Correct Response: B. A major claim of Senator Joseph McCarthy and other leading figures in the post–World War II Red Scare was that large numbers of communist agents had secured positions in various government agencies, particularly the State Department. Few, if any, people at the time expressed concern about fuel shortages (A). There was also little worry about an imminent recession (C), as the nation was then in the midst of an economic boom that would last until the early 1970s. McCarthy and his supporters wanted to increase—not restrain—the federal government's authority to limit the civil rights of U.S. citizens (D).
