics were some logic, though: homosexuals faced condemnation and discrimination, and most of them—wishing to conceal their orientation—were vulnerable to blackmail." Director of Central Intelligence Roscoe Hillenkoetter was called to Congress to testify on homosexuals being employed at the CIA. He said, "The use of homosexuals as a control mechanism over individuals recruited for espionage is a generally accepted technique which has been used at least on a limited basis for many years." As soon as the DCI said these words, his aide signaled to take the remainder of the DCI's testimony off the record. Political historian David Barrett uncovered Hillenkoetter's notes, which reveal the remainder of the statement: "While this agency will never employ homosexuals on its rolls, it might conceivably be necessary, and in the past has actually been valuable, to use known homosexuals as agents in the field. I am certain that if Joseph Stalin or a member of the Politburo or a high satellite official were known to be a homosexual, no member of this committee or of the Congress would balk against our use of any technique to penetrate their operations ... after all, intelligence and espionage is, at best, an extremely dirty business." The senators reluctantly agreed the CIA had to be flexible.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by "Washington Post" cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled," McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year, he published a book titled "McCarthyism: The Fight For America".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy sought to discredit his critics and political opponents by accusing them of being Communists or communist sympathizers. In the 1950 Maryland Senate election, McCarthy campaigned for John Marshall Butler in his race against four-term incumbent Millard Tydings, with whom McCarthy had been in conflict during the Tydings Committee hearings. In speeches supporting Butler, McCarthy accused Tydings of "protecting Communists" and "shielding traitors". McCarthy's staff was heavily involved in the campaign and collaborated in the production of a campaign tabloid that contained a composite photograph doctored to make it appear that Tydings was in intimate conversation with Communist leader Earl Russell Browder. A Senate subcommittee later investigated this election and referred to it as "a despicable, back-street type of campaign", as well as recommending that the use of defamatory literature in a campaign be made grounds for expulsion from the Senate. The pamphlet was clearly labeled a composite. McCarthy said it was "wrong" to distribute it; though staffer Jean Kerr thought it was fine. After he lost the election by almost 40,000 votes, Tydings claimed foul play.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In addition to the Tydings–Butler race, McCarthy campaigned for several other Republicans in the 1950 elections, including Everett Dirksen against Democratic incumbent and Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas. Dirksen, and indeed all the candidates McCarthy supported, won their elections, and those he opposed lost. The elections, including many that McCarthy was not involved in, were an overall Republican sweep. Although his impact on the elections was unclear, McCarthy was credited as a key Republican campaigner. He was now regarded as one of the most powerful men in the Senate and was treated with new-found deference by his colleagues. In the 1952 Senate elections McCarthy was returned to his Senate seat with 54.2% of the vote, compared to Democrat Thomas Fairchild's 45.6%. As of 2020, McCarthy is the last Republican to win Wisconsin's Class 1 Senate seat.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy and President Truman clashed often during the years both held office. McCarthy characterized Truman and the Democratic Party as soft on, or even in league with, Communists, and spoke of the Democrats' "twenty years of treason". Truman, in turn, once referred to McCarthy as "the best asset the Kremlin has", calling McCarthy's actions an attempt to "sabotage the foreign policy of the United States" in a cold war and comparing it to shooting American soldiers in the back in a hot war.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: It was the Truman Administration's State Department that McCarthy accused of harboring 205 (or 57 or 81) "known Communists". Truman's Secretary of Defense, George Marshall, was the target of some of McCarthy's most vitriolic rhetoric. Marshall had been Army Chief of Staff during World War II and was also Truman's former Secretary of State. Marshall was a highly respected general and statesman, remembered today as the architect of victory and peace, the latter based on the Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction of Europe, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. McCarthy made a lengthy speech on Marshall, later published in 1951 as a book titled "America's Retreat From Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall". Marshall had been involved in American foreign policy with China, and McCarthy charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the loss of China to Communism. In the speech McCarthy also implied that Marshall was guilty of treason;


