Shooting star
Subtitle: the brief arc of Joseph McCarthy
By: Tom Wicker.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Harcourt
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Orlando
Language: eng
Number of pages: 212
ISBN-13: 9780151010820
Subjects: McCarthy, Joseph, 1908-1957.; United States. Congress. Senate -- Biography.; Legislators -- United States -- Biography.; Anti-communist movements -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Internal security -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; United States -- Politics and government -- 1945-1953.; United States -- Politics and government -- 1953-1961.
Genres: Biography.
Description: Joe McCarthy first became visible to the nation on February 9, 1950, when he delivered a Lincoln Day address to local Republicans in Wheeling, West Virginia. That night he declared, "I have here in my hand a list of 205 [members of the Communist Party] still working and shaping policy in the State Department." Anticommunism was already a cause embraced by the Republican Party as a whole; McCarthy tapped into this current and turned it into a flood. Little more than five years later, after countless hearings and stormy speeches and after incalculable damage to ordinary Americans and the nation itself, McCarthy's Senate colleagues voted 67-22 to censure him for his reckless accusations and fabrications. We know today that not one prosecution resulted from McCarthy's investigations into communists in the U.S. government.--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.