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→Condemnation
===Condemnation===
===Condemnation and the Watkins Committee===
While, over the past few years, Senator McCarthy withstood countless biased and unsubstantiated attacks by [[Liberals]], [[Communists]], etc., the organized effort to remove McCarthy from his Chairmanship and officially condemn him began in the Spring of 1954. It was started by fellow [[Republican]] Senator [[Ralph E. Flanders]] of [[Vermont]] at the behest of a coalition of Communists, Liberals, and [[Eisenhower Administration]] officials. Flanders told the Senate that McCarthy's "anti-Communism so completely parallels that of [[Adolf Hitler]] as to strike fear into the hearts of any defenseless minority"; accused McCarthy of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."<ref>
While, over the past few years, Senator McCarthy withstood countless biased and unsubstantiated attacks by [[Liberals]], [[Communists]], etc., the organized effort to remove McCarthy from his Chairmanship and officially condemn him began in the Spring of 1954. It was started by fellow [[Republican]] Senator [[Ralph E. Flanders]] of [[Vermont]] at the behest of a coalition of Communists, Liberals, and [[Eisenhower Administration]] officials. Flanders told the Senate that McCarthy's "anti-Communism so completely parallels that of [[Adolf Hitler]] as to strike fear into the hearts of any defenseless minority"; accused McCarthy of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."<ref>
| pages = pg. 187
| pages = pg. 187
| id = ISBN 0-521-48262-3}}</ref>
| id = ISBN 0-521-48262-3}}</ref>
Flanders had obtained his hysterical list of charges against McCarthy from a left-wing group named the [[National Committee for an Effective Congress]].
In June 1954, Flanders introduced a resolution to have McCarthy removed as chair of his committees. Since there was not a majority supporting this resolution, Flanders then introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy. Initially, the resolution was not written with any particular actions or misdeeds on McCarthy's part.
Ultimately, McCarthy was accused of 46 different counts of allegedly improper conduct and another special committee was set up, under the chairmanship of Senator [[Arthur Watkins]], to study and evaluate the charges. This was to be the fifth investigation of Senator McCarthy in five years. This committee opened hearings on August 31, 1954. After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on only two of the original 46 counts.
On November 8, 1954, a special session of the Senate convened to debate the two charges. The charges to be debated and voted on were: 1) That Senator McCarthy had "failed to cooperate" in 1952 with the Senate Subcommitee on Privileges and Elections that was looking into certain aspects of his private and political life in connection with a resolution for his expulsion from the Senate; and 2) That in conducting a senatorial inquiry, Senator McCarthy had "intemperately abused" General Ralph Zwicker.
The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. Many senators felt that the Army had shown contempt for committee chairman McCarthy by disregarding his letter of February 1, 1954 and honorably discharging Irving Peress the next day. So, for this reason, the Senate concluded that McCarthy's conduct toward Zwicker on February 18th was justified.
Therefore, the Zwicker count was dropped at the last minute and was replaced with this substitute charge: 2) That Senator McCarthy, by characterizing the Watkins Committee as the "unwitting handmaiden" of the Communist Party and by describing the special Senate session as a "lynch party" and a "lynch bee," had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity."<ref>{{[http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/60.htm Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy] (1954) The United States Department of State}}</ref>
On December 2, 1954, even though more than a dozen senators told McCarthy that they did not want to vote against him but had to do so because of the enormous pressure being put on them by the [[Eisenhower Administration]] and by leaders of both political parties, the Senate voted to "condemn" Senator Joseph McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats voted unanimously in favor of condemnation and the Republicans split evenly.
====Analysis of the resolution====
The resolution condemning Senator McCarthy has been criticized as a ridiculous attempt to silence the strongest voice in the Senate investigating security and loyalty risks in the U.S. government. When examined closely, the two counts used in condemning McCarthy were hopelessly flawed.
In examining the first count, "failure to cooperate with the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections", the fact is that the subcommittee never subpoenaed McCarthy, but only "invited" him to testify. Because of this, one senator and two staff members resigned from the subcommittee because of its dishonesty towards McCarthy. In its' final report dated January 2, 1953, the subcommittee, stated that the matters under consideration "have become moot by reason of the 1952 election." Up until this moment in U.S. history, no senator had ever been punished for something that had happened in a previous Congress or for declining an "invitation" to testify. Therefore, the first count was a complete fraud and nothing more than a trumped up charge in order to damage Senator McCarthy.
The second count was even more flawed than the first. McCarthy was condemned for opinions he had expressed outside the Senate when he criticized the Watkins Committee and the special Senate session. In an editorial by David Lawrence in the June 7, 1957 issue of ''U.S. News & World Report'', other senators had accused McCarthy of lying under oath, accepting influence money, engaging in election fraud, making libelous and false statements, practicing blackmail, doing the work of the communists for them, and engaging in a questionable "personal relationship" with Roy Cohn and David Schine, but they were not censured for acting "contrary to senatorial ethics" or for impairing the "dignity" of the Senate.<ref>
{{cite book
| last = Drummey
| first = James J.
| title = The Real McCarthy Record
| publisher = The New American
| date = May 11, 1987}}</ref>
== Retrospective views on McCarthy==
== Retrospective views on McCarthy==