McCarthyism is part of the HL: Americas option – Topic 10: Cold War and the Americas, 1945-1981 and can also be included under 20th century Topic 5: The Cold War.
Over the most recent winter holiday, the 1951 film, I was a Communist for the FBI, resurfaced numerous times on television. This film has approached cult-like status among those either entranced by the style or incredulous about the subject matter: that the United States – and especially organized labor in the US – was being infiltrated by pro-Soviet communists determined to overthrow the government. This film came out at the height of McCarthyism – a social and political anti-Communist wave of near-hysteria in the US that came with the onset of the Cold War
