During a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican-Wisconsin) claims that he has a list with the names of over 200 members of the Department of State that are “known communists.” The speech vaulted McCarthy to national prominence and sparked a nationwide hysteria about subversives in the American government.
Speaking before the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator McCarthy waved before his audience a piece of paper. According to the only published newspaper account of the speech, McCarthy said that, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 [State Department employees] that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.”
In the next few weeks, the number fluctuated wildly, with McCarthy stating at various times that there were 57, or 81, or 10 communists in the Department of State. In fact, McCarthy never produced any solid evidence that there was even one communist in the State Department.
Despite McCarthy’s inconsistency, his refusal to provide any of the names of the “known communists,” and his inability to produce any coherent or reasonable evidence, his charges struck a chord with the American people. The months leading up to his February speech had been trying ones for America’s Cold War policies. China had fallen to a communist revolution. The Soviets had detonated an atomic device. McCarthy’s wild charges provided a ready explanation for these foreign policy disasters: communist subversives were working within the very bowels of the American government.
To be sure, McCarthy was not the first to incite anxiety about subversive communists. Congress had already investigated Hollywood for its supposed communist influences, and former State Department employee Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury in January 1950 for testimony dealing with accusations that he spied for the Soviet Union during the 1930s. But McCarthy went a step further, claiming that the U.S. government, and the Department of State in particular, knew that communists were working in their midst.
“McCarthyism,” as the hunt for communists in the United States came to be known during the 1950s, did untold damage to many people’s lives and careers, had a muzzling effect on domestic debate on Cold War issues, and managed to scare millions of Americans. McCarthy, however, located no communists and his personal power collapsed in 1954 when he accused the Army of coddling known communists. Televised hearings of his investigation into the U.S. Army let the American people see his bullying tactics and lack of credibility in full view for the first time, and he quickly lost support. The U.S. Senate censured him shortly thereafter and he died in 1957.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
McCarthy may have been a loud mouth with nothing to show for but there were active agents in the White house long before 1950. Alger Hiss who had been only condemned of perjury was one of many. Roosevelt betray the US at Yalta and surrendered to Stalin’s every wish. (BTW Roosevelt knew that soviets were involved in the Katyn Massacre https://conservapedia.com/Katyn_Massacre)
He gave the soviets right to over half of the Western World.
How is telling the truth about communist infiltrating US government being a loudmouth. Is this a preemptive virtue signal? McCarthy was the only Congressman that had any guts. There should be statues of him on every city/town square in America.
The biggest mistake McCarthy made was thinking the American sheeple, including the so called “greatest” would back him in calling out communists in US government. He was badly mistaken and died a broken man, instead of the national hero he was.
“When Senator McCarthy began his campaign against traitors and enemy agents in American armed forces and government, the colonel [in the CIA] took it upon himself to warn the Senator that he drastically underestimated the power of our domestic enemies and would be ruined, if he persisted in annoying them . McCarthy, who may have doubted the estimate of the forces covertly arrayed against him, replied, “No the America people will never let me down.”
Prof. Revilo P. Oliver
America’s Decline: The Education of a Conservative
https://archive.org/details/AmericasDecline1983V2
FDR was a Bolshevik and opened the halls of American government to Soviet raiders.
Two book on Roosevelt worth reading. One by a liaison officer in the lend- lease program and another by son-in-law. Roosevelt should have been hung for treason.
Be forewarned. The information contained in both these books is infuriating because both because our entire government was involved in the outright theft, murder and other crimes against against Americans, including treason, yet justice was never served. Your head may explode.
From Major Jordans Diaries
by George Racey Jordan
https://archive.org/details/FromMajorJordansDiaries1952Signed?q=from+major+jordan%27s+diaries
Franklin Delano Roosevelt FDR My Exploited Father In Law ( 1970)
by Curtis B. Dall
https://archive.org/details/DallCurtisB.FranklinDelanoRooseveltFDRMyExploitedFatherInLaw1970
Don’t get me wrong. I call loudmouth anyone who try to awaken the world without the least piece of evidence. Had he proved the FDR involvement with Stalin, he would have won the senate over. Had he researched the Alger Hiss case, he would have had some proof to substantiate his claims. I’m a staunch anti-commie, but before I talk, I search the truth because I don’t want to hurt innocent people not even collaterally. Forgive me for being blunt, but had McCarthy worked harder instead of creating a witch-hunt he may very well have clean DC in the 50’s.
BTW thanks for the links
McCarthy was thwarted by the very same people that blacked Trump’s MAGA and stole the election. Congressman and even Presidents don’t have the power most people imagine. For example , even though he pushed as hard as he could, Nixon couldn’t get the CIA to release the Bay of Pigs file . He was lucky he was impeached instead of JFkd .
BTW, the Venona cables proved McCarthy right.
You’re right, however DC’s invasion by the Bolsheviks goes back the end of WW1. Remember Jacob Schiff pay 20 millions Dollars to the Bolsheviks
McCarthy was right. How about we put names to the communists currently working hard to destroy what is left of America and freedom. You have many that you can start with as many are avowed communists. Go for it folks and see how close you really are to the truth.
You would be lucky today to find 2 members of the department who are NOT communists.
And now in 2021, they are in EVERY department.
And damned if he wasn’t right.
To this day we still hear the echo’s of the John Birch Society from those days in the 60’s . They were right in many ways .
McCarthy was correct of course, and the psychological warfare that works today, “demonization” “conspiracy theory” worked then. If we were to launch an international coalition to save western civilization, it would reignite the communist purge in our governments and media.