Not Your Average Joe: Senator McCarthy's Fight Against the Presidency 1946-1957

Abstract

Senator Joe McCarthy from Wisconsin has become synonymous with fear mongering and red baiting in American political history due to his public fight against Communism during the 1950s. Many supported his cause but there were also many in office who did not agree with his methods or his style. Regardless of how he went about his hunt, McCarthy had a large impact on his fellow politicians in all levels of the federal government. He served as an object for many politicians to use to contrast their positions and personality with. This gave McCarthy an above average influence on policy making and governance compared to the standard senator at the time. Other historians have written about McCarthy and his interactions with the big players of this generation, but few have tied them all together and examined the true feeling of the men he battled. This paper will focus on McCarthy’s involvement with the Truman and Eisenhower administrations in terms of foreign policy, electoral politics, and governance through the examination of personal letters, memoirs, newspapers, and biographical texts. McCarthy’s influence with Truman and Eisenhower showed that his partisan brand of politics ended up uniting the two parties against him, something that is rare in contemporary American politics.