Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release
March 28, 2000

Rutgers Historian Examines Political, Social Impact of Joseph McCarthy
in Lawrence University Lecture


     APPLETON, WIS. -- Fifty years ago, the smoldering Cold War received
an incendiary boost when Appleton's own U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy
claimed he had "in my hand a list of 205 Communists who are working [in]
the State Department." 
     David Oshinsky, professor of history at Rutgers University and a
specialist in modern American history, discusses McCarthy's life and his
impact on American politics and society in the 1950s in a Lawrence
University Phi Beta Kappa Lecture.  Oshinsky presents, "The McCarthy
Years Revisited," Tuesday, April 11 at 4:30 p.m. in the Wriston Art
Center auditorium.  The event is free and open to the public. 
     While focusing on McCarthy's life and impact, Oshinsky also will
examine the senator's charges of communist subversion in light of recent
disclosures from both Russian and American archives pertaining to Soviet
penetration of the U.S. government.
     Oshinsky is the author of the books, "Senator Joseph McCarthy and
the American Labor Movement" and "A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of
Joe McCarthy," which received the Hardeman Prize for the best book on
the history of Congress.  A member of the Rutgers history department
faculty since 1974, Oshinsky earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University.