Joseph McCarthy

Joseph Raymond McCarthy November 14 1908 May 2 1957 was an American politician who served as a Republican US Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age 48 in 1957 Beginning in 1950 McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion He alleged that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government universities film industry and elsewhere Ultimately he was censured by the Senate in 1954 for refusing to cooperate with and abusing members of the committee established to investigate whether or not he should be censured The term McCarthyism coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthys practices was soon applied to similar anticommunist activities Today the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic reckless and unsubstantiated accusations as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents