What McCarthy had discovered was a Truman administration cover-up that had used the clout and powerful contacts of the old Roosevelt administration "Mr. Fixit," Thomas Corcoran, or "Tommy the Cork" as FDR affectionately called him. His role in pulling strings behind the scenes was finally brought to light in the 1996 book, The Amerasia Spy Case by Harvey Klehr and Ronald Radosh. McCarthy, along with the rest of world, did not know of Corcoran's role in quickly making the Amerasia case just "go away." Those arrested got off with little more than a slap on the wrist, and the headlines disappeared.
McCarthy's focus on Amerasia led to the exposure of a carefully orchestrated campaign to convince U.S. government officials and the American media (notably the book-publishing world) that the Chiang Kai-shek government was hopelessly corrupt and incompetent and that the Communist crusade to take power was unstoppable. The result was the media of that day were telling Americans that the Chinese Communists were not really Communists, but instead were "simple agrarian reformers." Rarely—if ever—was it mentioned that the "reformers" were backed to the hilt with arms and ammunition from the neighboring Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union.
At the center of the propaganda effort was the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), of which Owen Lattimore was a top official. IPR's influence was considerable—both in the State Department and the U.S. media.
McCarthy blew the whistle on the cover-up and the IPR, and (among others) Lattimore who protested his innocence. At first Lattimore was exonerated by the stacked anti-McCarthy Tydings committee which compounded the whitewash.
However, McCarthy was ultimately vindicated by another panel. The Democrat-dominated Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, of which McCarthy himself was not a member, was chaired by Nevada Democrat Pat McCarran. That thorough months-long investigation concluded in a voluminous report that "[Owen] Lattimore was for some time beginning in the middle 1930's a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy." The panel cited a long list of instances of Lattimore's willing collaboration with the enemies of this country."
Thanks for the post! The media spin of "McCarthyism" needs a little light of truth shined on the subject!
Great stuff, Joe.