"Have You No Decency, Sir?"

HISTORY This Week

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History, Society & Culture

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🗓️ 12 June 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

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Summary

June 9, 1954. Senator Joseph McCarthy has accused the United States Army of having communists within its midst. After rising to power during a time of great fear in America, McCarthy's name has become synonymous with anti-communism – and with baseless, life-ruining accusations. But today, five simple words will take down one of the most notorious men in American political history.

What made McCarthy so powerful in the first place? And how did that very same thing eventually bring him down?

Thank you to our guest, Ellen Schrecker, historian, author and expert on McCarthyism.

Thank you to Thomas Doherty, Professor of American Studies at Brandeis University, for speaking with us for this episode. He is the author of Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture.

** This episode originally aired June 8, 2020.

Transcript

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0:00.0	History this week, June 9, 1954.
0:07.0	I'm Sally Helm.
0:10.0	20 million Americans are watching a Senate hearing on TV.
0:18.0	It's a battle between the United States Army
0:21.0	and a man named Joseph McCarthy.
0:25.1	They're arguing about communists.
0:27.9	Apparently every time anybody says anything against anybody
0:31.8	working for Senator McCarthy,
0:33.5	he is hearing them and is he accusing them of communism.
0:37.7	At this point, McCarthy is known them any of the accusing of communism. At this point, McCarthy is known as the nation's top communist hunter.
0:44.1	And on one of the last days of these hearings, the people watching on TV see him do the thing he's famous for.
0:52.0	He accuses someone of having ties to communism. When he makes this accusation,
0:59.6	McCarthy looks calm. He's done this a million times. He's holding his glasses in one hand,
1:05.1	sort of toying with them. Meanwhile, the guy on the other side of these hearings is getting
1:10.2	angrier and angrier. His name is Joseph Welch. He's the guy on the other side of these hearings is getting angrier and angrier.
1:12.6	His name is Joseph Welch. He's the lawyer for the army.
1:15.6	A pillar of the establishment. He's wearing a bow tie.
1:19.6	And as he listens to McCarthy talk, Welch takes his glasses off, puts them back on, puts his hand on his forehead.
1:28.1	He's agitated.
1:29.8	McCarthy keeps talking until finally Welch cuts him off.
1:34.5	Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that laugh.
1:43.6	McCarthy starts to respond, and Welch kind of loses it.
	...

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