American Experience Presents: The Birth of McCarthyism

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

GBH

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

American Experience is television's most watched history series. We're bringing you an episode of their new podcast, American Experience Presents: The Birth of McCarthyism.

Joseph McCarthy grows up on a Wisconsin farm where he learns the value of hard work. After serving in World War II, he capitalizes on his military service to launch a successful Senate campaign. As the Cold War intensifies, McCarthy seizes the opportunity to exploit public fears of communism, framing himself as a defender of American democracy. Discover how his rise coincides with a national climate of paranoia, setting the stage for the demagoguery that would define McCarthy's career—all against the backdrop of a nation grappling with its identity and values.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rainey Ernst & Roth, editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline.
0:05.7	Today we're bringing you something special from our colleagues at GBAH.
0:10.2	American Experience Presents is a new podcast from television's most-watch history series American Experience.
0:17.8	Their first episode is the story of Joseph McCarthy, a name that might sound familiar, but whose full story may surprise you.
0:26.0	From a small Wisconsin farm to the halls of Congress, McCarthy's rise to power sparked an era of fear that changed America forever.
0:34.7	We'll be back with more episodes of the Frontline Dispatch in the New Year.
0:38.9	Here's American Experience Presents, Joseph McCarthy.
0:43.0	The Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation, committed to excellence in journalism,
0:48.7	and by the Frontline Journalism Fund, with major support from John and Joanne Hagler.
0:59.0	There are moments in American history when the country is afraid, when there is a threat that is hard to define,
1:03.0	and it's in those periods that demagogues arise.
1:08.0	I often think of the days I spent back on the farm as a small boy, I had three brothers.
1:15.8	My mother used to raise chickens to help pay the grocery bills and get her Christmas money.
1:23.3	And one of the jobs I had with my three brothers was to get down into these swamps and dig out the skunks that used to come up and kill her baby chickens.
1:30.4	You'll learn early in life that you don't go skunk hunting with striped trousers, a silk handkerchief on a top hat.
1:37.0	You just can't do it.
1:41.6	Joe McCarthy is a person who, for what he thought were the right reasons, did all the wrong things.
1:47.0	Did you ever discuss any confidential material with a member of the Communist Party?
1:53.0	Answer that, yes or no.
1:55.0	And really inflicted a great deal of pain and anguish on individuals but on the society as a whole. My dear sir, I have never consulted with a communist party in any manner regarding the writing of the four books I have written.
2:07.6	Now, are you a book burning? You lack only the Tinder to set fire to the books as Hitler did 20 years ago.
2:14.6	Whenever politicians resort to demagoguery, they really
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