Who was Senator Joseph McCarthy and what is he notorious for?
In the 1950’s Senator Joeseph McCarthy initiated a program in Congress to hunt down and prosecute communists in the United States, who were believed to be effectively acting as agents of the Soviet Union, and to be traitors to their own country; this program became known as a witch-hunt, since it was conducted with a similar paranoia and disregard for evidence as a medieval accusation of witchcraft. The chief agency for this witch-hunt was the notorious House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC). The judgment of history is that no actual Soviet agents were ever uncovered by these efforts, although the lives of many innocent people were harmed. This remains one of the ugliest episodes of American history.
