Posted on 04/14/2007 11:08:02 AM PDT by wagglebee
You cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers ... without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder. – Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis. (circa early 1950s)
There's always a conflict of interest when people who don't really like America are called upon to defend it. – Ann Coulter
Perhaps second only Woodward and Bernstein's newspaper articles in the 1970s that exposed the Watergate scandal and forced President Nixon to resign has the liberal propaganda press been so utterly successful at destroying a single Republican – an exhilarating and heady era that predated Watergate by 20 years.
From 1950-54, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, in a series of hearings held in his House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC, with irrepressible zeal and courage, sought to root out Communists, Communist sympathizers and spies in the State Department, the Treasury Department, the military and in other areas of the government, but also in Hollywood, in unions, in the academy and throughout American society.
Ironically, HUAC was a committee formed not by McCarthy, but by liberal Democrats 12 years before, in 1938, on the eve of World War II during an era before political correctness and radicalism became the norm; where being a liberal Democrat meant defending America from tyrants abroad and German spies and terrorists at home.
Sen. McCarthy wasn't the first politician to mount a crusade to bring down intrinsic corruption. The annals of American political history are filled with them. There was the Tea Pot Dome Scandal of 1922 that made a national hero out of the heretofore unremarkable Montana Democrat Sen. Thomas J. Walsh, when he exposed the land for oil deal of the Warren Harding administration. The Truman Committee investigated charges of war profiteering and shoddy materials sold to the military during World War II by U.S. corporations, which lead to numerous reforms and elevated Truman to vice president and, at the death of FDR, to the presidency.
There was Robert F. Kennedy's stentorian questioning of Mafia dons and corrupt union leaders like Jimmy Hoffa in the early 1960s; this feat lead to RFK's presidential run, which was tragically brought to an end by the assassin's bullet in June 1968. However, politics does make strange bedfellows because RFK made his bones as a staffer to none other than Sen. Joseph McCarthy during his anti-communism crusade of the early 1950s. Despite his close association with McCarthy, however, RFK's memory is kept pure by the propaganda press even until this day. Why? Two reasons – RFK was a liberal Democrat and a Kennedy. McCarthy was neither.
Finally, and who could forget Newt Gingrich who in 1989 dethroned powerful Texas Democrat Speaker Jim Wright over a fraudulent book deal scandal, only to resign six years later for literally the same bogus book deal.
Back to McCarthy. As I revisit this tragic Promethean figure of the early 1950s, let us first answer two basic questions lucidly without emotion: 1) Did McCarthy find Communists, Communist sympathizers and Soviet spies in the State Department, in Hollywood, in the academy, in the literary world, in the military, in the media during his House Un-American Committee hearings? 2) Does an unbiased account of history show that McCarthy abused his power? Yes on the first question, No, on the second.
Conservative political writer Ann Coulter said this of McCarthy and the 50 years of incessant demonization by the liberal propaganda press:
I know he got a bad rap because there are no monuments to Joe McCarthy. Liberals had to destroy McCarthy because he exposed the entire liberal establishment as having sheltered Soviet spies. ... There's always a conflict of interest when people who don't really like America are called upon to defend it.
Today, McCarthy's name has been turned into a vile epithet (McCarthyism) and is stricken from the congressional record, from the marketplace of ideas and from public memory. Ironically, neither Marx, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Pol Pot nor Hitler's names engenders such malediction from the left as does Sen. McCarthy, despite the fact that those leaders and the tyrannical ideals they propagated killed hundreds of millions of people.
In my opinion, Joseph McCarthy is the only man that can be put in the same sentence with the two other great Republican leaders of the 20th century, and they were both presidents – Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Yet McCarthy's face isn't carved into Mount Rushmore as TR's is, nor does even a statue or a $5 plaque appear of him in Washington, D.C., or in his home state of Wisconsin. Yet a few weeks ago the fine people of Amsterdam, Holland, erected a magnificent statute to one of their greatest leaders – no, not Rembrandt, not Grotius, not Spinoza, not van Gogh, but to that great ubiquitous figure … The Prostitute, and to the ancient glorious art of prostitution. Take that, Spinoza!
