On the wave of cold war sentiment, in february 1950, senator joseph mccarthy began the infamous 'witch hunt' for communists who had supposedly mastered the us administration. a speech which took place on 9 february 1950 on a meeting group of republican women in wheeling in west virginia. the content of the speech due to the negligible media presence at such meetings is not known. it is assumed, however, that this is where mccarthy presented a document talking about the people in the state department, which are known that were members of the communist party, and which could still affect the shape of us foreign policy. senator referred to the letter of secretary of state james byrnes addressed to congressman adolph sabath in 1946. in the letter, byrnes announced that an internal investigation into the state department revealed that 284 persons should not work in the department because of the links with the communists. however, only 79 of them have been fired, the other 205 hold their positions. mccarthy mentioned only 57 people as "communists", number 205 referred to the list of people who should not work in the department by reasons of loyalty, alcoholism or lack of competence.21 december 1950 mccarthy became secretary of a special committee of the us senate. chairman of the committee was senator patrick mccarran, supported in their actions directly by president truman.
originally, the aim was to set up a committee to oppose the infiltration of government institutions by members of communist party of the united states and nkvd agents. these actions, however, quickly got out of control and have been extended by a group of senators gathered around mccarthy on invigilation of actors, directors, journalists, scientists. these activities included the interrogation of individuals from a list drawn up on the basis of personal suspicion of mccarthy, and in the case of non-cooperation in the form of administering the names of the following persons suspected of supporting or related with members of the communist party, fractured their careers. breaking it consisted in the case of persons employed in private companies to send a denunciation to their employers, and in the case of government employees on the issue of the negative reviews of their admission to state secrets. mccarthy's statement that in the state department there is a communist conspiracy, coincided with the north korean military aggression on southern neighbor and the arrest of an authentic soviet spy alger hiss, formerly incumbent high position in diplomacy, washington. to this operation senator from wisconsin may have occurred because the fear of communists in american society rose to really huge size. in january 1953, mccarthy was chairman of the senate subcommittee inquiry, whose task was to investigate the loyalty of americans. after a year hunting for communists committee has failed, also to cbs, which broadcast gave edward murrow's " see it now" on the activities of the commission. as he admitted after years, the program was a deliberate manipulation and assembly speech the senator so as to present it in a negative light. despite this, the program contributed to the end to infamous action committee. the programs appeared in the final period of work of the commission of inquiry, at a time when slowly, due to the increasingly obsessive action mccarthy was losing support even from his republican colleagues.removed from power and work in the committee was due to the dispute with the us army and intelligence (cia). in these circles, mccarthy began to self-seeking individuals associated with the communists without having to rely on the facts. mccarthy, soaked deeper into alcoholism, paranoid and in a fit of rage he accused publicly even president eisenhower.these events and the death joseph stalin in 1953, ended the first phase of the cold war. m ost of mccarthy's accusations did not cover the facts it violated the good name of many of the leading figures of the american political scene including george marshall. despite this, today opened the archives of the nkvd and the us venona project confirmed that the scale of soviet infiltration us government was indeed at that time quite high. among others there is evidence that the communist party usa was directly funded by the ussr.soviet agents were amon others julius rosenberg, klaus fuchs and theodore hall, who provided details about the american nuclear program, and mentioned alger hiss and harry dexter white, co-founder of the international monetary fund. acting blindly commission of mccarthy failed, however, to detect the most well undercover agents of the soviet union. among mentioned persons, the committee was interested only of julius rosenberg and just because his wife was briefly a member of the communist party. senate internal security subcommittee operated until 1972, but after moving mccarthy from participation in its work completely changed the rules for its operation.
