Joseph McCarthy embodies the essence of the Cold War. Between 1950 and 1954, McCarthy rose to become one of the most powerful people in America, during this era. The Cold War was focused on the fight against communism, and preventing its spreading. McCarthy was anti-Communist in every sense of the word. In 1950, he exposed employees of the State Department for their “communist infestation”. At his speech in West Virginia that year, he waved the said list of names claiming that the biggest threat to the nation was not the Soviets overseas, but the traitors who live among us. This year began McCarthy’s rise in the United States’ battle against communists. He used the political weight he carried to further himself in his place as Senator of Wisconsin.