The Second Red Scare

After 1945 the Soviet Union went from wartime ally to rival, and Americans learned it had atomic bombs and a spy network years faster than expected. That shock turned outward fear of the Soviet army into inward suspicion: if spies had already reached Washington, the enemy was not just abroad but embedded at home. The House Un-American Activities Committee, HUAC, had existed since 1938, but it now ran high-profile hearings calling witnesses, often in entertainment or government, to testify about communist ties. A witness who refused to name other suspected communists, often citing the Fifth Amendment, could be held in contempt of Congress, blacklisted from their industry, or jailed. Separately, President Truman's 1947 federal loyalty program screened millions of government employees for subversive associations; investigations were sweeping, but the number actually dismissed for disloyalty stayed small, since real evidence of espionage was rare.

McCarthy did not start this. Fear was already rising from the Alger Hiss case, where a former State Department official was convicted of perjury over espionage accusations in 1950, and the 1951 conviction and 1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing atomic secrets. McCarthy entered the scene in February 1950 with unverified claims of communists in the State Department, and he rode the fear already in the air to national power, using accusation itself as proof.

His downfall came from the same publicity that built him. The 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings were broadcast live, and viewers watched him bully witnesses and bluff without evidence. Public and Senate support collapsed fast, he was censured, and the era's fever broke, though loyalty politics shaped Cold War culture for years after.