Eighty-one years ago this month Senator Joseph McCarthy, while speaking to a Republican dinner in West Virginia, held up a list which he claimed had a list of high ranking government officials who were communists. McCarthy became an instant success and one of the most powerful men in the nation for a short time. The Red Scare had been around since the end of WWII and yet no one seemed to be doing anything about it. During that time Russia had acquired an atomic bomb, China and fallen to the Communists, and North Korea had invaded South Korea. It looked to many like Truman was helpless to stop it, yet here was a man willing to act. Four years later his power will collapse, and the Senate will condemn him.
Historically Speaking 