The speech “Communists in the State Department,” by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, was delivered _____. after the fall of the Soviet Union at a...

Let me finish the question:  The speech "Communists in the State Department" by Senator Joe McCarthy was delivered at a time when the Soviet Union was America's main rival in the world; you want the second choice out of your answers.  Joe McCarthy was a grandstanding politician who claimed that the State Department was rife with Communist infiltrators and he led a Red Scare in America during the early 1950s.  Remember, America had already had one Red Scare in the early 1920s, and it resulted in trials and deportations of people suspected to be Communists.  After the Soviet Union developed the atomic bomb in 1949, America suspected that the Soviet Union had some spies here.  Communism was also gaining ground in China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Central America.  There were even rumored Communist takeovers in Greece and France.  McCarthy claimed to have a dossier on several hundred Communists throughout the government and in the media.  He led the investigation on "un-American" activities in Congress, but he was later discredited by president Dwight D. Eisenhower who saw through McCarthy's incendiary tactics.  Eisenhower would never be accused of being a Communist, as he was the general associated with the victory in Europe against the Nazis and had many conservative policies as president.