The craven cowardice and historical ignorance regarding this great man's contributions to America is appalling, but not surprising to me. Therefore, I also praise Ann Coulter. If it weren't for her prolific, courageous writings, and the radio and TV appearances of this bold, beautiful political commentator, McCarthy's memory would be all but totally forgotten or continually and utterly reviled by the political left without challenge. On this point, I'll let Ann Coulter speak in her own voice:
Among the most notorious Soviet spies in high-level positions in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations – now proved absolutely, beyond question by the Soviet cables – were Alger Hiss at the State Department; Harry Dexter White, assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, later appointed to the International Monetary Fund by President Truman; Lauchlin Currie, personal assistant to President Roosevelt and White House liaison to the State Department under both Roosevelt and Truman; Laurence Duggan, head of the Latin American Desk at the State Department; Frank Coe, U.S. representative on the International Monetary Fund; Solomon Adler, senior Treasury Department official; Klaus Fuchs, top atomic scientist; and Duncan Lee, senior aide to the head of the OSS.
Is there no man, no conservative, no Republican during this upcoming 2008 presidential election who has pledged to continue McCarthy's magnificent legacy of combating radical liberalism, Country Club Republicanism, Communism, totalitarianism and civilization's newest enemy, Islamic terrorism? From way in the back of the room, Ann Coulter stood tall like a man and didn't ask for it, but took McCarthy's mantle.
And that is why I praise Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
The only ones who can and will do this are Duncan Hunter nad Fred Thompson.
Good article. Thanks for posting it.
Hate to rain on the author’s parade, but HUAC was the HOUSE [of Representatives] UnAmerican Activities Committee. Joseph McCarthy served in the SENATE.
Would you repeat that, please. As it stands, this quote could go down in the FR annals.
Sorry, I’m a card carrying Republican and I’ll be darned If I can think of anything nice to say about Joe. Roy Cohn and Bobby Kennedy ran Senator McCarthy, especially during his final days. While we badly needed an airing of communists after WW II, what McCarthy did was inexcusable. He ruined thousands, terrorized the country, forced teachers to sign loyalty oaths, and has an entire era of shame named after him.
Frankly, he reminds me a lot of Al Sharpton.
It’s WorldNutDaily...don’t confuse them with facts!
The really impressive thing about McCarthy was that he was right — IN SPADES. That is why he was demonized. It would be interesting to see what his opinion of our Congress today would be!!!
Too bad we don’t have a dozen like him right now.
Amazing that he can get such major points wrong since he is such a admirer of McCarthy.
I do agree with most of what he says, however.
You are correct, HUAC was Nixon IIRC.
Huh?
From 1950-54, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, in a series of hearings held in his House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC, with irrepressible zeal and courage, sought to root out Communists, Communist sympathizers and spies in the State Department, the Treasury Department, the military and in other areas of the government, but also in Hollywood, in unions, in the academy and throughout American society.
See Tydings Committee.
They don't seem to be reorganizing the fearful, cowardly Repubs enjoying Pres. Bush's prosperity.
WorldNetDaily--the loonie Left is going to come after with pitchforks. So, God bless you and keep the faith, Joe Farah.
McCarthy was wrong. He UNDERESTIMATED the number of Communists in government.
Duncan Hunter nad Fred Thompson ; )
I see that now!
I agree that Joseph McCarthy’s name is to be as honored as
Theodore Roosevelt’s and Ronald Reagan’s. I was 100% in his corner in the ‘50’s. Our government, education, media, and entertainment fields are even more riddled with Communists now than they were in McCarthy’s day, may God rest his valiant soul. And may God restore America to it’s greatness once again.
How can anybody ever not praise the godfather of Congressman Joseph Patrick Kennedy II.
Huh? Newt created a book consisting of a compilation of his old speeches, published it himself, and sold it by the case to his contributors? I don't think so. Gingrich made a book deal from HarperCollins that included an advance, not unlike both Bill and Hillary's book deals.
What ultimately brought down Gingrich was all of the ethics charges made by DemocRATs, all of which were ultimately dismissed.
Ultimately what caused Newt to resign was his extramarital affair.
Which one?
ruined thousands? Who? How? All were wrongly questioned?
The Country that I remember was not terrorized!
I'll gladly sign the loyalty oath. I took the oath along with tens of millions of Americans. What's wrong with that?
The shame is that McCarthy was made the "issue" and national security became secondary.
To the best of my knowledge the CP/USA invented the word "McCarthyism."
Thus anti-communists came under attack not just a man who meant well but lacked the charisma and skills to lead what has proven decades later to have been a true national security threat.
BUMP for excellence in posting!
First of all HUAC was used as a pejorative -- The House Committee on un-American Activities I believe is the correct name.
