McCarthy counter-charged that this accusation was made in bad faith and in retaliation for his recent aggressive investigations of suspected communists and security risks in the Army.

Chaired by Senator Karl Mundt, the hearings convened on March 16, 1954, and received considerable press attention, including gavel-to-gavel live television coverage on ABC and DuMont (April 22 – June 17).

The media coverage, particularly television, greatly contributed to McCarthy's decline in popularity and his eventual censure by the Senate the following December.

McCarthy came to national prominence in February 1950 after giving a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in which he claimed to have a list of 205 State Department employees who were members of the Communist Party.

Since McCarthy was one of the targets of the hearings, Senator Karl Mundt was appointed (to his reported reluctance) to assume his responsibilities as chairman of the subcommittee.

[9] Acting as special counsel was Joseph Welch of the Boston law firm of Hale & Dorr (now called WilmerHale).

[11] Francis Newton Littlejohn, the news director at ABC, made the decision to cover the hearings live, gavel-to-gavel.

A fourth person also edited out of the picture (his sleeve was visible to Bradley's right in the Welch photograph) was identified as McCarthy aide Frank Carr.

[15] After the photograph was discredited, McCarthy produced a copy of a confidential letter he claimed was a January 26, 1951, memo written and sent by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, to Major General Alexander R. Bolling, warning Army intelligence of subversives in the Army Signal Corps.

Welch was questioning McCarthy staff member James Juliana about the unedited picture of Schine with Stevens and Bradley, asking him "Did you think this came from a Pixie?"

[21][22][23] In what played out to be the most dramatic exchange of the hearings, McCarthy responded to aggressive questioning from Army counsel Joseph Welch.

[25] Fisher had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a group which Attorney General Brownell had called "the legal bulwark of the Communist Party".

[26] McCarthy had previously agreed to keep Fisher's involvement in both Welch's law firm and the NLG confidential.

Welch revealed he had confirmed Fisher's former membership in the National Lawyers Guild approximately six weeks before the hearings started.

[29][30] Welch then reprimanded McCarthy for his needless attack on Fisher, saying "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.

Daily newspaper summaries were increasingly unfavorable toward McCarthy,[38][39] while television audiences witnessed firsthand the unethical tactics of the junior Senator from Wisconsin.

On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted 67–22 to censure McCarthy, effectively eradicating his influence, though not expelling him from office.