BookTV (C-Span2): "Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy"

BookTV (C-Span2 weekends) ^ | 11-22-27 | unlisted

[VOA]

About the Program

M. Stanton Evans argues that Joseph McCarthy does not deserve the
bad reputation he has been assigned by historians. Mr. Evans says
that McCarthy was correct in his assessment of the threat posed
by Communists in the United States during the so-called "Red Scare"
and that his detractors knowingly covered up the extent of this threat.

[VOA]

This is a "headsup" for the repeat airings of the author's presentation
that first aired on BookTV last weekend.
Here are the air-time for the repeat broadcasts over the Thanksgiving holiday
and later:
Upcoming Schedule (All Times EASTERN)

Thursday, November 22, at 1:00 PM
Sunday, November 25, at 11:00 PM
Sunday, December 2, at 3:00 AM

[VOA]

Here is a direct link to the schedule for BookTV for this holiday weekend:

http://www.booktv.org/schedule.aspx

As always, I warn folks new to to BookTV...if you tune in casually you
might get anything ranging from today’s airing of a presenation friendly
to Joe McCarthy...all the way to Code Pink celebrations!

You have been warned!!!

[Terpfen]

Worth noting that Evans is the guy whose research Ann Coulter used, with permission, when writing Treason. IIRC, Evans claimed that if he had known what Coulter was going to do with his research, he wouldn’t have given permission. I have no idea what to make of that.

[rellimpank]

-—excellent book—I’m going to give mine to the local library-—

[FReepapalooza]

Thanks for posting. I’m definitely going to tune in.

“Red Scare” then

“Red Blight” now

[VOA]

“I have no idea what to make of that.”

Evans (in the BookTV) seems to have an fairly laid-back, good-guy
sort of personna.
Maybe he just didn’t gather than Ms. Coulter is hyper-driven...
and given a green light was bound to make the most of getting access to
a gold mine of info.

IIRC, Evans says he (and his group) got something like 100,000 pages
of source info in doing their research.

[VOA]

“Thanks for posting. I’m definitely going to tune in.”

Thanks for checking in...gives me a chance to bump and remind late-comers:

The segment will air SOON!
Coming up at
1 PM EASTERN (NOON CENTRAL) Today 11-22-07 Thanksgiving Day!!!

[EyeGuy]

“Evans claimed that if he had known what Coulter was going to do with his research, he wouldn’t have given permission. I have no idea what to make of that.”

Nor do I. That is disappointing.

Here’s a shot in the dark. Perhaps Evans is an overly-nuanced academic who doesn’t want to dirty himself with AC’s blunt, fact-based, in-your-face takedowns of the disgusting Left.

[VOA]

“Perhaps Evans is an overly-nuanced academic who doesn’t want to dirty
himself with AC’s blunt, fact-based, in-your-face takedowns of the disgusting Left.”

It could like the race for mapping the Human Genome: you’ve got careful, conscientious
Francis Collins on one hand and hyper-driven “git ‘er done” Craig Venter.

My naive thought is that Coulter trusted Evan’s “breaking trail”,
then when she got a green light from him...she raced forward.
Just two different types of human beings approaching the same source material
(unless Evans ever says that Ms. Coulter ignored or clearly duped him
in terms of actual publication)

[VOA]

bump for publicity...
now I go to attend to last Thanksgiving Day preparations!

[rineaux]

Treason was the first book I read of Coulters’ and it was the best presentation of McCarthy and how over the years his critics have tried and have been somewhat successful of discrediting his works and hearing of outing communism in government. Was a very good read IMO.

[RC2]

One thing that the historians won’t tell you is that McCarthy set communism back at least 60 years. We need to do it again.

[PatrickF4]

McCarthy’s crime was being right, and the consequences it had for the “beautiful people”, who only wanted to “help the little guy”. There’s no sorrier hypocrites than the Hollywood Elite, with their smug pronouncements. Now they hug Hugo Chavez.

