In 1950 Millard Tydings (a U.S. Senator from Maryland) challenged Senator Joseph McCarthy by calling his allegation that hundreds of communists were working in the State Department "a fraud, a hoax, and a deceit." As payback, McCarthy's staff faked a picture (top) of Tydings (on the right) apparently chatting with Earl Browder (on the left), head of the American Communist Party. The truth was that Tydings had never even met Browder before July, 1950. The image was a composite of a 1938 photo of Tydings listening to the radio (middle) and a 1940 photo of Browder delivering a speech (bottom).

The photo was widely distributed shortly before the 1950 senate race in which Tydings ran against John Butler. It appeared in a pamphlet titled "From the Record" printed by a group calling itself Young Democrats for Butler. A caption acknowledged the photo was a composite. Nevertheless, the image is believed to have contributed to Tydings' subsequent defeat in the election.