In 1950, Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy gained a large national following as he began using his chairmanship of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to hunt for Communists in government. He baselessly charged that hundreds of Communists had infiltrated the State Department and that homosexuals working in foreign policy could be blackmailed by the Soviet Union, accusations that gave him a large national following.
On March 9, 1954, CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow exposed Joseph McCarthy with the following words:
“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.
“This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities.
“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
“As a nation, we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies.
And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right: ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’”
“At Long Last, Sir, Have You Left No Sense of Decency?”
McCarthy was also investigating the United States Army, which hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch, a native of Waltham as its legal representative. At McCarthy’s televised hearing on June 9, 1954, he charged that Fred Fisher, a junior attorney at Welch’s law firm was affiliated with communists. Welch responded with the immortalized words, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…At long last, Sir, have you left no sense of decency?”
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy by a vote of 67–22. The press began ignoring McCarthy as his popularity plummeted, and he died three years later at age 48 of hepatitis and acute alcoholism.
Historic Ipswich 
….and this is why we study history! The trappings are different, but the truth remains. History does indeed repeat itself. We must heed the warnings.
Your comments on McCarthy are poignant, timely and needed. What I hear from Harris is what at they want to do for te country all I hear from trump is what an angry, desperate old man is going to do TO the country.