The McCarthy Hearings took place in Spring 1954, as per information from the Museum of Broadcast Communications website on the subject:
"Broadcast 'gavel to gavel' on the ABC and DuMont networks from
22 April to 17 June 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings were the first nationally televised congressional inquiry and a landmark in the emergent nexus between television and American politics. Though the Kefauver Crime Committee hearings of March 1951 can claim priority as a congressional TV show, ... "and:
"The network 'feed' came courtesy of the facilities of ABC's Washington, D.C. affiliate, WMAL-TV. Initially, all four networks were expected to carry the complete hearings live, but NBC and CBS balked at the loss of revenues from commercial programming. With an eye to its profitable daytime soap opera line-up, CBS opted out before the hearings began, leaving NBC, ABC, and DuMont formally committed to coverage. On the second day of hearings, however, after a particularly tedious afternoon session, NBC announced it was bailing out. Henceforth NBC, like CBS, broadcast nightly round-ups edited from kinescopes of the daytime ABC telecasts."
And by 1953, there were FOUR television stations, not just three, and all four were indeed VHF, in the Chicago market:
- WBBM-TV 2, Owned/Operated by CBS, CBS-TV Network.
- WNBQ-TV 5, Owned/Operated by RCA, NBC-TV Network.
- WBKB-TV 7, Owned/Operated by ABC/United Paramount Theaters, ABC-TV Network.
- WGN-TV 9, Owned/Operated by the Chicago Tribune, affiliated with the DuMont Television Network.
WNBQ-TV would later change its call letters to WMAQ-TV, to conform with their counterpart NBC Radio O/O in Chicago, WMAQ-670.
WBKB-TV would also later change its call letters to WLS-TV, to conform with their counterpart ABC Radio O/O in Chicago, WLS-890.
This is all documented on several webpages at the Chicago TV History website:
And Army-McCarthy was the really hysterical one ... old Joe, the poor fellow, was indignant all the time about the large number of 'communists' working for the US government, and of course, homosexuals. He would get all these government workers in for inquiry, ask them if they were communist and or homosexual. As to be expected, most of them vehemenently denied both allegations, at which point old Joe would demand to know the names of all their friends and if those friends were communist or homosexual. And if the government worker 'took the Fifth Amendment' (as many of them did) that got McCarthy especially furious. Many of the government file clerks and typists he interogated (and we did not have computers in those days, thus the large number of file clerks, typists, and stenographers he would question.) Almost all were males, and if they _dared_ to tell Joe it was none of his business, he would go into a long bluster and threaten the employee with being held in Contempt of Congress. More than one left the room badly shaken up by the abuse they had to take from Joe. And Joe would claim, "but you are on my list -- the list here in my desk drawer -- as both; you were turned in by (some unidentified person), so you better tell me the truth! It will go a lot easier on you."
With Kefauver's Crime Committee, he did a lot the same thing, bullying people around, but those guys all knew about all their rights; most of them took the Fifth Amendment time and again. Typically they would respond with their name, and every question after that was answered with "I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds I may incriminate myself." Kefauver finally got finished questioning one criminal suspect and then announced to the audience watching, "This is the first time I have ever had someone take the 'Fifth' seventy- five times in a row. He said his name, but then to questions about his age, his residence, his employment, etc it was always 'Fifth Amendment, Senator' ...". PAT]