[driftless2]

Whatever people think about McCarthy’s sometimes unorthodox and/or sensational methods, virtually all the history of the period that has been seen or read by the general public was reported on and written by far-leftists and sympathetic to the left liberals. Over the years I’ve been stunned by the numbers of media libs who were either card-carrying commies or libs who carried water for them. So whatever the rightness of his methods, McCarthy never got a fair break from the people covering that era. Now he is finally getting his just due.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Take one look at Hollywood today. Universities. Public schools. Newspapers.

McCarty was right.

[kitkat]

***-—excellent book—I’m going to give mine to the local library-—***

If your library sells used books for a dollar each, they’ll probably put the book in that bin. May I suggest that you give it to someone who would appreciate it, and ask him/her to pass it along.

[VR-21]

"Worth noting that Evans is the guy whose research Ann Coulter used, with permission, when writing Treason."

I didn't know that. I'm presently reading "Blacklisted by History" and it was Ann's book that piqued my interest in the facts about McCarthy.

I've enjoyed the book and I would recommend it to anyone who has any interest.

[Paperdoll]

I don’t need a book to know that Senator Joseph McCarthy, God rest his soul, bravely blazed a trail not traveled by the Washington elite, nor their Hollywood comrades. The “Democrat” Congress now seated cannot be described as anything but Communists bent on defeating the Republic.

Book or no book, I watched those Un-American Activity hearings conducted by McCarthy, and I knew he was right on the button in his interpretation of what was going on, and who was doing it. And I’ve experienced the pain of watching the elite take our glorious country down by infiltrating our public school system and sweeping God under the carpet. Because the American people refused to fight it, we are now where we find ourselves today.

So today, on Thanksgiving Day, I hope three hundred million prayers for restoration of our great nation go up to the Living God. And may God bless and protect each and every one of our amazing troops.

[Anti-Bubba182]

On now.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

McCarthy’s crime was being right.

Amen to that! It's interesting... because that was also "Reagan's crime" only he did it out in front of the American public and the liberal media just couldn't spin all of that "good news" into the demon they wanted to make out of Reagan.

McCarthy's other crime was being from Wisconsin where a deep and abiding affection for socialists, communists and other labor-union sympathizers runs very deep. They were only too happy to dump McCarthy overboard.

[kitkat]

VERY WELL SAID! Thank you.

[IronJack]

The worm is turning. Nowadays, with the internet and its access to unfiltered information, many hard-wired views of history are going to be threatened. The McCarthy story is just one of them, and it is going to slowly reveal that Joe McCarthy, all his faults notwithstanding, was a powerful force against America’s enemies, and that he was right a lot more than he was wrong.

[VOA]

Bump for publicity (taken betweeen stirring the gravy)!

And for everyone bumping in and/or commenting

[Fiji Hill]

McCarthy investigated un-American activities as chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, and his tenure as chairman lasted only two years. However, it is widely but erroneously believed that McCarthy chaired the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)—despite the fact that he was a Senator. In reality, HUAC was chaired by John S. Wood (D-Ga.), Harold H. Velde (R-Ill.), and Francis E. Walter (D-Pa.) during the so-called “McCarthy era” (1950-1957).

[VOA]

However, it is widely but erroneously believed that McCarthy chaired
the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)—despite the
fact that he was a Senator.

Yep. A very common error even with fairly smart folks.

It was interesting to see Evans correct the once member of the
audience who did seem to be aware of the difference.

I couldn't really blame the questioner...even at private schools,
that difference probably isn't pointed out to the kids...
whose parents are paying $20K-$30K/year to get their beloved
children "educated".

[Anti-Bubba182]

Thanks for the heads up. It was very informative!

[padre35]

Exactly, every organ of Information or Entertainment has been thoroughly penetrated by Communism “Lite”.

Funny thing is that the American People are abandoning those streams of information en masse in favor of the ‘Net and perhaps talk radio.

Can you imagine a Tailgunner Joe today with the Internet?

[VOA]

My pleasure. I was too busy AND slothful to post a notice when it
aired last weekend.

