Overseas Library Program investigated by Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee

Radical right-wing and anti-communist Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy became chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee in 1953. This subcommittee, unlike the House Committee on Un-American Activities, focused solely on institutions of the United States government. In his role as chairman, McCarthy initiated investigations of several components of the State Department including Voice of America and of the embassy libraries which the State Department made available to the citizens of foreign countries through the Overseas Library Program. McCarthy's investigation turned up a supposed 30,000 titles on the shelves of these libraries that were written by Communists, former Communists, or which McCarthy claimed expressed sympathy for Communist ideals. The State Department was forced to remove these books from their shelves.