McCarthy was a Congressman in the late 1940s and participated in controversial hearings which his enemies used to brand him a Nazi. Then when he took on communism that was the end of him.
W.W.II was the last war that the "progressives," "leftists" whatever sided with the U.S. The U.S. helped defend their Uncle Joe.
Clarification: he was a Senator.
Yep. Frankly, it would not surprise me one bit to learn that some clever KGB agent manipulated him into his ridiculous displays in a (successful) attempt to discredit anti-Communist efforts.
The fact that a number of FReepers support the rehabilitation of this joker fifty years after he drank himself into the grave strikes me as evidence of a tragic misinterpretation of the history of the Cold War and the effectiveness of various Red Scares in combating the communist threat. President Eisenhower hated his guts, and the fact that half of his fellow Republican senators voted to censure him speaks volumes about how poorly regarded he and his efforts were in government at the time.
You need to read Ann Coulter's "Treason". She researched the original documents, and he did none of the above.
What you learned in school is incorrect.
No offense guys but could you please name one person who was not a member of the Communist Party who was named as such. I can tell you right now, the answer is zero. But since there are “THOUSANDS” of them, please educate me and list some of them.
One should not make statements of “fact” without knowing what the hell one is talking about.
Mrs. McCarthy came to him at one point and said, “Sergeant, these people from the newspapers are saying they are going to spit on my husbands’s body. Can you do something, please?” He said, “Maam, I will stand at attention with my hand on my sword.” Dad was a Guadalcanal, Pellelieu, and Inchon veteran. God rest him.
No one spat on the senator’s body or casket that day, but that was what our friends inn the press were like, even back then. They loved the wrong Joe. Stalin. Unfortunately, you saw that this writer got the wrong house of congress. The libs do that all the time.
Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it. He had really hit on something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed. They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay from the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers. To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day to keep one step ahead. He would stand second to none in his devotion to country. When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them once better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced the pledge of allegiance, and after that "The Star-Spangled Banner," one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses. Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them scornfully for their failure to follow his example. Each time they followed his example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again. Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed, and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to. And to anyone who questioned the morality, he replied that "The Star-Spangled Banner" was the greatest piece of music ever composed. The more loyalty oaths a person signed, the more loyal he was; to Captain Black it was as simple as that, and he had Corporal Kolodny sign hundreds with his name each day so that he could always prove he was more loyal than anyone else.
"The important thing is to keep them pledging," he explained to his cohorts. "It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what 'pledge' and 'allegiance' mean." --From "Catch-22," by Joseph Heller
Yeah, there was the black cleaning woman Cohn found for him; she didn’t even know what a communist was. Also the kid lawyer who was a fellow-traveller during the thirties; McCarthy brought up his name during the Army hearings.
By the way, Joe never found one, single, communist.
I am no big fan of Joe McCarthy but the author and some Freepers (such as myself) get a bit tired of the lies that are now accepted as fact regarding the hearings and Sen McCarthy himself. It is the same liberal crap that pratically makes it a felony for a person to wear a Nazi uniform as a costume but a Russian (USSR era) uniform or CCCP memorabilia is “kitschy”. Both should be held in equal disrepute and disgust, but they are not because liberals do not believ the Soviet Union or Communism were a bad thing.
Joe was destroyed by his own arrogance and some bad very advice from Roy Cohn and Bobby Kennedy. Joe also was sometimes so hungover during morning hearings that he could not stand to pound his own gavel. He drank himself to death.
I repeat: Joe did not find one, single, communist, ever.
Care to explain your keen interest in attacking McCarthy on this forum?
You may be thinking of Annie Lee Moss. There's some uncertainty about whether or not she was a Communist. Most likely she wasn't a spy, but if Moss worked at the Pentagon, she probably did know what one was.
Remember, this was in the 1950s, and to be Black and a cleaner didn't mean that one was stupid or uneducated (Mandatory disclaimer: to be a cleaner doesn't necessarily mean one is stupid or uneducated today either).
Here's a Human Events article on the Moss case. Here's another. Don't know if they're right or not, but the case is more complicated than it might appear at first.
I'm no fan of McCarthy. He did the country a lot of harm by making us look bad at a time when we needed all the friends we could get, but I wouldn't assume that everything said against McCarthy was true either.
Pal, I think you are full of it.
An easy, recent, read is Coulter.
Educate yourself.
