It wasn’t just “a scare”. Hundreds of literal Soviet agents (mainly American sympathizers) had infiltrated the military, the State Department, universities, some charitable foundations, Hollywood, and the Manhattan Project. The luckiest thing ever to happen to the Soviets was that McCarthy was a slimeball who besmirched anti-Communism and made actual Communists seem like innocent victims.
It wasn’t just “a scare”. Hundreds of literal Soviet agents (mainly American sympathizers) had infiltrated the military, the State Department, universities, some charitable foundations, Hollywood, and the Manhattan Project. The luckiest thing ever to happen to the Soviets was that McCarthy was a slimeball who besmirched anti-Communism and made actual Communists seem like innocent victims.