“McCarthy and his gang were repellent to me. I had done my homework and brought my concerns and my questions with me to the assignment”

“The senate hearing room where the McCarthy investigation was being held was a crazy circus complete with heavy press, television crews, batteries of lights and on a dais McCarthy flanked by his cohorts, Cohn and Schine, and various senators. Under the table where they sat were crouched two photographers, Speed Graphics at the ready, to pounce on the witnesses they faced. At noon when we broke for lunch Senator McCarthy held a press conference. He came over to me (I was the only woman there) and put his hand on my shoulder as he asked me whether I had any questions. I instantly put my hand up to remove his, but my brain telegraphed that this wasn’t a good idea, so we remained for beat, my hand covering his. 

As gracefully as I could I managed to extricate myself by saying I had to get to work. Later when I went down to the Senate dining room to get a bowl of the famous bean soup, the thirty or so newsmen who sat at the same table ignored me, because they had witnessed the scene with the senator. Such was the climate of distrust that I didn’t dare tell them what had happened for fear of betrayal. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe the climate of terror that existed in the fifties in America.”

- Eve Arnold, from Eve Arnold in Retrospect

Behind the stories

Eve’s personal stories behind her most memorable images

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Over the coming weeks and months you’ll receive Eve’s iconic images in your inbox. You’ll also hear Eve’s own accounts of how she captured these images.

For example, the time she escaped government chaperones in a Russian mental asylum, to capture images of political prisoners who were heavily sedated.