Posted on 05/20/2003 6:27:57 AM PDT by johnqueuepublic
McCarthyism - The Right's Badge Of Honor
By William A. Mayer
On Monday May 5, 2003 over 4,200 pages of previously classified testimony, made before the 1953-1954 Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, became available to the public. These hearings [although some of the thunder had already been stolen during the 1948 - 1949 Nixon chaired HUAC sessions] delved further into the charges that the Soviet Union had placed intelligence agents - spies - throughout the Democrat administrations of both FDR and Harry Truman. The Committee’s lighting rod chairman at the time was the Republican Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph P. McCarthy.
The presentation of the 50 year old documents was debuted within the touchy feely framework that Republicans, as if operating under some curse, somehow are convinced will win them the respect of Democrats - of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
One of the reasons for the timorous manner in which this subject is handled is the nuclear fallout, which the liberal press has rained upon the GOP during the years following the period where communist spy networks freely infiltrated the government.
Push a liberal far enough into a corner during a political argument and the charge “McCarthyism” will not be far from his lips. He will use the word as an epithet, inferring that an attack has been unfair – based on slander and innuendo.
The American public has little understanding of - and unfortunately little appetite for - the true extent of the Soviet intelligence operation that was undertaken against them, and which most likely still continues.
But understanding the conspiracy – to the best of our ability considering the sobering but still imperfect evidence so far available - that was hatched within the Soviet Union may help us to understand the nature of many important questions still facing us.
Oddly, the least of these may be to gain some realization of the degree to which FDR - and later Truman - compromised this nation’s security via the self-serving dismissal of information provided by people like Whittaker Chambers’ [and others] whose warnings of wholesale Soviet intelligence’s infiltration into their administrations were manifestly correct.
The model the Soviets used for much of the information gathering was to identifying sources of information, people who by their station in life had access to important knowledge, and then placing agents near them who transmitted it up-line through their handlers and eventually to the Soviet intelligence leadership.
In FDR’s administration there were two types of sources - those that willingly knew their information flowed to Moscow:
“Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White, State Department Office Of Special Political Affairs Alger Hiss, White House assistant to the President Lauchlin Currie and top scientists in the Manhattan Project.” - Jerold & Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets p.32
And those, who because of personal inattention to security, ideological makeup and a host of complicating factors, allowed the most vital national security information to end up in the hands of a mortal enemy:
“They included Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR himself.” - Jerold & Leona Schecter, Sacred Secrets p.32
As to the above referenced top scientists in the Manhattan Project?
“...I set up a network of illegals who convinced Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Bruno Pontecorvo, Alan Nunn May, Klaus Fuchs and other scientists in America and Great Britain to share atomic secrets with us.” - Pavel Sudaplatov, Special Tasks p. 3
Sudaplatov attained the rank of General officer in the NKVD/KGB. A thoroughly unapologetic Stalinist [even after 20 years in Soviet prison – framed as having been involved with “anti-Soviet” intrigue with Stalin & Khrushchev’s bitter rival, Lavrenti Beria], one of his “special tasks” found him responsible for running the operation that tracked down and killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.
The greatest benefit of this new scholarship – in the here and now - may be to help us understand how our current enemy, radical Islamic terror, may use similar methods in establishing underground networks in furtherance of their aims and how the now in vogue promotion of cultural diversity by the left is so potentially damaging to our security.
“You in the West have your weaknesses as well. The diversity in America, the plethora of foreign-born immigrant communities within your population, are the pride of your melting pot. Yet within these communities we were able to enlist thousands of agents ready to destroy you in case war broke out between us.” - Pavel Sudaplatov, Special Tasks p. 4
The depth of Soviet infiltration into the various governmental agencies - Department of State, Treasury, Department of Defense and the foreign policy making apparatus of the US during particularly hallowed Democrat administrations not only proves that McCarthy’s charges were correct, but that he erred on the side of conservatism in his accusations.
The firestorm that Tail Gunner Joe created did not ensue because of any great analytical ability, nor was it the result of his bringing to bear an extraordinarily high intellect; what defined him was having the intestinal fortitude to state what was obvious at that point.
