declassification of Venona and the temporary opening of Soviet archives proved that McCarthy was mostly right. See Haynes & Klehr In Denial for discussion of academia's dishonest insistence that there were no traitors.
Too bad that McCarthy WAS a drunk and an egomaniac...he did more damage to the anti-communist cause than he did good.
this is also true. unfortunately it is almost always true. people who are drawn to government rarely are happy with only filling their addiction to power. other addictions are almost always present, such as alcoholism and egomania. Nixon was also seeing communists everywhere, look what happened to him. still, the US and British governments were both shot through with communists, to near the highest levels. most of the planks in the communist platform have been fulfilled in the US today.