One well-meaning Freeper took me to task when I was warning Freepers
in a previous BookTV notice that if they randomly tuned into BookTV,
they might get their retinas fried by some Code Pink event or similar
outrage.

BUT, I give BookTV credit...they cover the spectrum and do a good job
of covering the political spectrum.
I doubt I could do a much better job of balancing the coverage.
(even if I would complain about some weekends that do lean to the left
side of the political spectrum)

[Paperdoll]

Thank you for that correction. It was, as you know, over 50 years ago. :)

[FReepapalooza]

“Can you imagine a Tailgunner Joe today with the Internet?”

It would be a welcome sight to behold, indeed!

[LibFreeOrDie]

Even PBS had to admit that there were Communist spies operating in America. The “Secret Victories of the KGB” episode of their “Red Files” series (1999) provides details:

http://www.pbs.org/redfiles/kgb/index.htm

[ru4liberty]

Thank you so much for posting this reminder. That was very educational. Thank God we’re living in a time when there are so many ways to disseminate information. I know it really chaps the left to have all their lies exposed.

[nathanbedford]

Once upon a Time in America the great divide in our society was expressed by where you stood on Joe McCarthy. Of course, that was all wrapped up with Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss and which one of those two you believed. Did you think the Rosenbergs were guilty? The answer to that question told everyone whether you were a Democrat or a Republican.

The other American dramas I can invoke to describe the hold the Army -McCarthy hearings had on the nation are the OJ Simpson trial and the Clarence Thomas hearings. I can remember as a boy coming home from school and finding my mother transfixed before a black-and-white television over the Army McCarthy hearings. In our house we believed McCarthy, and Chambers, and we thought that the Rosenbergs were certainly guilty. But this was not the universal opinion of suburbia and certainly not the politically correct version to which I was exposed to in school which was connected to a university.

The impact of McCarthy was not limited to the era which bears his name. In subsequent years in college I learned that my parents must have been real Neanderthals to believe the way they did. Most of this was imparted to me by my professors through innuendo; we quickly absorbed the culture of the University and knew what sort of opinions were acceptable and which were not acceptable to express in learned company.

Today the term "McCarthyism" has assumed a meaning which contains its own DNA and expresses a whole left-wing point of view. We see the same thing now happening with the phrase, "Swift boating." These phrases have been turned on their head by a consensus in academia and in the media which simply ignores any other interpretation of events except the one favoring the left.

McCarthy was connected to Chambers who was connected to Nixon. If the left was irrational in its support of Alger Hiss, it was almost psychotic in its hatred of Richard Nixon. There was a chain of events that led to the impeachment of Richard Nixon for actions that had mostly been done already by previous Democrat presidents. What I find so fascinating so many years later is the question, why was the left so irrational, so emotional in its judgments about the Communists and the anti-Communists? Why was the left so purblind to Communists in high places where they could mortally wound the nation and so viscerally obsessed about the men like McCarthy, Chambers, and Nixon who exposed them?

Why, for example, was President Truman so indifferent to the evidence of Communists in the State Department? Perhaps Truman's inertia can be explained by his parochial Midwestern background, his naïveté, his partisanship, his ignorance of the lay of the land on the day he assumed office. But Roosevelt's involvement was more than indifference. It strikes me that Roosevelt was almost the model of the patrician who sees himself as larger than his own country. John Kerry, of Swift boat fame, seems to be cast in the same mold, although without Roosevelt's political acumen.

Do men of great wealth like George Soros or Franklin Roosevelt regard the concept of national sovereignty to be merely the outmoded belief systems of the masses, akin to the belief in God which provide some comfort and meaning to their lives, but which is outmoded and not particularly useful in the grand games played for world stakes. Just a thought, but one prompted by knowledge that the financial backer of THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL was also a man of great wealth who founded the school which has done so much damage to our culture. The school was founded for the express purpose of breaking down those institutions which frustrated the victory of communism.

