Joseph McCarthy and the Loss of China: A Study in Fear and Panic

Abstract

This thesis is about a political figure who is quite divisive across the political spectrum. His name has become associated with a period and a style of behavior. Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican from Wisconsin, has always held a fascination for me because so much has been written and otherwise said about him as a villain, or as a misunderstood hero, that I felt compelled to study him and his actions, for myself. As I approached the project, I made many of the same assumptions others make, such as believing his involvement in Committees that he had no involvement in, and, as became clear during the process of research, how he was but one-if major-voice, representative of larger, recurring trends within American culture and society. I admit a certain bias in my initial approach, which was to show how and why McCarthy was never right. I had not counted on items of fact such as the Venona Decrypts, which when declassified in the late Twentieth-Century, proved that McCarthy, though his methods were far from pretty, and certainly not excusable, may have been on to something from time to time. <p>Instead, what emerged was the portrait of a man and a nation emerging into the role of national and world leaders, struggling with ideas about isolation and responsibility and blinded by contradictory feelings of exceptionalism and inadequacy. There was hate, there was blame, and there was fear, panic, desire for power, ego, race, gender, constitutional violations, cowardice and bravery, on the parts of so many people from so many walks of life. I am not trying to reclaim Joseph McCarthy. That I will leave to those who are more politically and socially in line with him than I am. Instead, I hope to clear up many of the mistaken assumptions and block off the blind alleys that lead so many down rabbit holes. McCarthy, in this analysis, is part of a post-World War Two trend with its historic roots reaching back to at least the First World War. This is a study in media and politics, and how one man used and was used by, those who make the news. It is about fear, panic and the dark underbelly of American Culture.