The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy [Hardcover]

Well written and very informative. Appropriate for adults, high school students, and gifted middle school students. The author does not ignore controversial topics, such as questions about peoples' sexual orientation and how the prejudices of the 50s were used against people. He constructs a portrait of McCarthy that humanizes him more than other texts. McCarthy comes off more pitiful than evil. Everything McCarthy did, and the responses to him, are placed in the context of the age in which he lived. This book has a slightly left of center political orientation, but the author goes out of his way to remain objective and as unbiased as possible, considering the topic.

The photos supplement the text well.

I highly recommend this book. Like many young adult non-fiction books, they can be a great way for adults to quickly learn about topics about which they would like to know more.

For five years (1950-54) of his two term tenure in the Senate, Joe McCarthy was one of the most well-known politicians in America. McCarthy was the nation's most notable fighter of Communist subversives during a time when it was an important issue for the American constituency. `The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy' by James Cross Giblin gives the reader a meaty yet succinct portrayal of the conservative senator from Wisconsin.

His style of politics is still used today, although anyone who uses guilt by association or who makes unfounded accusations runs the risk of becoming an easy target for opponents. Joe McCarthy first used these tactics to attack the city editor of the Madison Capital Times, and he got more publicity for questioning the loyalty of Cedric Parker than anything he had done before. Shortly after that, McCarthy made a speech at West Virginia where he claimed 205 Communists were in the State Department. McCarthy received thousands of letters from supporters for his crusade against security risks.

Several world events made it a propitious time for McCarthy to fight Communism in the United States. Russian scientists detonated a nuclear bomb, and there were rumors that spies had passed them secrets to help them develop this technology. Just over a month later, Mao Zedung crushed the Nationalist Army of Chiang Kai-shek for control of China. Alger Hiss was convicted of two charges of perjury related to Communist spying a month after that, and Dr. Klaus Fuchs was arrested in London as a Soviet spy.

The 1952 midterm elections made McCarthy as powerful as he was popular. He gave a speech at the Republican National Convention where the punch line said One Communist in any agency is One Communist Too Many. You can just imagine the delegates reciting it along with McCarthy. He handily won his reelection bid, while his foes were defeated - not just in Burton in 1952, but Tydings in 1950. The Republicans also won a majority of the House and Senate, which gave McCarthy chairmanship of a subcommittee on Government Operations that McCarthy used to investigate Communists.

`I can investigate anybody,' McCarthy boldly stated. At first, it was a promise to the American people in the early 1950s. McCarthy was popular for his investigations into Fort Monmouth and Irving Peress, but he lost his way trying to place a dunce cap on Ralph Zweicker, a genuine hero from D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. It ultimately led to the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, where the Army came off sympathetically and McCarthy did not. A good supplement to this book is the 1964 documentary film, `Point of Order,' which contains riveting excerpts from the hearings.

By 1954, the country became more interested in avoiding nuclear conflict than raking over charges of subversion and espionage. The mid-term elections of 1954 returned the House and Senate to Democratic majorities. People were beginning to see the dark side of Communist inquiries, and they didn't like the encroachment on civil liberties. The accusatory style of McCarthy rubbed people the wrong way, particularly when it was used against Annie Lee Moss.

This was a fine summary of McCarthy's career; but it could have used a longer post-script. Two pages hardly seemed enough. There's no follow-up to Fred Fisher. There are no quotes from people today assessing McCarthy's career, just comments pro and con, basically along party lines, at his death. It is nevertheless a quick, enjoyable synopsis of a very important Senator who shaped Cold War policy during part of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.

Incredibly written book. It portrayed tons of information in ways a five-year-old could understand. It was a little bias but these days it is hard to find anything on the subject that isn't. I knew nothing about the McCarthy era when i first picked up the book and now I know everything.

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