Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican senator from Wisconsin from 1947 until his death 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.For a history of this period, see, for example: ; He alleged that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated institutions including the United States federal government and military, universities, and the film industry. 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 McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities and came to refer to the post-war "Red Scare" period as a whole. Today, the term is used more broadly to refer to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.Onion, Rebecca, We're Never Going to Get Our “Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?” Moment , Slate, July 26, 2018
Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, McCarthy commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1942, where he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron. Following the end of World War II, he attained the rank of major.
A Democrat until 1944, McCarthy ran for the U.S. Senate in 1946 as a Republican; he narrowly defeated incumbent Robert M. La Follette Jr. in the Republican primary and then prevailed over Democrat Howard McMurray in the general election by a 61% – 37% margin amidst a nationwide Republican wave. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy suddenly rose 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. In the succeeding years, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. This included a concurrent "Lavender Scare" against suspected homosexuals, whose illicit sexual activity was presumed to make them vulnerable to blackmail by communists and others.
With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt, an outspoken McCarthy opponent, that same year,McDaniel, Rodger. Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy by a vote of 67–22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. He continued to rail against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957, though doctors had not previously reported him to be seriously ill. Reprinted May 1, 2016 His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown", which some biographers say was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.See, for example: ; ;
Early life and education Joseph Raymond McCarthy was born on November 14, 1908, on a farm in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, the fifth of nine children. His mother, Bridget McCarthy (nee Tierney), was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States to an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year.
He attended Marquette University in Milwaukee from 1930 to 1935. McCarthy worked odd jobs while at college, including as a dishwasher, parking lot attendant, and boxing coach. He first studied electrical engineering for two years before switching to law, receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1935 from Marquette University Law School.In A Conspiracy So Immense, Oshinsky states that McCarthy chose Marquette University rather than the University of Wisconsin–Madison partially because Marquette was under Catholic control and partially because he enrolled during the Great Depression, when few working-class or farm-bred students had the money to go out of state for college. See
Career McCarthy was admitted to the Wisconsin bar in 1935. While working at a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for district attorney as a Democrat in 1936. During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.Oshinsky explains this (p. 17) as resulting partially from the financial pressures of the Great Depression. He also notes (p. 28) that even during his judgeship, McCarthy was known to have gambled heavily after hours.
In 1939, McCarthy had better success when he ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge. McCarthy became the youngest circuit judge in the state's history by defeating incumbent Edgar V. Werner, who had been a judge for 24 years. In the campaign, McCarthy lied about Werner's age of 66, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office. Writing of Werner in Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America, Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he was disliked by lawyers. His judgements had often been reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases." In turn citing Michael O'Brien, McCarthy And McCarthyism in Wisconsin. Columbia, Mo. 1980.
McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the backlog he had inherited from Werner. Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he expedited them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority. When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding and relying heavily upon precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard, but he was also censured in 1941 for having lost evidence in a price fixing case.
Military service
In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.
According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero—join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?" Morgan again cites Michael O'Brien, writing in McCarthy And McCarthyism in Wisconsin.
He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron VMSB-235 in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 – February 1945), and held the rank of captain at the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe".Oshinsky describes the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe" as the result of McCarthy's wish to break the record for most live ammunition discharged in a single mission. McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He later claimed participation in 32 aerial missions which qualified him for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps decided to approve in 1952 under his political influence.Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America McCarthy also publicly claimed a letter of commendation from his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters for his men, and that he had signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it routinely.Tapestry: The History and Consequences of America's Complex Culture A "war wound"—a badly broken leg—that McCarthy attributed to varying adventures involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire, had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was used in mockery by his critics.Garraty, John (1989). 1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About American History. New York: Doubleday. p. 24O'Brien, Steven (1991). Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, p. 265
McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Senate campaign McCarthy claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while McCarthy had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943 (equal to $ today). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years.
According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May,McCarthy, The Man, the Senator, the Ism (Boston, Beacon Press, 1952) pp. 101–105. McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe," using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner." Journalist Arnold Beichman later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette.
In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won 61.2% to McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Alexander Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.
Personal life