Research Paper on:
Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism's Damage

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
but had an everlasting and damaging effect. Within those four years, some Americans first seemed satisfied that McCarthy and his committee were investigating every government office in their search for  evidence of Communists within the system during a time when Communism within the Soviet Union and North Korea were seen as a major concern. However, once it became obvious that  McCarthys accusations were unfounded and many believed his allegations were just opportunities for him to salvage his own political career, a growing distrust developed; distrust not only of McCarthy but  also of the system which allowed the hearings to continue. Americans began to question why the hearings continued because government officials themselves were afraid of being accused in the hearings  if they condemned them publicly. Included in the members of government who remained passive against McCarthy were Presidents Truman and Eisenhower who did little to improve the image of the  Presidency during that time. Overall, four years of McCarthyism led to a long-lasting and damaging distrust of elected government officials which has never recovered.  Senator Joe McCarthy (1908-1957) was a man barely known to Americans or the world much before 1950 but from the years 1950 until 1954 when he was eventually  censured by Congress, McCarthy was the instigator of the investigations of so-called Communists within the government of the United States. In Richard H. Roveres book on McCarthy, published two years  after his death, Rovere tells of the fate which faced Americans after Senator Joe McCarthy made a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia on February 9, 1950 in which he said  that "the Department of State was full of Communists and that he and the Secretary of State knew their names" (Rovere, 1996). During the 1950s and the tremendous built up