Roosevelt must have known that there were Communists in his government. His vice president was virtually an avowed communist. I believe he just didn't care. Either he was so arrogant that he believed he could control events even as he was being undermined by a fifth column, or, more likely, he didn't care because he didn't think it mattered when viewed from the exalted perspective of his world.

George Soros does not care what passport he holds except as it advances his interests. Patricians in general do not see the world as contained and defined by national boundaries but by markets, routes, and centers of supply and demand.

McCarthyism, like Swift boating, has been distorted and twisted into a widely accepted definition by political correctness. Political correctness is the explicitly contrived belief system created by THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL. The Frankfurt school was founded by a character who could change skins with George Soros and each could live comfortably in the other's century. They view the rest of us as impediments or useful idiots.

They could be right. The useful idiots enforce the rules of political correctness and obligingly define against the weight of history the meaning of phrases like, " McCarthyism" or, "Swift boating." I for one choose to count myself among the impediment class.

[Enchante]

“The McCarthy Era” is not what we’ve all been told it was:

http://www.nytimes.com/specials/magazine4/articles/mccarthy.html

[Enchante]

On a serious note (unlike my post above), Joe McCarthy was RIGHT about many things: extensive subversion and treason going unnoticed and unchallenged by many agencies in the US government, communists and ardent fellow-travellers allowed to function as severe security risks, Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs, etc. represented the tip of the iceberg and not the end of the problem, etc. Joe McCarthy has been horribly smeared by the very liberals who pretend they are all against character assassination, etc. The entire history of that era needs to be re-analyzed and re-written, as the charlatans of the left have propagandized us for 50+ years with lies about communism, liberalism, McCarthy, etc.

[LucyT]

Backhoe’s reference list with lots of links.
Thanks backhoe.

“Tailgunner Joe—Where Have You Gone, Joe McCarthy?”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/935830/posts

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Roosevelt must have known that there were Communists in his government. His vice president was virtually an avowed communist."

Just to clarify that it was his 2nd (1941-45) VP, Henry Wallace, that was a Soviet sympathizer. His first was Cactus Jack Garner, an old-line Texas Tory Conservative. The Dems knew what a risk Wallace was, and it was the reason they had him bumped down to Ag Sec after 1944. Can you imagine had Wallace instead of Truman ended up as President ? Wallace probably would've sent the plans for the A-bomb in an Easter card to Stalin and wouldn't have thought he was doing anything wrong !

[nathanbedford]

Yup, I meant Wallace.

I think it is revealing that the objection to Wallace was not his ideology so much as the fact that he was a drag on the ticket.

These new dealers just didn't see anything wrong with communism whether they were in the governments or writing for the New York Times about the Ukrainian genocide.

[backhoe]

“Backhoe’s reference list with lots of links.
Thanks backhoe.

“Tailgunner Joe—Where Have You Gone, Joe McCarthy?”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/935830/posts “

I appreciate your remembering that old, old post.

[driftless2]

"deep and abiding affection"

That "deep and abiding affection" only runs deep around Madison. The rest of the state, except for a few areas in Milwaukee, is far to the right of the wackos around the capital. Wisconsin is a state where even a large percentage of Dems are hunters and gun lovers. Don't mistake Madison for the rest of the state.

[Ultra-Secret.info]

It is not true than Evans disapproved of Coulter’s use of his research. In fact, Coulter sent him her chapters on McCarthy before publication, and he made suggestions to clarify certain points, some of which Coulter incorporated into the final draft of “Treason.”

Not only is it not true that Evans disapproved of Coulter's work, it is, he told me, “the exact opposite of the truth.”

You may be confusing Evans with Ronald Radosh, who was quoted by Andrew Sullivan saying Coulter “uses my stuff, Harvey Klehr and John Haynes, Allen Weinstein etc. to distort what we actually say.” Radosh implies that Coulter misused research reported by him and Klehr in their book, “The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism.”

In that book, Radosh and Klehr reported correctly that one McCarthy target, Foreign Service Officer John Stewart Service, lived with Soviet agents Solomon Adler and Chi Cha’o-ting in Chungking in 1944, and that Soviet agent Lauchlin Currie conspired with “Tommy the Cork” Corcoran to fix the Amerasia case to get Service off, but Radosh and Klehr concluded that Service was innocent.

