American Decades

Important Events in Government and Politics, 1950–1959

J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, publicly opposes the creation of a national police agency to control domestic communists.
On January 25, Alger Hiss, the State Department official under investigation for his communist ties, receives a five-year prison sentence for perjury.
On February 9, at Wheeling, West Virginia, the politically obscure senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) charges that there are "a lot" of communists working and making policy in the United States State Department.
On March 8, Senator McCarthy lists fifty-seven communists he claims are employed in the State Department.
On March 28, President Harry S. Truman launches an investigation into officials cited by Senator McCarthy as communists.
On June 6, Senator McCarthy claims that at least three top officials in the State Department are communists.
On June 15, David Greenglass confesses to providing the...

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