Joe McCarthy was the senator from Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. McCarthy saw a communist or a communist sympathizer behind every bush (no pun intended). In 1950, McCarthy was the voice and the face of what can only be called the anticommunism movement. According to McCarthy, the government of the United States was filled with communist sympathizers and Soviet spies.
McCarthy was particularly obsessed with the entertainment industry as a whole and the movies in particular. Because of his accusations, writers, directors, actors, and actresses were blacklisted and their movie careers ended.
Records of the subcommittee that Joe McCarthy chaired were released in 2003. Senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following as a preface to the documents:
"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 reoccur."
McCarthy wielded a great deal of power during those years. America was locked in the Cold War with Russia. Communism was a thing to fear and in the beginning Americans wanted Joe McCarthy to rid the world of the communist influence. Later, America turned against McCarthy when he was exposed as an incompetent and malcontent — but not before he had inflicted a great deal of damage on the movie industry.
Read more on the subject - Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies
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