Containment, as everyone will recall, was a rough plan for stopping the Communists any time they crossed a certain line dividing our half of the world from theirs.

The latter 1940s and early '50s were a time of tense, explosive conflict, in the world at large and in the politics of our nation.

A document was drafted in the State Department in July 1946 by an official named Samuel Klaus. This indicated that there were then 20 alleged Soviet agents, 13 alleged Communists, about a dozen sympathizers, and about 75 suspects in the department, according to the FBI.

When 'our people' get to the point where they can do us some good, they stop being 'our people.'

As is well known, 'McCarthyism' was an alleged focus of political evil in the 1950s: Accusations of Communist taint, without factual basis; bogus lists of supposed Communists who never existed; failure in the end to produce even one provable Communist or Soviet agent, despite his myriad charges of subversion.

I've written a lot of books in my time, and to write a book about Joe McCarthy and have some of the major media paying attention, I'm not used to that.