On Feb. 9, 1950, Joseph McCarthy gave a speech that launched America into a dark period known as “McCarthyism”. The Senator from Wisconsin was looking to make a splash that would revive his moribund political career. He had recently been voted “worst senator” by the Senate press corps. He had no legislative accomplishments and was mainly known for lobbying for commutation of the war crime sentences of SS soldiers who had participated in the Malmedy Massacre. McCarthy argued the US Army had gotten confessions through torture. That’s right, he sided with Nazis over the US Army! He provided no evidence of this. He decided (or his political advisers recommended) that he would use a speech before the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia to get some press. And boy was he successful. In the speech, he made the sensational claim that the State Department was harboring 205 communists. He even held up the list. The local newspaper ran an article which quoted the claim and soon national newspapers picked up the story. It made sense to many Americans, who were looking for an explanation for why communism was on the march. China had fallen to Mao, the Soviet Union had an atomic bomb, and recently Alger Hiss had been convicted of perjury while spying in the State Department. There were a lot of knowing nods when the story came out. “I knew it!” was heard throughout the land. Suddenly, the alcoholic senator was a national celebrity and was handed the lance to slay the communist dragon. Few Americans knew that the inveterate liar was not the war hero he claimed to be. “Tail-Gunner Joe” had flown 12 milk runs in the Pacific. On one of them he was allowed to blast away at a coconut grove. He claimed to have flown 32 flak-riddled missions. He lied about receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had not broken his leg in either a crash or due to anti-aircraft fire (the story changed), but in a celebration as a ship he was on crossed the equator. And yet, starting on this day, he was to dominate American politics for the next four years.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mccarthy-says-communists-are-in-state-department
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
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