Interviewees:
John Sherman Cooper, politician, jurist, and diplomat from the
U.S. state of
Kentucky
Herbert O'Conor, a
Democrat, was the 51st
Governor of Maryland in the
United States from
1939 to
1947. He also served in the
United States Senate, representing
Maryland from 1947 to
1953.
Homer S. Ferguson,
United States Senator from
Michigan
Hubert Humphrey, served under
President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th
Vice President of the United States.
Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from
Minnesota, and served as
Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and
Americans for Democratic Action. He also served as
Mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota from
1945 to 1948. Humphrey was the nominee of the
Democratic Party in the
1968 presidential election but lost to the
Republican nominee,
Richard Nixon.
Irving Ives,
American politician. A member of the
Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from
New York from 1947 to
1959. He was previously a member of the
New York State Assembly for sixteen years, serving as
Minority Leader (1935), Speaker (1936), and
Majority Leader (1937--1946). A moderate Republican, he was known as a specialist in labor and civil rights legislation.
John Sparkman, American politician from the U.S. state of
Alabama. A
Southern Democrat,
Sparkman served in the
U.S. House of Representatives and the
U.S. Senate from
1937 until
1979. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President as
Adlai Stevenson's running mate in the
1952 U.S. presidential election.
Joseph McCarthy, American politician
Joseph Raymond "
Joe" McCarthy (
November 14,
1908 -- May 2,
1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican
U.S. Senator from the state of
Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957.
Beginning in
1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which
Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and
Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the
United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.
The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities.
Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and/or patriotism of political opponents.
Born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, McCarthy earned a law degree at
Marquette University in 1935 and was elected as a circuit judge in 1939, the youngest in state history. At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the
United States Marine Corps and served during
World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in
1946, defeating
Robert M. La Follette, Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the
Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the
Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the
State Department. McCarthy was never able to prove his sensational charge.
In succeeding years, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of
President Harry S. Truman,
Voice of America, and the
United States Army. He also used charges of communism, communist sympathies, or disloyalty to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. With the highly publicized Army--McCarthy hearings of
1954, McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On
December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure
Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67 to 22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. McCarthy died in
Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The official cause of death was acute hepatitis; it is widely accepted that this was caused, or at least exacerbated, by alcoholism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_mccarthy
- published: 07 Oct 2012
- views: 2211