Coulter reported the same facts in “Treason,” but concluded that Service was guilty, as does Evans in “Blacklisted by History.” In fact, Coulter’s primary source here was not Radosh and Klehr, but the FBI’s Amerasia file — including the FBI wiretaps of the Corcoran-Currie fix — which she got from Evans.

Incidentally, National Review assigned Radosh the task of reviewing “Blacklisted by History. ” Word is that they received his copy over a month ago, but have been holding up publication for unknown reasons. Editor Jonah Goldberg blogged recently that a friend “who knows a lot about the subject matter” told him that the book was “a triumph of historical research. ” (William F. Buckley once co-wrote a well-researched book on the subject, "McCarthy and His Enemies.")

[7thson]

Nathan,

You need to modify this statement - There was a chain of events that led to the impeachment of Richard Nixon...

Nixon was never impeached.

[Terpfen]

Okay, I’m glad to hear that. Honestly, I heard Evans’ name associated with the disapproval of Coulter’s book—I assure you I’m not mixing the names up in my memory—but the source I obtained the information from, likely another post on FR, probably mixed the names up while posting.

Apologies for the mix-up, and thank you for the correction.

[KC Burke]

Roosevelt must have known that there were Communists in his government.

I am currently reading Witness by Whittaker Chambers and he cites how he met with and outlined the Washington, DC spy apparatus with names to the Deputy Secretary of State for Security prior to WWII and when, during the war, he finally was contacted by two FBI agents while working at Time he called the Deputy Secretary and asked permission to talk to them. The Secretary had said that Roosevelt had been given the report of the original disclosure and dismissed it as unimportant.

The original meeting, ten years before the hearings and trials that pitted Chambers against Hiss's denials, had the Under Secretary of States critical notes, in re-typed form, finally surface.

Additionally, after Chambers outlined the Soviet apparatus to the FBI agents, he was never contacted again until long after the war. Meanwhile, Hiss sat at Roosevelt's elbow at Yalta. White, another member of the apparatus, founded the World Bank.

When Hiss died not too long ago at the age of 93 the LameStream Media still promoted it as a "accused" communist. This was after the Soviet era papers had been long public confirming yet again, the fact that Hiss was a Soviet agent of Soviet Military Intelligence.

Chamber's outlined in his biography from the fifties why he thinks Roosevelt and others in the Democratic Party didn't concern themselves about the communist activity. As I recall, he attributes it to two reasons. Prior to the Soviet Pact, the Soviets were seen as another opponent of Fascism. Secondly, the world socialist goals were similar to Democrat tendencies, it was felt that the revolutionary nature made it better to change from within and the Bolsheviks were seen as fringe elements.

That point is much the same as Hillary's Masters Thesis that has recently come to light.

[nathanbedford]

You are quite correct, Nixon was not impeached. As I recall, the House committee voted out articles of impeachment and it was a foregone conclusion that the whole house would then impeach Nixon. He resigned and short-circuited the process. I should know all this because I once argued that I had won a bet that Nixon would be impeached and convicted in impeachment. But my partner welshed, saying that Nixon resigned but was not impeached.

Needless to say, I did not pay him either.

[nathanbedford]

That is a very interesting point about Hillary's masters thesis. Was that actually a masters thesis or an undergraduate thesis?

Chambers was clearly a gifted writer and a singular intellect. Despite his eccentricities and proclivities, he was a man of courage who wittingly forsook what he regarded to be the winning side and selflessly came over to the side of anti-communism, which he regarded to be the losing side, because he was a patriot and because he saw the evil they do.

I found this to be very revealing of Chambers' character.

[KC Burke]

I had understood it to be a masters thesis done after her involvment with Sol Alinsky (sp). She contrasted the progressive (leftist) agenda of Sol’s as something that could be worked out from within the political structure rather than outside it.