OPINION

May 3, 1957

JOSEPH McCARTHY: New York – America’s «Grand Inquisitor» – as Senator Joseph McCarthy had been called – died here at age 47. Just four years ago, millions of people hung on his every word, as he was busy seeking out and denouncing communists, terrorizing the US army and embarrassing even President Dwight D. Eisenhower. But some years ago his star began to wane […] His wife, Jean, who adored him, worked as his secretary. She was the one who would console him when his name no longer attracted the attention of his country’s press and public opinion. The last two years of his life were miserable. He became a nonentity, as indeed he was in reality. No one would pay any attention when he asked to speak in the Senate and his colleagues would make a point of walking out on him from the chamber. When at the height of his power, America’s magnates funded him with huge amounts of money so that he could promote «McCarthyism,» the cleansing of public departments of communists, spies and traitors, whom he imagined everywhere. His supporters then saw him as the future president of the United States. However, when they realized that he was a windbag, they wasted no time abandoning him.

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