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: declared that "if Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest"; and most famously, accused him of being part of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: During the Korean War, when Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur, McCarthy charged that Truman and his advisors must have planned the dismissal during late-night sessions when "they've had time to get the President cheerful" on bourbon and Bénédictine. McCarthy declared, "The son of a bitch should be impeached."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which constituted over 20% of the national vote. McCarthy identified himself as Catholic, and although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as his fame as a leading anti-Communist grew, he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers, and Catholic journals.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: At the same time, some Catholics opposed McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal "Commonweal".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and he was also a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice. It has been stated that McCarthy was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. This claim has been acknowledged by Robert's wife and Kathleen's mother Ethel, though Kathleen later claimed that she looked at her christening certificate and that her actual godfather was Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart professor Daniel Walsh.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Robert Kennedy was chosen by McCarthy to be a counsel for his investigatory committee, but he resigned after six months due to disagreements with McCarthy and Committee Counsel Roy Marcus Cohn. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. The Kennedy patriarch hoped that one of his sons would be president. Mindful of the anti-Catholic prejudice which Al Smith faced during his 1928 campaign for that office, Joseph Kennedy supported McCarthy as a national Catholic politician who might pave the way for a younger Kennedy's presidential candidacy.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. McCarthy did not campaign for Kennedy's 1952 opponent, Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., due to his friendship with the Kennedys and, reportedly, a $50,000 donation from Joseph Kennedy. Lodge lost despite Eisenhower winning the state in the presidential election. When a speaker at a February 1952 final club dinner stated that he was glad that McCarthy had not attended Harvard College, an angry Kennedy jumped up, denounced the speaker, and left the event. When Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. asked Kennedy why he avoided criticizing McCarthy, Kennedy responded by saying, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: During the 1952 presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor, George Marshall, which was a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he deleted this defense from later versions of his speech. The deletion was discovered by William H. Laurence, a reporter for "The New York Times," and featured on its front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to diminish his power and influence. Still, he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by giving the impression that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly. Oshinsky disputes this, stating that "Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal. ... Leadership, he explained, meant patience and conciliation, not 'hitting people over the head.'"


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy won reelection in 1952 with 54% of the vote, defeating former Wisconsin State Attorney General Thomas E. Fairchild but, as stated above, badly trailing a Republican ticket which otherwise swept the state of Wisconsin; all the other Republican winners, including Eisenhower himself, received at least 60% of the Wisconsin vote.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Those who expected that party loyalty would cause McCarthy to tone down his accusations of Communists being harbored within the government were soon disappointed. Eisenhower had never been an admirer of McCarthy, and their relationship became more hostile once Eisenhower was in office. In a November 1953 speech that was carried on national television, McCarthy began by praising the Eisenhower Administration for removing "1,456 Truman holdovers who were ... gotten rid of because of Communist connections and activities or perversion." He then went on to complain that John Paton Davies Jr. was still "on the payroll after eleven months of the Eisenhower Administration," even though Davies had actually been dismissed three weeks earlier, and repeated an unsubstantiated accusation that Davies had tried to "put Communists and espionage agents in key spots in the Central Intelligence Agency." In the same speech, he criticized Eisenhower for not doing enough to secure the release of missing American pilots shot down over China during the Korean War. By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catchphrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-"one" years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: As McCarthy became increasingly combative towards the Eisenhower Administration, Eisenhower faced repeated calls that he confront McCarthy directly. Eisenhower refused, saying privately "nothing would please him [McCarthy] more than to get the publicity that would be generated by a public repudiation by the President." On several occasions Eisenhower is reported to have said of McCarthy that he did not want to "get down in the gutter with that guy."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: With the beginning of his second term as senator in 1953, McCarthy was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. According to some reports, Republican leaders were growing wary of McCarthy's methods and gave him this relatively mundane panel rather than the Internal Security Subcommittee—the committee normally involved with investigating Communists—thus putting McCarthy "where he can't do any harm", in the words of Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft. However, the Committee on Government Operations included the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the mandate of this subcommittee was sufficiently flexible to allow McCarthy to use it for his own investigations of Communists in the government. McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and 27-year-old Robert F. Kennedy as an assistant counsel to the subcommittee. Later, McCarthy also hired Gerard David Schine, heir to a hotel-chain fortune, on the recommendation of George Sokolsky.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: This subcommittee would be the scene of some of McCarthy's most publicized exploits. When the records of the closed executive sessions of the subcommittee under McCarthy's chairmanship were made public in 2003–04, Senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following in their preface to the documents:


