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Joseph Mccarthy: The Rise And Fall Of Communism

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Joseph McCarthy, born on November 14th, 1908 in Grand, Chute Wisconsin was a U.S senator that was elected in 1946. In 1950, he was famous for making a public charge that 205 communists infested the State Department. From 1953 to 1957, Joseph McCarthy was married to his wife, Jean kerr and they had a child named Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy. In 1935, he earned a law degree from Marquette University and became one of the youngest circuit court judge in Wisconsin’s history. Despite of this achievement and in order to benefit his political career later, he quitted his job and joined the Marines during World War 2.

When World War 2 began, he volunteered for the Marine Corps and was stationed in the Pacific battlefield. In 1946, he won a Senate seat …show more content…

For the next two years, he began to question numerous officials in the State Departments in the hope to backup his claims. Joseph McCarthy accused several innocent citizens of being associated with communism with groundless claims, but he was unable to unmask any communist among them.

Joseph McCarthy’s downfall began in October of 1953 when he started to question if the Military was infested with Communism. The Army fired back with accusations and started revealing information about him. Reporters started publishing unflattering articles about him and he eventually lost his position as the Chairman of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. The media became uninterested in his communist allegations and he was eventually stripped of his power and fell from the public eye

Just a few years later, on May 2, 1957, Joseph McCarthy died of Acute Hepatitis due to his heavy drinking. He passed away at the Bethesda Naval Hospital at the age of 48, with his wife at his side. The effects of the McCarthy era symbolized the nation’s fear about the presence of communist living among them. Joseph McCarthy changed many innocent citizens lives by making baseless claims that they were part of the Communist Party. He made use of the country’s fear of Communism to rise to

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