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On February 9th 1950, the relatively unknown Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy publicly declared that he had the names of over 200 Communists working within the State Department. This anti-communist rhetoric was not the brainchild of McCarthy, but rather his speech and the attention it was able to garner were manifestations of a growing anxiety around communism. After the victory of the Allied powers during World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the dominant forces within the new world order. Although the war had necessitated cooperation between the two, by the time it came to a close their interests had diverged and the Cold War had begun. Tensions within the United States between communists and the political establishment had existed since the Bolshevik Revolution, but they were escalated by the new dynamic between the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A as many high-powered U.S. officials saw the U.S.S.R’s seemingly contagious communism as a movement with the ability to sweep the world and topple the United States. This committee will follow the brave men at the forefront of the fight against communism. Given the pervasive influence of McCarthyism within American life throughout the Red Scare of the early 1950s, the committee will include the political sector (House Un-American Activities Committee), the media (Hollywood executives and journalists), and other prominent figures in American culture. The committee will run the MUN gamut, complete with FBI investigations, lengthy interrogations, and international diplomacy (and, better yet, espionage). And remember: better dead than red.
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