I had an indifferent to positive view of Henry Jackson until I found out his role in the McCarthy Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearings from 1954.
Jackson was on that Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and there was a woman named Annie Lee Moss who was being investigated as a security risk working at a secure Army Communications station.
After hearing testimony, Jackson agreed she should not be allowed to work there. But in one of the meetings afterwards, he did a 180 and said that it was a case of mistaken identity, they were talking about some other woman named Annie Lee Moss and they use her as an example of a innocent victim of McCarthy’s excesses.
It was nothing of the sort.
Annie Lee Moss was a member of the Communist Party, and was putting on a big act of how stupid and slow she was. There were only two three Annie Mosses living in that area, and investigators contacted two of them and immediately ruled them out, and neither went by “Annie Lee Moss”.
Of course, she lied through her teeth and put on the dumb and stupid frail old lady act. When she discussed it a few years later, she said she had been a paying member of the Communist party, but said she was done with all that.
Henry Jackson as a Freshman Senator was part of the Democrat portion that put their heads together and concocted the hoax of “mistaken identity” and refused to nail her.
All done to protect the Democrat Party. Just like today. The well being of the Democrat Party came far before the national security of the United States.
As far as I am concerned, he was a leftist political scumbag, regardless of his blather about being a conservative on national security issues. It was all lies and posturing.
Interesting. I knew about Annie Lee Moss being a real commie, but I did not know about “Scoop” being a willing dupe.