By the by, McCarthyism was up and running four months before the Korean War kicked off, so a bit hard for that conflict to soften the Americans up if using the usually accepted pre-emptive connotations of that term...
Thanks for reminding us of that, Archimedes.
US society in general being soft, or US POW's in Korea defecting to Communism -- neither of those were Sen. Joe Maccarthy's issues.
His obsession was Red spies, secret agents, and fellow travellers in US government in Washington ... pals and fellow travelers with the Labour gooberment in the UK that gave the Soviets the Nene engine to use in the Mig-15.
And subsequent historians have found loveable old Joe to be more right than wrong. More right -- meaning correct -- than America's left-leaning so-called intelligentisia has ever admitted or ever will admit. I'll cite some books, if anybody's interested.