9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Imagine that one day,[br]you're summoned before a government panel.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Even though you haven't [br]committed any crime,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or been formally charged with one,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you are repeatedly questioned[br]about your political views,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
accused of disloyalty,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and asked to incriminate your friends[br]and associates.

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If you don't cooperate,[br]you risk jail or losing your job.

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This is exactly what happened in[br]the United States in the 1950s

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as part of a campaign to expose[br]suspected communists.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Named after its most [br]notorious practitioner,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the phenomenon known as McCarthyism[br]destroyed thousands of lives and careers.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
For over a decade, American political [br]leaders trampled democratic freedoms

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the name of protecting them.

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During the 1930s and 1940s,

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there had been an active but small[br]communist party in the United States.

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Its record was mixed.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
While it played crucial roles in wider [br]progressive struggles

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for labor and Civil Rights,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it also supported the Soviet Union.

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From the start, the American [br]Communist Party faced attacks

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
from conservatives and business leaders,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as well as from liberals who criticized[br]its ties to the oppressive Soviet regime.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
During World War II, when the USA[br]and USSR were allied against Hitler,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
some American communists actually[br]spied for the Russians.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
When the Cold War escalated[br]and this espionage became known,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
domestic communism came to be seen[br]as a threat to national security.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But the attempt to eliminate that threat

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
soon turned into the longest lasting[br]and most widespread episode

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of political repression [br]in American history.

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Spurred on by a network of bureaucrats,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
politicans,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
journalists,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and businessmen,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the campaign widely exaggerated[br]the danger of communist subversion.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The people behind it harassed anyone

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
suspected of holding [br]left-of-center political views

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or associating with those who did.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
If you hung modern art on your walls,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
had a multiracial social circle,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or signed petitions against[br]nuclear weapons,

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you might just have been a communist.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Starting in the lat 1940s,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
used the resources of his agency[br]to hunt down such supposed communists

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and eliminate them from any[br]position of influence

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
within American society.

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And the narrow criteria that Hoover[br]and his allies used

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to screen federal employees

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
spread to the rest of the country.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Soon, Hollywood studios,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
universities,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
car manufacturers,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and thousands of other public[br]and private employers

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
were imposing the same political tests[br]on the men and women who worked or them.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Meanwhile, Congress conducted [br]its own witchhunt

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
subpoenaing hundreds of people[br]to testify before investigative bodies

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like the House Unamerican [br]Activities Committee.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
If they refused to cooperate,[br]they could be jailed for contempt,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or more commonly, fired and blacklisted.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Ambitious politicians, like Richard Nixon

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and Joseph McCarthy

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
used such hearings as a partisan weapon

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
accusing democrats [br]of being soft on communism

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and deliberately using China[br]to the Communist Bloc.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
McCarthy, a republican senator [br]from Wisconsin

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
became notorious by flaunting[br]ever-changing lists of alleged communists

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
within the State Department.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Egged on by other politicians,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
he continued to make [br]outrageous accusations

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
by distorting or fabricating evidence.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Many citizens reviled McCarthy[br]while others praised him.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And when the Korean War broke out,[br]McCarthy seemed vindicated.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Once he became chair

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of the Senate's permanent subcommittee[br]on investigations in 1953,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
McCarthy recklessness increased.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It was his investigation of the army that [br]finally turned public opinion against him

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and diminished his power.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
McCarthy's colleagues [br]in the Senate censured him

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and he died less than three years later,[br]probably from alcoholism.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
McCarthyism ended as well.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It had ruined hundreds, [br]if not thousands, of lives

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and drastically narrowed the American[br]political spectrum.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Its damage to democratic institutions[br]would be long lasting.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In all likelihood, there were both[br]democrats and republicans

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who knew that the anti-communist[br]purges were deeply unjust

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but feared that directly opposing them[br]would hurt their careers.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Even the Supreme Court failed[br]to stop the witchhunt,