Although the State Department was now controlled by Dulles, a Republican and hard-line anticommunist, Senator McCarthy refused to moderate his attacks on the department. In 1953 television newscaster Edwin R. Murrow cast doubt on McCarthy’s methods; soon he and McCarthy were verbally pummeling each other on television.
But McCarthy finally overreached himself. Early in 1954 he turned his guns on the army, accusing Pentagon officials of trying to blackmail his committee. The resulting Army-McCarthy hearings, televised before the country, and Murrow’s increasingly sharp criticisms, proved the senator’s undoing. For weeks his dark scowl, his blind combativeness, and his disregard for every human value stood exposed for millions to see. When the hearings ended in June 1954 after some million words of testimony, his spell had been broken.
The Senate, with President Eisenhower (who despised McCarthy but who considered it beneath his dignity as president to “get into the gutter with that guy”) applying pressure behind the scenes, at last moved to censure him in December 1954. This reproof completed the destruction of his influence. Although he continued to issue statements and wild charges, the country no longer listened. In 1957 he died of cirrhosis of the liver.
World History
