Knowland called the Senate the "most exclusive club of 96" (there were 48 states at the time). He was slow to criticize its most infamous member, Wisconsin's Republican junior Senator Joseph McCarthy. In 1953, McCarthy questioned the "integrity and good faith" of US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, which led Knowland to denounce McCarthy publicly. McCarthy was later condemned by the Senate for "conduct contrary to Senate traditions" in his vehement investigation of alleged communist infiltration of the US government.