The Red Scare (1950s).

Read Chapter 26, section 3 in your textbook. (pages 822-827) and answer the following questions. For each term or name, write a concise sentence or two explaining its significance.


1. HUAC: Most famous agency that investigated possible Communist influence, both inside and outside the U.S. government


2. Blacklist: A list of people whom they condemned for having a Communist background. People who were blacklisted had their careers ruined because they could no longer work.


3. Alger Hiss: Was accused of spying for the Soviet Union and sent him to jail for lying about passing the documents. Richard Nixon gained fame for pursuing the charges against Hiss and was elected president within 4 years. Hiss claimed that he was innocent, but in the 1990s, Soviet cables released by the National Security Agency seemed to prove Hiss's guilt.


4. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg: Minor activists in the American Communist Party. They were asked if they were communists, but they denied the charges and pleaded the fifth. They were later found guilty of espionage and sentanced to death. Judge Irving Kaufman declared their crime as "worse than murder."

5. Joseph McCarthy: January 1950, he realized that he was going to need a winning issue in order to be reelected in 1952, so he charged that Communists were taking over the government.

6. McCarthyism: Has referred to the unfair tactic of accusing people of disloyalty without providing evidence.


7. In a paragraph, describe the motivations and actions of Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s. What prompted his actions? What did he do? What happened as a result of his actions?

Joseph McCarthy seems like he was really desperate to just get reelected. He pretty much made up a story about Communists because he knew that it would get the publics' attention and kind of get them on his side so he could get reelected. I guess the best way to get their attention would be the problem that was going on during the time, Communists. McCarthy would accuse people without any evidence at all and a few times he would claim that he had the names 57, 81, and 205 Communists in the State Department. No one really tried to stop McCarthy because they believed that they would win the presidential election. But six senators, led by Senator Margaret Chase Smith, spoke up about Joseph McCarthy. In 1954, McCarthy made accusations against the U.S. Army and I think that he took it too far, which is why it cost him public support. It also could have cost him support because this was a nationally televised Senate investigation instead of just alone in the Senate. Three years later McCarthy died from alcoholism.