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Senator McCarthy's zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings. ... These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to re-occur.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The subcommittee first investigated allegations of Communist influence in the Voice of America, at that time administered by the State Department's United States Information Agency. Many VOA personnel were questioned in front of television cameras and a packed press gallery, with McCarthy lacing his questions with hostile innuendo and false accusations. A few VOA employees alleged Communist influence on the content of broadcasts, but none of the charges were substantiated. Morale at VOA was badly damaged, and one of its engineers committed suicide during McCarthy's investigation. Ed Kretzman, a policy advisor for the service, would later comment that it was VOA's "darkest hour when Senator McCarthy and his chief hatchet man, Roy Cohn, almost succeeded in muffling it."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The subcommittee then turned to the overseas library program of the International Information Agency. Cohn toured Europe examining the card catalogs of the State Department libraries looking for works by authors he deemed inappropriate. McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and the press. The State Department bowed to McCarthy and ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travelers, etc." Some libraries went as far as burning the newly-forbidden books. Shortly after this, in one of his public criticisms of McCarthy, President Eisenhower urged Americans: "Don't join the book burners. ... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Soon after receiving the chair to the Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy appointed J. B. Matthews as staff director of the subcommittee. One of the nation's foremost anti-communists, Matthews had formerly been staff director for the House Un-American Activities Committee. The appointment became controversial when it was learned that Matthews had recently written an article titled "Reds and Our Churches", which opened with the sentence, "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen." A group of senators denounced this "shocking and unwarranted attack against the American clergy" and demanded that McCarthy dismiss Matthews. McCarthy initially refused to do this. As the controversy mounted, however, and the majority of his own subcommittee joined the call for Matthews's ouster, McCarthy finally yielded and accepted his resignation. For some McCarthy opponents, this was a signal defeat of the senator, showing he was not as invincible as he had formerly seemed.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In autumn 1953, McCarthy's committee began its ill-fated inquiry into the United States Army. This began with McCarthy opening an investigation into the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy, newly married to Jean Kerr, cut short his honeymoon to open the investigation. He garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the army researchers, but after weeks of hearings, nothing came of his investigations. Unable to expose any signs of subversion, McCarthy focused instead on the case of Irving Peress, a New York dentist who had been drafted into the army in 1952 and promoted to major in November 1953. Shortly thereafter it came to the attention of the military bureaucracy that Peress, who was a member of the left-wing American Labor Party, had declined to answer questions about his political affiliations on a loyalty-review form. Peress's superiors were therefore ordered to discharge him from the army within 90 days. McCarthy subpoenaed Peress to appear before his subcommittee on January 30, 1954. Peress refused to answer McCarthy's questions, citing his rights under the Fifth Amendment. McCarthy responded by sending a message to Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, demanding that Peress be court-martialed. On that same day, Peress asked for his pending discharge from the army to be effected immediately, and the next day Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, his commanding officer at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, gave him an honorable separation from the army. At McCarthy's encouragement, "Who promoted Peress?" became a rallying cry among many anti-communists and McCarthy supporters. In fact, and as McCarthy knew, Peress had been promoted automatically through the provisions of the Doctor Draft Law, for which McCarthy had voted.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Early in 1954, the U.S. Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of improperly pressuring the army to give favorable treatment to G. David Schine, a former aide to McCarthy and a friend of Cohn's, who was then serving in the army as a private. McCarthy claimed that the accusation was made in bad faith, in retaliation for his questioning of Zwicker the previous year. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, usually chaired by McCarthy himself, was given the task of adjudicating these conflicting charges. Republican senator Karl Mundt was appointed to chair the committee, and the Army–McCarthy hearings convened on April 22, 1954.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The army consulted with an attorney familiar with McCarthy to determine the best approach to attacking him. Based on his recommendation, it decided not to pursue McCarthy on the issue of communists in government: "The attorney feels it is almost impossible to counter McCarthy effectively on the issue of kicking Communists out of Government, because he generally has some basis, no matter how slight, for his claim of Communist connection."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The hearings lasted for 36 days and were broadcast on live television by ABC and DuMont, with an estimated 20 million viewers. After hearing 32 witnesses and two million words of testimony, the committee concluded that McCarthy himself had not exercised any improper influence on Schine's behalf, but that Cohn had engaged in "unduly persistent or aggressive efforts". The committee also concluded that Army Secretary Robert Stevens and Army Counsel John Adams "made efforts to terminate or influence the investigation and hearings at Fort Monmouth", and that Adams "made vigorous and diligent efforts" to block subpoenas for members of the Army Loyalty and Screening Board "by means of personal appeal to certain members of the [McCarthy] committee".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Of far greater importance to McCarthy than the committee's inconclusive final report was the negative effect that the extensive exposure had on his popularity. Many in the audience saw him as bullying, reckless, and dishonest, and the daily newspaper summaries of the hearings were also frequently unfavorable.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Late in the hearings, Senator Stuart Symington made an angry and prophetic remark to McCarthy. Upon being told by McCarthy that "You're not fooling anyone", Symington replied: "Senator, the American people have had a look at you now for six weeks; you're not fooling anyone, either."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In Gallup polls of January 1954, 50% of those polled had a positive opinion of McCarthy. In June, that number had fallen to 34%. In the same polls, those with a negative opinion of McCarthy increased from 29% to 45%.