No, never heard of it. Thankfuly, I'm old enough to have gone to school before the real dumbing down of America by the communists began, and we learned all about the McCarthey era. We weren't told if he was right or wrong, just educated about it. Later, after I got older and started paying attention, it became rather obvious to me that he had been right. I have no doubts that some of the activities by the committee went overboard a tad, and that some innocent people probably suffered for it by having their names linked to communism, but he was a bloodhound on the right track, and new what was happening, and tried to stop it.
The real shame of it is that once McCarthey was seen as going "too far," it forever shut down any chance of any truthful pursuit of communists in this nation, as the mere accusation of "you're a McCarthyite!" caused shame and derision for anyone who thought he had a point.
Now for my own conspiracy: What if McCarthey was a communist mole, and what if his plan was to be so outrageous and cause such a spectacle via the committee, that it would make any other future attempt to hunt down the communists nearly impossible, having shamed his own tactics out of existence?
I'll tellya, nothing would surprise me any more. The Russians are decent chess players, and think many moves ahead of what appears on the surface.
If I see the book I might pick it up though. Thanks for the referral. I don't know much about McCarthey, the man, outside of his brief reign as a famous communist hunter.