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From Wondry, I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American Scandal.

Today we're wrapping up our series on the Red Scare. In the aftermath of World War II, Americans grew increasingly afraid of Communists and the Soviet Union.

That paranoia reached a fever pitch in large part because of Joseph McCarthy, a United States Senator who would become one of the most controversial politicians in American history.

McCarthy got his start in state politics in Wisconsin. He was first elected to the US Senate in 1946. By the early 1950s, McCarthy was able to seize power after he took control of an obscure committee in the Senate.

Through that committee, McCarthy launched a wide-reaching campaign to expose Communists in the US government. His crusade ended careers and ruined lives.

And McCarthy's hunt for Communists would have sweeping effects on life of average Americans throughout the United States.

Today I'll speak with Larry Ty, a journalist and best-selling author of several books. He's written biographies that cover a broad range of subjects including Robert F. Kennedy and the comic book hero Superman.

His book, Demagog, published in 2020 tells the story of Joseph McCarthy and includes new details uncovered from McCarthy's personal records.

We'll discuss the early stages of the Red Scare which laid the foundation for McCarthy's rise. We'll also look at what made the Senator so popular and how McCarthy had a long-lasting impact on American life. That's next.

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Larry Ty welcome to American Scandal. Great to be on with you Lindsey. Our recent series looked at the rise and fall of Joseph McCarthy. And for many people McCarthy's name is synonymous with the Red Scare.

But McCarthy's era wasn't the first Red Scare Americans have been fearful of communist for years. Tell us a little bit about that early history in this earlier era.

Harry Truman launched his loyalty program and was zealously assuming that anybody who came to work for the federal government was guilty until proven innocent.

And people had to go through these loyalty tests. There were also a dizzying series of measures to keep communist out of the country as well as out of the government.

Everything from the 1939 Hatch Act that denied federal jobs to anyone belonging to an organization advocating the overthrow of the government to seven years later the so called MacKaren writer.

They gave the Secretary of State the authority to fire anybody he labeled a risk.

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