Roy Cohn was not a likable man. As the lawyer that masterminded United States Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunt of suspected communists, the subsequent trials, the first ever televised in the US, captured the attention of a nation in 1954.
McCarthy, an undistinguished first-time Republican senator from Wisconsin, struck a nerve with the American public when he claimed he had a list of 205 known communists then working in the US State Department.
Aided by Cohn and lawyer David Schine, Senator McCarthy and his counsel made wild accusations at men such as 1952 presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson, secretary of the army Robert Stevens and even president Dwight D Eisenhower, but nothing was ever proved.
After McCarthy was censured by the Senate in December 1954 for abuse of his legislative powers, the 'Red Scare' would continue throughout the decade as numerous writers, politicians and actors were 'blackballed' from their perspective industries for being suspected communists.
In Citizen Cohn (World, 3.30am), James Woods gives an admirable performance as Cohn, a man who led a similar lifestyle to the people he was persecuting. Tormented by an overbearing mother, Cohn was critical of both his own Jewish upbringing and homosexuals like himself.
On his sickbed, dying of AIDS, Cohn is haunted by the ghosts of some of the people he has persecuted. Joseph Bologna and Joe Don Baker co-star.