Posted on 02/21/2011 9:42:40 AM PST by lwd
Joseph McCarthy, the U.S. senator of the early 1950s, is still remembered for two things: Drinking too much and his passionate pursuit of communists that ended up resembling a witch-hunt. Could alcohol and paranoia have led him to devote his career to searching for communists living among us?
Thousands suffered from his relentless pursuits. McCarthy, finally exposed, died in disgrace. But the question remained: How could one man, even a U.S. senator, destroy the reputations and livelihoods of so many people?
Intrigued by this story, author and investigator M. Stanton Evans wondered if perhaps the truth had become clouded by time. As he began researching McCarthy, Evans discovered errors in major newspapers. A headline in the New York Times of May 2000 stated that, “Oscar Shaftel, Fired after Refusing McCarthy, Dies at 88.” The article stated that Professor Shaftel had refused to cooperate with a Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. (Two errors: these subcommittees, which McCarthy never participated in, only investigate U.S. senators, and McCarthy had never mentioned Shaftel in any investigation.)
The L.A. Times and Washington Post both reported on “Senator McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee,” although Senators never chair House committees. Even a New York Times crossword puzzle perpetuated this myth (Clue: Senator McCarthy’s group. Answer: HUAC). Virtually no articles from major newspapers, when mentioning McCarthy, were based in fact.
Researching newly-declassified FBI records, government documents, and conducting countless interviews, Evans wrote “Blacklisted by History, the Untold Story of Joseph McCarthy and His Fight against America’s Enemies.”
Photo-copied documents support McCarthy’s claims: Subversive communists had infiltrated the U.S. government. Facing public exposure, the communists began smearing McCarthy personally. Here’s one example: McCarthy was responsible for “blacklisting” famous Hollywood celebrities as communist sympathizers. Fact: McCarthy only investigated government officials, never private citizens.
Furthermore, as it turned out, McCarthy’s “victims” had already been on FBI watch lists. McCarthy had been right; Russian agents had taken U.S. State Department jobs before Russia had been declared our enemy. Successfully smearing McCarthy, a former WWII Marine, was a victory for communism.
Even today, as Congressman Peter King (R-NY) examines whether radicals within our borders are planning another 9/11 attack, 50 leftist groups are crying “McCarthyism.” Yet not that long ago, Jane Fonda, a key communist sympathizer during the Vietnam War, was honored by an ABC News special as one of the “top 100 women of the century.”
You may recall that back in 1972 Fonda visited American prisoners of war in Vietnam. Although American servicemen were being brutally tortured at the hands of the communist North Vietnamese, Fonda reported that the communists were being “humane and lenient.” Later, when surviving POWs returned home and told their stories, she told us to “not hail the POW’s as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars.”
Vietnam veterans literally defined the word honor for an entire generation.
Tens of thousands gave their lives, and countless more suffered mental and physical life-altering changes. Yet these unsung heroes returned home to chants of “baby-killer” and “murderer” by a public blindly following the latest news headlines. Another communist victory; and today the entire Vietnam experience is slowly being erased from textbooks.
Communists and socialists only make up an estimated 20 percent of the U.S. population. Their strength comes from the ability to make noise. They stage protests and boycotts. They write Congress and sign petitions. They take jobs with major news outlets or teach in schools or accept key government appointments; and they no longer hide.
Spending a few hours on the Internet at www.cpusa.org (Communist Party-USA) will reveal not only how far they have come, but how close they are to achieving their goal. They just need the general public to remain silent.
• • •
Steve Pender lives in Rockwell.
Tailgunner destroyed the allure of the communist cult, it never gained respectability that it wanted. Ironically it elected Tailgunner’s friend JFK since it scrubbed the commies off the masthead of the Democratic party and made it presentable to America. After the hearings being a communism meant fringe character, it never recovered.
Venona cables vindicated Joe.
Really? Maybe you should come to Madison....
BIG TIME PING!!
Still a cult even if in a nation of 310million they can put a few thousand on the street for a few days in one place in America.
McCarthy was right. Because he was right (and even moreso because he was effective) he became one of the first targets of the modern media spin machine. They attacked him with the same ferocity they used to defend Alger Hiss.
Sad to say, I must disagree with you. Communism simply grew another head and infiltrated our society even more completely.
Of course it did, but we were not treated to a legitimate Communist party parading about the place, but instead turned communism into a dirty word worthy of defeat in total. (at least in the USSR variety) Even Bill Buckley could not resucitate communism’s respectability since the fringe of the right like Tailgunner and the Birch Society thoroughly destroyed it before he could spend a lifetime quibbling theocratic points with the comsymps.
Joe may have been self-destructive, but he was also right. What “McCarthyism” actually did was blunt our abilities at enemy identification.
You’re correct that to be a “communist” is considered fringe but I would assert that communism is alive and well. It is just disguised as something else, like “change you can believe in”. Most of the adherents (’useful idiots’)don’t even realize what they support is communism (ex- socialized medicine).
So long as nearly all of our seniors and too many of our younger citizens are on the government dole, communism will be alive and well in America. We need to terminate the welfare state.
Again, I disagree. The JB Soc. had it right, but they were mocked and derided and labeled a fringe group. Anti-communism became risible in educated circles. One reason why I have always loathed Buckley.
Only in part. If McCarthy had focused on the real Communists such as Hiss and not completely lost it by attacking the likes of Gen. George Marshall, he might be remembered differently today.
Given the current White House occupant, I would say his dogged pursuit of communists has been vindicated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/06/the-communist-experience-in-america/
Now we are reaping the bitter fruit of the Commiecrat Party; and have done for a very long time.
McCarthy was a very good man, and the left killed him.
We’ll get even.
I think we agree. The JBS deserved its fringe status, but so what between them and JM they marginalized the communists to the point they had to hide and could no longer publically worship the USSR. We agree on Buckley, I know a person who was barely allowed to publish in NR and it was basically a kiss the ring operation. BB spent a lifetime debating NewYork comsymps over theological minutae, and never mentioning that basically the USSR with comsymp support was a prison camp, all in return for “respectability.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.