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Joseph McCarthy
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Joseph McCarthy Article

Did Joseph McCarthy cause the Red Scare of the 1950s?

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Despite being the popular face of the Red Scare that followed World War II, Joseph McCarthy did not start it. Congress and the American public widely supported anticommunist security measures in 1948 and 1950, due to contemporary anxieties after the rise of Communist China, the Korean War, and the Alger Hiss trial, among other factors. Learn more.

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