How we cite our quotes: (LastName.Line)
Quote #1
All we were investigating has been some Communists in the Army, a very small percentage, I would say much less than 1 percent. And when the Secretary says that, in effect 'I am speaking for the Army,' he is putting the 99.9 percent of good, honorable, loyal men in the Army into the position of trying to oppose the exposure of Communists in the Army. (McCarthy.4)
Right off the bat, McCarthy aims to scare Stevens by accusing him of implying that most members of the Army are Communists. Stevens, of course, was doing nothing of the sort.
Quote #2
He responded with even more force, "We will wreck the Army." (Adams.15)
Roy Cohn here is the "he" in this sentence. Cohn, like McCarthy, used intimidation as his basic M.O.
Quote #3
Mr. Cohn, you not only frighten me, you make me ashamed when there are so many in Massachusetts. (Welch.54)
Welch is mocking Cohn's fear-mongering. He holds Cohn's feet to the fire about exactly where all these Communists are hiding, as opposed to letting him coast on vague insinuation. The implication is that if he's telling the truth, it's way worse than anyone could imagine.
Quote #4
It certainly is a very alarming thing. (Cohn.57)
Here Welch forces Cohn to admit that it's really scary if all these Communists are really lurking around in government. He's backing him into a corner, dispelling with humor the fear that Cohn and McCarthy have used as a weapon.
Quote #5
Mr. Jenkins, the thing that I think we must remember is that this is a war which a brutalitarian force has won to a greater extent than any brutalitarian force has won a war in the history of the world before. For example, Christianity, which has been in existence for 2,000 years, has not converted, convinced nearly as many people as this Communist brutalitarianism has enslaved in 106 years, and they are not going to stop. I know that many of my good friends seem to feel that this is a sort of a game you can play, that you can talk about communism as though it is something 10,000 miles away. (McCarthy.106)
McCarthy is trying to defend himself against the knockout blow Welch has landed by changing the subject back to the threat of Communism. Fear-mongering is a tried and true tactic of demagogues. It's used to justify curtailing of civil liberties in times of real or imagined crisis. Not that Stalin's USSR hadn't been a brutal regime, but this is fear-mongering used as a diversion.