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: An increasing number of Republicans and conservatives were coming to see McCarthy as a liability to the party and to anti-communism. Congressman George H. Bender noted, "There is a growing impatience with the Republican Party. McCarthyism has become a synonym for witch-hunting, Star Chamber methods, and the denial of ... civil liberties." Frederick Woltman, a reporter with a long-standing reputation as a staunch anti-communist, wrote a five-part series of articles criticizing McCarthy in the "New York World-Telegram." He stated that McCarthy "has become a major liability to the cause of anti-communism", and accused him of "wild twisting of facts and near-facts [that] repels authorities in the field".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army's chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive lawyers' association.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In an impassioned defense of Fisher, Welch responded, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman "call the next witness". At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Even before McCarthy's clash with Welch in the hearings, one of the most prominent attacks on McCarthy's methods was an episode of the television documentary series "See It Now", hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow, which was broadcast on March 9, 1954. Titled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy", the episode consisted largely of clips of McCarthy speaking. In these clips, McCarthy accuses the Democratic party of "twenty years of treason", describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of', the Communist Party", and berates and harangues various witnesses, including General Zwicker.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The following week, "See It Now" ran another episode critical of McCarthy, this one focusing on the case of Annie Lee Moss, an African-American army clerk who was the target of one of McCarthy's investigations. The Murrow shows, together with the televised Army–McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the major causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against McCarthy, in part because for the first time his statements were being publicly challenged by noteworthy figures. To counter the negative publicity, McCarthy appeared on "See It Now" on April 6, 1954, and made a number of charges against the popular Murrow, including the accusation that he colluded with VOKS, the "Russian espionage and propaganda organization". This response did not go over well with viewers, and the result was a further decline in McCarthy's popularity.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: On March 18, 1954, "Sauk-Prairie Star" editor Leroy Gore of Sauk City, Wisconsin urged the recall of McCarthy in a front-page editorial that ran alongside a sample petition that readers could fill out and mail to the newspaper. A Republican and former McCarthy supporter, Gore cited the senator with subverting President Eisenhower's authority, disrespecting Wisconsin's own Gen. Ralph Wise Zwicker and ignoring the plight of Wisconsin dairy farmers faced with price-slashing surpluses.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Despite critics' claims that a recall attempt was foolhardy, the "Joe Must Go" movement caught fire and was backed by a diverse coalition including other Republican leaders, Democrats, businessmen, farmers and students. Wisconsin's constitution stipulates the number of signatures needed to force a recall election must exceed one-quarter the number of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election, requiring the anti-McCarthy movement to gather some 404,000 signatures in sixty days. With little support from organized labor or the state Democratic Party, the roughly organized recall effort attracted national attention, particularly during the concurrent Army-McCarthy hearings.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Following the deadline of June 5, the final number of signatures was never determined because the petitions were sent out of state to avoid a subpoena from Sauk County district attorney Harlan Kelley, an ardent McCarthy supporter who was investigating the leaders of the recall campaign on the grounds that they had violated Wisconsin's Corrupt Practices Act. Chicago newspapermen later tallied 335,000 names while another 50,000 were said to be hidden in Minneapolis, with other lists buried on Sauk County farms.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Several members of the U.S. Senate had opposed McCarthy well before 1953. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, was the first. She delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" speech on June 1, 1950, calling for an end to the use of smear tactics, without mentioning McCarthy or anyone else by name. Only six other Republican senators—Wayne Morse, Irving Ives, Charles W. Tobey, Edward John Thye, George Aiken, and Robert C. Hendrickson—agreed to join her in condemning McCarthy's tactics. McCarthy referred to Smith and her fellow senators as "Snow White and the six dwarfs".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: On March 9, 1954, Vermont Republican senator Ralph E. Flanders gave a humor-laced speech on the Senate floor, questioning McCarthy's tactics in fighting communism, likening McCarthyism to "house-cleaning" with "much clatter and hullabaloo". He recommended that McCarthy turn his attention to the worldwide encroachment of Communism outside North America.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In a June 1 speech, Flanders compared McCarthy to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: On June 11, Flanders introduced a resolution to have McCarthy removed as chair of his committees. Although there were many in the Senate who believed that some sort of disciplinary action against McCarthy was warranted, there was no clear majority supporting this resolution. Some of the resistance was due to concern about usurping the Senate's rules regarding committee chairs and seniority. Flanders next introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy. The resolution was initially written without any reference to particular actions or misdeeds on McCarthy's part. As Flanders put it, "It was not his breaches of etiquette, or of rules or sometimes even of laws which is so disturbing," but rather his overall pattern of behavior. Ultimately a "bill of particulars" listing 46 charges was added to the censure resolution. A special committee, chaired by Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins, was appointed to study and evaluate the resolution. This committee opened hearings on August 31.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on two of the 46 counts: his contempt of the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration, which had called him to testify in 1951 and 1952, and his abuse of General Zwicker in 1954. The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. In place of this count, a new one was drafted regarding McCarthy's statements about the Watkins Committee itself.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats present unanimously favored condemnation and the Republicans were split evenly. The only senator not on record was John F. Kennedy, who was hospitalized for back surgery; Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted. Immediately after the vote, Senator H. Styles Bridges, a McCarthy supporter, argued that the resolution was "not a censure resolution" because the word "condemn" rather than "censure" was used in the final draft. The word "censure" was then removed from the title of the resolution, though it is generally regarded and referred to as a censure of McCarthy, both by historians


