Joseph McCarthy
U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, anti-communist demagogue
Also known as: McCarthy, Senator McCarthy, Joe McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy (1908–1957) was a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin whose 1950–1954 hunt for alleged Communist infiltration of the U.S. government Quigley reads as the domestic American manifestation of The Cold War anxieties — and as a backlash from the neo-isolationist Republican right against the Eastern Establishment that Quigley spent his career documenting.
The neo-isolationist interregnum
Quigley dates the McCarthyite phase precisely. "Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican, of Wisconsin" tried "to prove that the State Department and the army were widely infiltrated with Communists" alongside the "China lobby's" effort to demonstrate "that the Mao conquest of China was entirely due to the treasonable acts of Communist sympathizers in the government" (T&H 941). The episode anchored what Quigley calls "the massive retaliation, neo-isolationist, McCarthyite, Dulles interregnum of 1953–1957, which ran almost exactly parallel to the post-Stalin interregnum in the Soviet Union during the same years" (T&H 899). The downfall came when "McCarthy turned his extravagant charges of subversion and treason from the State Department to the army, the employees of the latter were defended by Secretary Robert Stevens, and McCarthy's downfall began" (T&H 895).
Quigley's psychological reading
Quigley's portrait of McCarthy is unusually personal for the corpus. "With him every day, every hour, was a different play. As a result, to the audience nothing was consistent with anything else. He gave several different dates for his birth, and after 1945, never the correct one (November 14, 1908)" (T&H 943). The senator's anti-Communism was a late discovery: "Until early 1950, Communism meant little to McCarthy. He had been elected to the Senate over the incumbent, La Follette, in 1946, as a result of Communist-controlled votes in the labor unions of Milwaukee" (T&H 944). The portrait positions McCarthy as a tactical opportunist rather than an ideologue — a reading consistent with Quigley's broader argument that the House Un-American Activities Committee apparatus was driven by neo-isolationist Republican faction politics rather than by considered anti-Soviet strategy.
Cited in
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 895 Quigley
When Senator McCarthy turned his extravagant charges of subversion and treason from the State Department to the army, the employees of the latter were defended by Secretary Robert Stevens, and McCarthy's downfall began.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 899 Quigley
Essential element in the massive retaliation, neo-isolationist, McCarthyite, Dulles interregnum of 1953–1957, which ran almost exactly parallel to the post-Stalin interregnum in the Soviet Union during the same years.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 941 Quigley
Much of this damage came from the efforts of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican, of Wisconsin to prove that the State Department and the army were widely infiltrated with Communists.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 943 Quigley
With him every day, every hour, was a different play. As a result, to the audience nothing was consistent with anything else. He gave several different dates for his birth, and after 1945, never the correct one.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 944 Quigley
Until early 1950, Communism meant little to McCarthy. He had been elected to the Senate over the incumbent, La Follette, in 1946, as a result of Communist-controlled votes in the labor unions of Milwaukee.