c-span: what was joseph mccarthy's relationship with joseph kennedy, the father of jack kennedy, in 1950? >> guest: well, before i answer that, let me just come back briefly to the nixon issue and the hiss issue. they're important to understand mccarthy and to understand the wheeling speech for this reason, and that is is that richard nixon was always the ex--example, the role model for mccarthy, of how taking on the issue of domestic communism and pointing fingers at the members of the truman administration or past members of the truman and--and roosevelt administrations, pointing fingers at them as being communists or communist sympathizers, how you could make a political career out of that. and nixon's success in doing so and becoming a national figure through the hiss case, and then winning in a landslide victory in november and being elected to the us senate were powerful incentives for mccarthy to try the same thing. he thought to himself, 'here's the way. here's the way in which you raise yourself from--from relative obscurity into national fame and become a pillar of your party.'