On February 9, 1950, in Wheeling, West Virginia, a United States Senator from Wisconsin delivered a fateful speech before the Ohio County Republican Women’s Club. Forty-one years old, but looking much older, he said in his curiously nasal voice: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time. And, ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down—they are truly down.” And with a flourish that would become familiar to millions around the country, he went on: “While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205.” The second “Red Scare” (the first was in 1918-1920) was born.

Joseph Raymond McCarthy was born on November 14, 1908, in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, and grew up on the farm of his large, Irish American family. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Marquette University, and after a brief period of practicing law, launched himself into politics. After a nasty and hard-fought campaign, he became the youngest elected judge in Wisconsin history, well regarded for the speed and efficiency with which he carried out his duties.

Soon after America’s entry into World War II, he joined the Marines as a lieutenant, flew a number of combat missions–though few exposed him to any real danger. His service was relatively undistinguished; he exaggerated his wartime experiences, finished the war with the rank of captain, and returned to Wisconsin to run for the United States Senate. After an unsuccessful run in 1944, he defeated the incumbent, Robert M. La Follette, Jr., for the Republican nomination in 1946 and easily trounced his Democratic opponent in the general election. McCarthy arrived in Washington as Wisconsin’s junior senator in 1947, at the age of thirty-eight.

McCarthy’s first few years in the Senate passed by quietly enough; he was neither popular with his colleagues nor legislatively successful, but he enjoyed the trappings of power. But a 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia transformed him into an instant celebrity, and the relatively obscure politician became one of the most feared and powerful figures in Washington. It didn’t seem to matter that the number he of alleged communists he had used (205) in the Wheeling speech was soon whittled down to 57. The Cold War, and the very real espionage threat posed by the Soviet Union, ramped up the national hunt/obsession for “Reds” in and out of government.

Thousands were persecuted or imprisoned. Many lost their jobs in Washington, Hollywood, and elsewhere. Homosexuals were perceived as particular prey,—and vulnerable—to Soviet blackmail.

McCarthy’s early years of fame coincided with the latter years of the Truman administration, many members of whom were accused of being soft on Communism—or worse—by McCarthy. President Truman despised the Wisconsin senator, calling him “the best asset the Kremlin has.” Truman was right: a top-secret American espionage program, the Venona project, had revealed that influential figures such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Klaus Fuchs, Alger Hiss, and others were indeed Soviet agents. It was clear to those knowledgeable that the scale of Communist penetration into American government and society was vast. But the program was kept classified for decades, and the main figures implicated by it were not on McCarthy’s “list.” The cause of anti-Communism was a noble and necessary one, and McCarthy did much to discredit it.

After leaving office, Truman was critical of his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, for not standing up to McCarthy with sufficient zeal. He wrote:

It is now evident that the present Administration has fully embraced, for political advantage, McCarthyism. I am not referring to the Senator from Wisconsin. He is only important in that his name has taken on the dictionary meaning of the word. It is the corruption of truth, the abandonment of the due process law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of society.

Eisenhower, however, refused to “get down in the gutter with that guy.”

As chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953, McCarthy wielded significant power, launching probes into alleged communist influence in government, academia, Hollywood, and the military. His hearings were theatrical, often televised, and marked by bullying tactics. Witnesses were intimidated, reputations ruined, and careers destroyed based on little or no evidence. McCarthy’s accusations often relied on guilt by association, targeting individuals for their political beliefs, past affiliations, or even tenuous connections to leftist organizations.

At the height of his powers, he enjoyed bipartisan support. Joseph Kennedy was a fan, and his son, Robert, the future attorney general, served on McCarthy’s committee staff. Like many Catholics, they felt instinctively drawn to the combative Irishman from Wisconsin and shared his loathing of Communism.

One of the most dramatic moments of the era occurred during a hearing of McCarthy’s committee in 1954, when Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army, came under withering attack from the Wisconsin senator. An outraged Welch demanded of McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” His fury was shared by millions of Americans who believed that McCarthy, whether driven by ambition or sincere anti-Communism, had gone too far.

Most of his colleagues agreed, and McCarthy was censured by the Senate in a 67 to 22 vote. He remained in office, but his once-fearsome power quickly drained away. He had always been a drinker, but he descended deeper into alcoholism and drug addiction during his last years in the Senate.

McCarthy died on May 7, 1957, aged only forty-eight. His time in the political spotlight was brief, but his impact was profound. His name has long been a byword for reckless attacks and slander, but he delighted in the word, “McCarthyism,” defining it as “Americanism with its sleeves rolled.”

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Michael F. Bishop, a writer and historian, is the former executive director of the International Churchill Society and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.