One thing to remember in discussing the Communists in our government is that we are not dealing with spies who get thirty pieces of silver to steal the blueprints of a new weapon. McCarthy was elected to the Senate in 1946 and rose to prominence in 1950 when he claimed in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that 57 communists had infiltrated the State Department, adding: The term has since become a byname for defamation of character or reputation by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations, especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin produce a series of investigations and hearings during the 1950s in an effort to expose supposed communist infiltration of various areas of the U.S. McCarthyism, name given to the period of time in American history that saw U.S.
