C. The U.S. realized the error of its ways and made amends.
The Salem (and Other) Witch Hunts
The Senator’s only legacy is an addition to our lexicon: “McCarthyism” is a term that stands for demagogic, scurrilous, and reckless character assassination of opponents.
All three U.S. public scares had a significant aftermath.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed a commission to investigate whether the decision to put Japanese Americans into internment camps had been justified. The commission found that it was not. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act, which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government and authorized a payment of $20,000 to each individual camp survivor.
The law admitted that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership,” and 82,219 Japanese Americans who had been interned and their heirs were paid more than $1.6 billion in reparations.
The Hollywood blacklisting officially ended in 1960, when Dalton Trumbo, a former Communist party member and a one of the Hollywood Ten, was publicly credited as the screenwriter of the highly successful film Exodus and was later publicly acknowledged for writing the screenplay for Spartacus.
While he was blacklisted, Trumbo wrote under a pseudonym the script for two Academy Awards winning movies, and in 2016, his story was the subject of a movie titled Trumbo.
McCarthy’s antics were rejected by the U.S. Senate, which on December 2, 1954, censured him by a vote of 67 to 22. It was one of the rare cases of such an extreme form of repudiation by fellow Senators, and it strongly affected McCarthy. He died three years later at the age of 48.
How were the witch hunts in the United States resolved?
A. The accused attempted to blend in with the majority.
B. The witch hunts were never again discussed.
C. The U.S. realized the error of its ways and made amends.
D. The U.S. apologized but maintained the necessity of its actions.
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