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: and in Senate documents. McCarthy himself said, "I wouldn't exactly call it a vote of confidence." He added, "I don't feel I've been lynched."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Indiana Senator William E. Jenner, one of McCarthy's friends and fellow Republicans likened McCarthy's conduct, however, to that of "the kid who came to the party and peed in the lemonade."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: After his condemnation and censure, Joseph McCarthy continued to perform his senatorial duties for another two and a half years. His career as a major public figure, however, had been ruined. His colleagues in the Senate avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or they were received with intentional and conspicuous displays of inattention.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. Eisenhower, finally freed of McCarthy's political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now "McCarthywasm".


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Still, McCarthy continued to rail against Communism. He warned against attendance at summit conferences with "the Reds", saying that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers ... without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: He declared that "co-existence with Communists is neither possible nor honorable nor desirable. Our long-term objective must be the eradication of Communism from the face of the earth." In one of his final acts in the Senate, McCarthy opposed President Eisenhower's nomination to the Supreme Court of William J. Brennan, after reading a speech Brennan had given shortly beforehand in which he characterized McCarthy's anti-Communist investigations as "witch hunts". McCarthy's opposition failed to gain any traction, however, and he was the only senator to vote against Brennan's confirmation.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy's biographers agree that he was a changed man, for the worse, after the censure; declining both physically and emotionally, he became a "pale ghost of his former self", in the words of Fred J. Cook.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: It was reported that McCarthy suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and was frequently hospitalized for alcohol abuse.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Numerous eyewitnesses, including Senate aide George Reedy and journalist Tom Wicker, reported finding him drunk in the Senate.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: He had always been a heavy drinker, and there were times in those seasons of discontent when he drank more than ever. But he was not always drunk. He went on the wagon (for him this meant beer instead of whiskey) for days and weeks at a time. The difficulty toward the end was that he couldn't hold the stuff. He went to pieces on his second or third drink, and he did not snap back quickly.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy had also become addicted to morphine. Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, became aware of McCarthy's addiction in the 1950s, and demanded he stop using the drug. McCarthy refused. In Anslinger's memoir, "The Murderers", McCarthy is anonymously quoted as saying:


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: I wouldn't try to do anything about it, Commissioner ... It will be the worse for you ... and if it winds up in a public scandal and that should hurt this country, I wouldn't care […] The choice is yours.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Anslinger decided to give McCarthy access to morphine in secret from a pharmacy in Washington, DC. The morphine was paid for by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, right up to McCarthy's death. Anslinger never publicly named McCarthy, and he threatened, with prison, a journalist who had uncovered the story. However, McCarthy's identity was known to Anslinger's agents, and journalist Maxine Cheshire confirmed his identity with Will Oursler, co-author of "The Murderers," in 1978.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on Thursday, May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown"; previously doctors had not reported him to be in critical condition. It was hinted in the press that he died of alcoholism (cirrhosis of the liver), an estimation that is now accepted by modern biographers. Thomas C. Reeves argues that he effectively committed suicide. He was given a state funeral that was attended by 70 senators, and a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass was celebrated before more than 100 priests and 2,000 others at Washington's St. Matthew's Cathedral. Thousands of people viewed his body in Washington. He was buried in St. Mary's Parish Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin, where more than 17,000 people filed through St. Mary's Church in order to pay him their last respects. Three senators—George W. Malone, William E. Jenner, and Herman Welker—had flown from Washington to Appleton on the plane that carried McCarthy's casket. Robert F. Kennedy attended the funeral in Wisconsin. McCarthy was survived by his wife, Jean, and their adopted daughter, Tierney.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In the summer of 1957, a special election was held in order to fill McCarthy's seat. In the primaries, voters in both parties turned away from McCarthy's legacy. The Republican primary was won by Governor Walter J. Kohler Jr., who called for a clean break from McCarthy's approach; he defeated former Congressman Glenn Robert Davis, who charged that Eisenhower was soft on Communism. The Democratic candidate, William Proxmire, called the late McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate, and to America." On August 27, Proxmire won the election, serving in the seat for 32 years.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: William Bennett, former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education, summed up his perspective in his 2007 book "America: The Last Best Hope":


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy's hearings are often incorrectly conflated with the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). HUAC is best known for its investigations of Alger Hiss and the Hollywood film industry, which led to the blacklisting of hundreds of actors, writers, and directors. HUAC was a House committee, and as such it had no formal connection to McCarthy, who served in the Senate, although the existence of the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in part as a result of McCarthy's activities. HUAC was active for 37 years (1938–1975).


