The correct answer is:
D. He accused people of ties to communism without evidence.
The Salem (and Other) Witch Hunts
The start of the “Second Red Scare” is usually traced to a speech that Joseph McCarthy, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, delivered on February 9, 1950, to the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling in West Virginia. Already prominent as a rabid anti-communist, he waved a sheet of paper and announced, “I have here in my hand a list of 205” members of the Communist party who, he claimed, “are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
McCarthy never released the alleged list of names or proved any of his charges, but his reckless and vicious accusations made him both feared and famous.
During his brief political career, he made undocumented charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, and homosexuality against hundreds of politicians and non-government individuals. His attacks included the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the United States Army.
Government employees and workers in private industry, whose characters and loyalties were smeared by McCarthy’s broad brush, lost their jobs. His crusade of slander ended four years after it started when his charges were rejected during televised McCarthy-Army hearings in 1954, and he was publicly denounced by fellow Republicans and Edward R. Morrow, a leading TV journalist.
How did Joseph McCarthy contribute to the Red Scare?
A. He provided valid evidence that communists were in the U.S.
B. He worked with Truman's administration to combat communism.
C. He protected the U.S. from communist supporters.
D. He accused people of ties to communism without evidence.
choose the correct answer
1 answer
1 answer