Principles and Heresies

The Meaning of McCarthyism

Now, a year after Senator McCarthy’s death and three years or more after his political execution by the Watkins Committee, it should be possible to assess with reasonable objectivity the meaning of that movement of thought and action which the Liberals dubbed McCarthyism. It is too soon perhaps to grasp its significance sub specie aeternitatis, but we are sufficiently removed from the immediate clamors of those extraordinary years between 1950 and 1954 to abstract from the surface aspects, to see beyond the strengths and weaknesses of Senator McCarthy himself, to begin to delineate what it was that lay beneath those clamors and gave so intense a sense of urgency to those years.

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

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The Meaning of McCarthyism

Now, a year after Senator McCarthy’s death and three years or more after his political execution by the Watkins Committee, it should be possible to assess with reasonable objectivity the meaning of that movement of thought and action which the Liberals dubbed McCarthyism. It is too soon perhaps to grasp its significance sub specie aeternitatis, but we are sufficiently removed from the immediate clamors of those extraordinary years between 1950 and 1954 to abstract from the surface aspects, to see beyond the strengths and weaknesses of Senator McCarthy himself, to begin to delineate what it was that lay beneath those clamors and gave so intense a sense of urgency to those years.