The McCarthy Period :: Joseph McCarthy McCarthyism Communism

The McCarthy Period As a result of the "Red Scare" from the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union, Americans were concerned that Communists were threatening their country from within. Senator Joseph McCarthy, operating under the House Un-American Activities Committee, directed his search towards Hollywood and the intellectual community. McCarthy's committee called many members of the film and theatre community to testifiy about Communist activities, and to name any individuals who were believed to have been involved with Communist groups. Many artists and intellectuals had been involved with "leftist" ideas and causes, including Arthur Miller himself. Miller was held on trial for his previous support of left-wing causes and was found guilty for contempt of Congress. This was reversed two years later when an appeal proved he wasn't adequately informed about the risks surrounding the charges of contempt. Miller states that he was "motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set in among many liberals who, despite their discomfort with the inquisitions' violations of civil rights, were fearful, and with good reason, of being identified as covert Communists if they should protect too strongly" (Bender, 21). He goes on to say that he feels the play still holds some relevancy today in that "its paranoid center is still pumping out the same darkly attractive warning that it did in the fifties" (Bender, 21). Miller felt that _The Crucible_ works on the basis that "where evidence is only circumstantial, the dividing line between delusion and reality is difficult to draw" (Welland, 55). During the McCarthy trials, many people were named and called before courts