Things we believed during the Cold War that ended up being wrong

He may not have been hauling around a leather-bound Bible and a set of thumbscrews, but Senator Joseph McCarthy was still America's witchfinder general. During the postwar Red Scare, he and FBI Director Edgar J. Hoover conspired to root out all Communist influences in American life. In practice, this meant creating what History Channel called a "climate of fear and repression" where anyone could lose their jobs over the merest rumor of Commie sympathies. Even as it was happening, the Red Scare was condemned as a witch hunt. Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible literally compared the McCarthy hearings to Puritans burning falsely accused witches (according to the author himself). By the time things petered out, the Red Scare was already viewed as an embarrassment.