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: From the start of his notoriety, McCarthy served as a favorite subject for political cartoonists. He was traditionally depicted in a negative light, normally pertaining to McCarthyism and his accusations. Herblock's cartoon that coined the term "McCarthyism" appeared less than two months after the senator's now famous February 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In 1951, Ray Bradbury published "The Fireman", an allegory on suppression of ideas. This served as the basis for "Fahrenheit 451" published in 1953. Bradbury said that he wrote "Fahrenheit 451" because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. Bob Hope was one of the first comedians to make jokes about McCarthy. During his 1952 Christmas show, Hope made a joke about Santa Claus writing to let Joe McCarthy know he was going to wear his red suit despite the Red Scare. Hope continued to offer McCarthy jokes as they were well received by most people, although he did receive some hate mail.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In 1953, the popular daily comic strip "Pogo" introduced the character Simple J. Malarkey, a pugnacious and conniving wildcat with an unmistakable physical resemblance to McCarthy. After a worried Rhode Island newspaper editor protested to the syndicate that provided the strip, creator Walt Kelly began depicting the Malarkey character with a bag over his head, concealing his features. The explanation was that Malarkey was hiding from a Rhode Island Red hen, a clear reference to the controversy over the Malarkey character. In 1953, playwright Arthur Miller published "The Crucible", suggesting the Salem witch trials were analogous to McCarthyism.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: As his fame grew, McCarthy increasingly became the target of ridicule and parody. He was impersonated by nightclub and radio impressionists and was satirized in "Mad" magazine, on "The Red Skelton Show", and elsewhere. Several comedy songs lampooning the senator were released in 1954, including "Point of Order" by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, "Senator McCarthy Blues" by Hal Block, and unionist folk singer Joe Glazer's "Joe McCarthy's Band", sung to the tune of "McNamara's Band". Also in 1954, the radio comedy team Bob and Ray parodied McCarthy with the character "Commissioner Carstairs" in their soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife". That same year, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio network broadcast a satire, "The Investigator", whose title character was a clear imitation of McCarthy. A recording of the show became popular in the United States, and was reportedly played by President Eisenhower at cabinet meetings. The 1953 short story "Mr. Costello, Hero" by Theodore Sturgeon was described by noted journalist and author Paul Williams as "the all-time great story about Senator Joseph McCarthy, who he was and how he did what he did."


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: "Mr. Costello, Hero" was adapted in 1958 by X Minus One into a radio teleplay and broadcast on July 3, 1956. While the radio adaptation retains much of the story, it completely remakes the narrator and in fact gives him a line spoken in the original by Mr. Costello himself, thus changing the tone of the story considerably. In a 1977 interview Sturgeon commented that it was his concerns about the ongoing McCarthy Hearings that prompted him to write the story.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: A more serious fictional portrayal of McCarthy played a central role in the 1959 novel "The Manchurian Candidate" by Richard Condon. The character of Senator John Iselin, a demagogic anti-communist, is closely modeled on McCarthy, even to the varying numbers of Communists he asserts are employed by the federal government. He remains a major character in the 1962 film version.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: The 1962 novel "Advise and Consent" by Allen Drury features an overzealous demagogue, Senator Fred Van Ackerman, based on McCarthy. Although the fictional senator is an ultra liberal who proposes surrender to the Soviet Union, his portrayal strongly resembles the popular perception of McCarthy's character and methods.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy was portrayed by Peter Boyle in the 1977 Emmy-winning television movie "Tail Gunner Joe", a dramatization of McCarthy's life. He was portrayed by Joe Don Baker in the 1992 HBO film "Citizen Cohn". Archival footage of McCarthy himself was used in the 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck" about Edward R. Murrow and the "See It Now" episode that challenged McCarthy. In the German-French docu-drama "The Real American – Joe McCarthy" (2012), directed by Lutz Hachmeister, McCarthy is portrayed by the British actor and comedian John Sessions. In Lee Daniels' 2020 film, "The United States vs. Billie Holiday", McCarthy is portrayed by actor Randy Davison.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: R.E.M.'s song "Exhuming McCarthy", from their 1987 album "Document", deals largely with McCarthy and contains sound clips from the Army-McCarthy Hearings.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: In "Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies", journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.


title: Joseph McCarthy

text: Historian John Earl Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, challenged Herman's efforts to rehabilitate McCarthy, arguing that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping them. Haynes concluded that, of the 159 people who were identified on lists used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence only substantially proved that nine of them had aided Soviet espionage efforts -- while several hundred Soviet spies were actually known based on Venona and other evidence, most were never named by McCarthy. Haynes' own view was that a number of those accused on McCarthy's lists above, perhaps a majority, likely posed some form of possible security risk, but a significant minority of others likely did not, and several were indisputably no risk at all.


