Blacklisted by History: Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy - M. Stanton Evans on C-Span2

[SergeiRachmaninov]

Long-time conservative intellectual and commentator M. Stanton Evans discusses his important new book in defense of Joe McCarthy. Long awaited, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy, was released on released on Nov. 6, 2007.

Program re-airs on Sunday, 11/25, at 11 p.m. ET on C-Span2 (BookTV). Program length is 58 minutes.

[SergeiRachmaninov]

I saw this program last weekend. Mr. Evans, who served as chairman of the American Conservative Union in the sixties and seventies, has long been engaged with this material. His book is an in-depth and scholarly recounting of the McCarthy era, including the Alger Hiss case and the role of Whitaker Chambers. It includes all the newer information that has become available since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Mr. Stanton makes a compelling case that there was in fact a "witchhunt" and McCarthy was its victim. The leftist smear of McCarthy -- and anti-communism, in general -- has become an article of faith within academe and among elite opinion leaders. Mr. Evans gives this distorted view of history a scholarly kick in the teeth which it will not easily shake off.

Mr. Evans has the skills not only of a scholar but also those of a raconteur. Listening to him, one has a powerful sense of getting a first-person account. I could not recommend this program too strongly.

[blam]

" Mr. Stanton makes a compelling case that there was in fact a "witchhunt" and McCarthy was its victim. "

I'm a firm believer of this.

One of the best books ever written.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP!

[Lancey Howard]

(( ping ))

[A.A. Cunningham]

Any mention of McCarthy assistant Robert F. Kennedy?

[SergeiRachmaninov]

I've had that book on my shelf for several years and really regret not yet having got around to it. I bought it mostly because so many people -- as you have -- give it a passionate recommendation.

Although I have not read the Chambers book, I certainly have paid a lot of attention to this period of history and bristle whenever I hear people on NPR deploring the "dark days of McCarthyism." And I hear this on almost every day that I listen to NPR. It is the world turned upside down.

People who think that either academe or the MSM delivers anything remotely like a straight-down-the-center view of American history have no clue.

[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

[SergeiRachmaninov]

Yes, Bobby Kennedy and Richard Nixon were mentioned in the discussion, which was fairly wide-ranging.

Evans is impressive because he seems able to respond to most any question in depth.

[SergeiRachmaninov]

Thanks. That’s a great post from backhoe. I’m gonna give it a good going over.

[mc5cents]

I just ordered it on Amazon. 6.98 plus shipping.

[blam]

The John Birch Society was originally headquarted in Maine.
After Joe's death, they moved the headquarters to Appleton, Wisconsin, Joe's hometown. I often wondered if there was a connection.

[spanalot]

“Mr. Stanton makes a compelling case that there was in fact a “witchhunt” and McCarthy was its victim”

McCarthy, Patton, MacArthur, Forrestal - they were all right - and hinted down like dogs by the left.

[MrEdd]

ping

[VR-21]

I'm reading "Blacklisted" presently, and it's a great read. One has to wonder how this country survived such an incredible penetration of our our government by communists during the 30's and 40's.

Several sources, most notably Venona, and Soviet archives have all but completely vindicated Joe McCarthy, but I very much doubt that US academia and media will ever admit it.

This book, "Witness" and "The Venona Secrets" are books everybody should have (and read) IMO. I would also recommend "The Sword and The Shield" by Christopher Andrew.

[ScaniaBoy]

And you shouldn't miss this book either:

Perjury: The Hiss - Chambers Case by Allen Weinsten

[SergeiRachmaninov]

Don't know...really don't know anything about the Birchers, who were actively getting smeared when I was just coming of political age in the Goldwater era. I believe that Barry's running mate, was accused of being "a Bircher."

The smear of the Birchers was so overwhelming that -- at that time -- that I was still too naive to question it. After all, if the God of broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow, said it, it surely must be true. ~sarcasm~ (I don't particularly have any memory of Murrow commenting on the Birchers...I just cite him as a representative media figure who posed as someone beyond question, when, in fact, he was a fierce ideological partisan.)

I hope young people today are not as naively vulnerable to these propped up MSM figures as I was, and I don't think they are. As depressing as things looks sometimes, it is a different world from the days when the MSM could easily shutdown conservative voices.

[Bernard Marx]

One of the best books ever written.

I could not agree more! I'd add to it as "must" McCarthy-era reading:

"Seeds of Treason" by Ralph de Toledano (look at used booksellers)

"Stalin's Secret Service," Memoirs of the First Soviet Master Spy to Defect (a total eye-opener as to just how vulnerable the U.S. was to Communist spying and security penetration in the '30s and '40s).

When Russian General Walter G. Krivitsky, Chief of Soviet Military Intelligence in Western Europe, defected to the U.S. in 1937, he wasn't even interviewed by the FBI!! He was found in a Washington D.C. hotel room in 1941 with a bullet wound to the head, a pistol on the floor and 3 suicide notes. Some people were skeptical: Krivitsky had been hotly pursued by the KGB (then the NKVD) since he'd left Europe. His lawyer later quoted him:

"One day you walk along a street and there is a dead man, run over by a car. And you see it is Krivitsky. You say, 'Poor man, he should have been more careful.' You never think it is they who killed me so. They are too clever!"

[SergeiRachmaninov]

I'm reading "Blacklisted" presently, and it's a great read.

Great! I hope you'll post an Amazon review.

[SergeiRachmaninov]

Perjury: The Hiss - Chambers Case by Allen Weinsten

Thanks. I'm making myself quite a little bibliography from suggestions here, including backhoe's great thread.

[Turret Gunner A20]

With the opening of the KGB archives and the release of the VENONA intercepts - decoded Soviet KGB and GRU traffic - it has been proved that McCarthy was absolutely right about the extensive Soviet penetration of the U.S. government in all the most sensitive sections and its danger to America. According to the KGB archives the NKVD had 221 agents in the Roosevelt administration in April 1941 and the Soviet military GRU probably had a like number. He was proved right that the Communist Party, U.S.A., was an arm of the Soviet intelligence apparatus and the Soviet Union considered the US as their "main enemy." His liberal critics in academe and the mainstream media, who denied there was Communist subversion and made excuses for it, were proved absolutely wrong! This should have discredited the liberal ideology and those who mouthed it. Because the left had no answer or effective reply to the challenge McCarthy posed, they engaged in personal destruction - they smeared and demonized McCarthy because he was truth. p http://wwx2.tripod.com/mccarthy.html

An extremely interesting particle. I highly recommend it.