In the spring of 1954, the blustering anticommunist crusader, Senator Joseph McCarthy, set his sights on a new target: the United States Army, alleging Communist infiltration of the Army Signal Corps lab at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey - the same lab where Julius Rosenberg had once worked. In turn, the Army accused McCarthy of using his position to pressure them into giving preferential treatment to his former aide, G. David Schine. The hearings, which were televised live on ABC and the DuMont network, and watched by an estimated 80 million people, unveiled to the nation the true cost of McCarthy’s crusade. Narrated by Rebecca Naomi Jones and featuring Larry Tye, author of Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Image: Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn, Library of Congress.

The Wreckage is made possible by funding from the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided through the American Jewish Education Program, generously supported by Sid and Ruth Lapidus.