title: Janet Yellen

text: Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. She previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. Yellen is the first woman to hold each of those posts and the first person to have led the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department.


title: Janet Yellen

text: Born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Yellen graduated from Brown University in 1967 and earned a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1971. She taught as an assistant professor at Harvard University from 1971 until 1976 when she began working for the Federal Reserve Board as a staff economist from 1977 to 1978 before joining the faculty of the London School of Economics from 1978 to 1980. Yellen is professor emeritus at the Haas School of Business and the University of California, Berkeley, where she has been a faculty member since 1980 and became the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business and Professor of Economics.


title: Janet Yellen

text: Yellen served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1994 to 1997 and was nominated to the position by President Bill Clinton, who then named her chair of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999. Yellen was later appointed as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2004 to 2010. Afterward, she was chosen by President Barack Obama to replace Donald Kohn as vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2010 to 2014 before nominating her to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. She had one of the shortest tenures in that position and was succeeded by Jerome Powell after President Donald Trump refused to renominate her for another term. Following her resignation from the Federal Reserve, Yellen joined the Brookings Institution as a distinguished fellow in residence. She returned to government with an appointment as secretary of the treasury under President Joe Biden since January 26, 2021. Secretary Yellen has been confirmed by the United States Senate on five separate occasions.


title: Janet Yellen

text: Yellen was born on August 13, 1946, to a family of Polish Jewish ancestry in the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City, and grew up there. Her mother was Anna Ruth (née Blumenthal; 1907–1986), an elementary school teacher who gave up her teaching job to become a stay-at-home mom. Her father was Julius Yellen (1906–1975), a family physician who worked from the ground floor of their house. Janet has an older brother, John (born 1942), a program director for archaeology at the National Science Foundation.


title: Janet Yellen

text: In a speech at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Yellen said that her father's family immigrated to the United States from Sokołów Podlaski, a small town about 50 miles outside of Warsaw. She shared that nearly the entirety of its Jewish population, including many of her relatives, was deported or murdered during the Holocaust.


title: Janet Yellen

text: Yellen attended the local Fort Hamilton High School, where she was an honor society member, and participated in the booster club, the psychology club, and the history club. She also served as editor-in-chief of "The Pilot", the school newspaper, which continued its 13-year streak as the first-place winner of the prestigious Columbia Scholastic Press Association contest under her leadership. She earned a National Merit commendation letter and was admitted to a selective science honors program at Columbia University to voluntarily study mathematics on Saturday mornings. Yellen was one of 30 students to win state Regents scholarships for college and one of a select few to win the mayor’s citation for a scholarship. She graduated in 1963 as the valedictorian of her class. In line with school tradition, for the editor to interview the valedictorian, she interviewed herself in the third person.


title: Janet Yellen

text: Yellen enrolled at Pembroke College in Brown University, initially intending to study philosophy. However, during her freshman year, she switched her planned major to economics and was particularly influenced by professors George Herbert Borts and Herschel Grossman. As a freshman in college, she also joined the business staff of "The Brown Daily Herald", but soon afterward left the paper to focus on her academic studies. Yellen graduated "summa cum laude" and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's in economics from Brown University in 1967, and earned her master's and PhD in economics from Yale University in 1971. Her dissertation was titled "Employment, Output and Capital Accumulation in an Open Economy: A Disequilibrium Approach" under the supervision of James Tobin, a noted economist who would later receive the Nobel Memorial Prize. As a teaching assistant, Yellen was so meticulous in taking notes during Tobin's macroeconomics class that they ended up as the unofficial textbook, circulated among generations of graduate students, and known as the "Yellen Notes." Her former professor and Nobel Prize in Economics laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, has called her one of his brightest and most memorable students. She later described Yale professors Tobin and William Brainard as "lifelong mentors" who laid the intellectual groundwork for her economic views. Yellen was the only woman among the two dozen economists who earned their doctorates from Yale in 1971.