_Senator Joseph McCarthy encouraged anti-communist feelings. He accused
people of being communists, stating that he had a list of communists who
were working in government, in the army and in other important posts.
One of whom was John Service, an American Diplomat who served in the Foreign Service in China before and during WWII. With no evidence against them, hundreds of people were accused of
secretly working for the Soviet Union. The Communist Party was banned
from the USA. McCarthy ruined people’s lives. After McCarthy had accused
45 army officers of being communists, he was asked to prove this – he
had no evidence and so he lost his job. The court case was broadcast on
television. This became known as McCarthyism.
In 1947 a group of people known as the Hollywood Ten
was suspected and brought into court in front of McCarthy. They were
asked many questions for instance “Are you now or have you ever been a
member of the Communist Party?” but they refused to answer. These prominent screenwriters and directors received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. Their rufusal to answer the questions also placed them center stage in a national debate over the anti-communist crackdown in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Besides the Hollywood Ten, many members of the film industry were conviced of having communist ties and so were also banned from working for any of the big movie studios. _
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McCarthy was a Catholic and used this to his advantage, although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as his fame as a leading anti-Communist grew, he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, newspapers, and journals. McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. He also became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr, who was also very anti-Communist. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns._
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