Editing Joseph McCarthy (section)

===Investigating the Army===
In autumn 1953, McCarthy's committee began its ill-fated inquiry into the [[United States Army]]. This began with McCarthy opening an investigation into the [[Signal Corps (United States Army)|Army Signal Corps]] laboratory at [[Fort Monmouth]]. McCarthy, newly married to Jean Kerr, cut short his honeymoon to open the investigation. He garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the army researchers, but after weeks of hearings, nothing came of his investigations.<ref>{{cite book|last = Stone|title = Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism|isbn = 0-393-05880-8|url = https://archive.org/details/periloustimesfre00ston|publisher = W.W. Norton & Co.|year = 2004}}</ref> Unable to expose any signs of subversion, McCarthy focused instead on the case of [[Irving Peress]], a New York dentist who had been drafted into the army in 1952 and promoted to major in November 1953. Shortly thereafter it came to the attention of the military bureaucracy that Peress, who was a member of the left-wing [[American Labor Party]], had declined to answer questions about his political affiliations on a loyalty-review form. Peress's superiors were therefore ordered to discharge him from the army within 90 days. McCarthy subpoenaed Peress to appear before his subcommittee on January 30, 1954. Peress refused to answer McCarthy's questions, citing his rights under the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth Amendment]]. McCarthy responded by sending a message to [[United States Secretary of the Army|Secretary of the Army]] [[Robert T. Stevens]], demanding that Peress be court-martialed. On that same day, Peress asked for his pending discharge from the army to be effected immediately, and the next day [[Brigadier general (United States)|Brigadier General]] [[Ralph Wise Zwicker|Ralph W. Zwicker]], his commanding officer at [[Camp Kilmer]] in [[New Jersey]], gave him an honorable separation from the army. At McCarthy's encouragement, "Who promoted Peress?" became a rallying cry among many anti-communists and McCarthy supporters. In fact, and as McCarthy knew, Peress had been promoted automatically through the provisions of the [[Conscription in the United States#Cold War|Doctor Draft]] Law, for which McCarthy had voted.<ref>{{cite news |last=Barnes |first=Bart |date=November 18, 2014 |title=Irving Peress, dentist who was subject of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's hearings, dies at 97 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/irving-peress-dentist-who-was-subject-of-sen-joseph-mccarthys-hearings-dies-at-97/2014/11/18/196bd42a-6f3b-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html |newspaper=Washington Post |location=Washington, DC |access-date=September 2, 2017 |archive-date=March 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312031823/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/irving-peress-dentist-who-was-subject-of-sen-joseph-mccarthys-hearings-dies-at-97/2014/11/18/196bd42a-6f3b-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>