Oh, the black cleaning woman and the kid lawyer! That clears it up for me. Nothing like some specifics to really help clarify the “thousands” of ruined lives. I think the “kid lawyer” you speak of is Ray Kaplan. Here is how NewsMax report that information and how it was distorted:
“A classic example of historical distortion emerged when the hearings surfaced. A Senate “historian” on May 5 put his own spin on the newly revealed McCarthy hearings before others had a chance to see them.
Associate Senate historian Donald Ritchie, in his “Editor’s Note,” quotes one committee witness, William Marx Mandel (who had taken the Fifth Amendment when asked about his Communist affiliations) as publicly declaring McCarthy “murdered” a prospective witness, Ray Kaplan, an alleged suicide.
Ritchie doesn’t bother to inform researchers that Kaplan was expected to be a friendly committee witness, eager to tell McCarthy of his frustration that some with whom he worked had placed a Voice of America transmitter in such a way as to prevent VOA from reaching the freedom-loving people behind the Iron Curtain, thus rendering it useless.
Nor does this “historian” add that some of Kaplan’s colleagues told McCarthy afterward that they suspected Kaplan’s “suicide” actually resulted from foul play. Nor is Mandel’s credibility questioned, even though behind closed doors he had openly threatened to give the committee a public-relations black eye.”
You also might want to read this article from “Human Events” on what actually happened in these sessions behind closed doors and the evidence presented against Annie Lee Moss and the real story of Ray Kaplan. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=689
McCarthy was the one who charged Owen Lattimore with close ties to communism and questioned the role that Lattimore played in U.S. foreign policy, especially toward communists in China, which Lattimore famously claimed threatened America in no way.
Lattimore has been shown frequently to have stonewalled questions about his views and activities and to have lied about those things. He was editor of Pacific Affairs, the official journal of the Institute for Pacific Relations, a notorious and officially cited Soviet front. He was formally described by the Senate Internal Security subcommittee as “from some time in the 1950s a conscious, articulate instrument of the ‘Soviet conspiracy.’” Former top communist Louis Budenz testified to five separate experiences within the Politburo of the Communist Party in the United States in which Lattimore was involved as a Soviet conspirator.
Ann Coulter cites these names in her book: Among the Soviet operatives in government jobs who were named by McCarthy, Coulter informs us, were T.A. Bisson, Mary Jane Keeney, Cedric Belfrage, Solomon Adler, Franz Neumann, Leonard Mins, Gustavo Duran and William Remington.
Leonard Mins had contracted to write manuals for the armed forces. In that pursuit, he handled sensitive material. “Oh, yes, much of it was classified,” he told Sen. McCarthy’s committee. He had also worked for the OSS, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mins pleaded the Fifth Amendfment when asked if he were a member of the Communist Party, either at the time he was working for the government or at the moment of the hearing; whether he had discussed classified material with a member of the Communist Party or turned any of it over to an espionage agent; whether he had engaged in espionage or illegal Communist activity; whether he had been on the payroll of Soviet military intelligence, either at the time he prepared the pamphlet or when working for the OSS; whether he attended the Lenin School of sabotage and espionage; and whether he believed in the overthrow of the United States by force and violence.
Cedric Belfrage, also mentioned by Coulter, had worked under Army occupation officers. In that capacity, he had been instrumental in setting up newspapers in Germany after World War II. Before the McCarthy committee, he pleaded the Fifth on whether he had been a Communist then or at the time of the hearing; whether he advocated overthrow of the U.S. or British government (he was a British citizen) by force or violence; whether he would fight in the U.S. or British Army if “drafted” to fight Communist aggressors.
And then there is Alger Hiss...
No Communists? You’re kidding, right? Please know history before spouting off about it.
Why is McCarthy a continuing target of the leftwing press? Got to be a reason . . .
Because if you are catching flak, you are over the target.
Things haven't changed much, have they?
sayings “nad” is anal material?
Annal, man, annal!
How can a Senator chair a House Committee? This guy does not know squat. McCarthy was chair of PSI, whose pervue was communist infiltration of the federal government.
Good article.
I do believe however that he was branded a Nazi for questioning our treatment of some German soldiers following the War.
It is his inalienable right to not sign a loyalty oath. He is (was) free to chose a career that does not require affirming one's dedication to all principles of our Constitutional Republic and economic system. He benefited from our system and in returned he provided much entertainment.
As a member of the teaching profession however he would not have had the inalienable rights to indoctrinate students, IMO. Students have inalienable rights too as do the parents paying the bills.
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