The evidence that the Soviet Union was engaged in an all out effort to destroy American national security during the Cold War is irrefutable, and these newly vetted documents simply add more fuel to an already considerable fire.
The primary substantiation comes from two sources - declassified intelligence documents assembled by a top secret 1943 Army Signal Intelligence project code named the Venona Project and recently declassified NKVD/GRU/KGB documents after the fall of the Soviet Union.
At the same time the FBI was interviewing people with first hand knowledge of the Soviet effort, people like Whittaker Chambers [who fingered Alger Hiss as being a communist spy], whose warning to Roosevelt - in 1939 - were totally disregarded.
Chambers’ information provided valuable confirmation for the facts established in the deciphered Soviet spy traffic and allowed the project to move forward.
What Venona and modern Soviet intelligence scholarship established was proof - beyond even unreasonable doubt - that the basic charges made by McCarthy, Richard Nixon and the much-maligned anti-communists were absolute and unimpeachable.
“…the more we learn about communism in America, the more McCarthy is proven to have been accurate in his charges. Many people in the State Department truly were security risks; there were individual cases of spies and traitors; and there were many sympathizers with influence over American foreign policy. Based on information not available while the man behind these claims was being condemned…” - Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy: Re-examining The Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator. As reviewed by the publisher, Simon & Schuster.
Lets take the case of just one of the players - J. Robert Oppenheimer - a brilliant physicist, scientific director of Los Alamos Laboratory and the man charged with overseeing the Manhattan Project.
Just one minor problem, he was a known traitor.
Even a brief examination of Oppenheimer's record reveals just how criminally lax FDR, Truman and the Democrats were regarding security.
J. [Julius] Robert Oppenheimer, his brother [Frank] and his wife [Katherine] were members of the Communist Party USA.
Robert Oppenheimer contributed 150 dollars a month to the Communist Party [Sacred Secrets reproduces an FBI document attesting to that in Appendix 1]. Frank denied party membership until 1949, then admitted to being a member from 1937 to the early 1940’s. Katherine was a long time communist as well and was previously married to Joseph Dallet a Communist Party functionary who was killed in Spain fighting for the communist led left-wing anti-Franco forces.
Oppenheimer is mentioned in a top secret KGB/NKVD communication:
“In 1942 one of the leaders of scientific work on uranium in the USA, Professor R. Oppenheimer while being an unlisted [nglastny]member of the apparatus of Comrade Browder informed us about the beginning of work. On the request of Kheifetz, confirmed by Comrade Browder, he provided cooperation in access to research for several of our tested sources including a relative of Comrade Browder…Due to complications…it is expedient to immediately sever contacts of leaders and activist of the American Communist Party with scientists and specialists engaged in work on uranium.” Sacred Secrets p. 50
Oppenheimer was a communist party member [until 1942 when the Soviets advised him to cease his above ground relationship - which is precisely the time he left the CPUSA], his brother was a communist, his wife was a communist, his friends were communists and Soviet agents. He held Communist Party meetings in his Berkeley, CA residence and he intentionally enabled the most confidential, most important clandestine government project in US history to be penetrated by Soviet intelligence, arrogantly deciding by himself to "share the bomb" with Stalin.
Much of the same type of information, though obviously, not so specific led to the revocation of Oppenheimer’s security clearance in 1954 during the Eisenhower administration, a decision which to this day "shocks" the liberal intelligentsia.
Many, not conversant in the more recent literature surrounding Soviet intelligence gathering in this country will be dumfounded by the Oppenheimer case. That is understandable given the media’s distaste for spreading injurious information regarding the left and an educational system intent on hiding this sort of messy affair.
What is most troubling is that Oppenheimer was not alone - not by a long shot. He was joined by Fuchs, Fermi, White, Hiss and hundreds of others who were betraying their country in plain view of leftist American administrations.
When Nixon and McCarthy made their charges public, the content was already old news to those in the know.
In November of 1945 the FBI advised the Truman Administration that Harry Dexter White - Assistant Treasury Secty., Dr. Gregory Silvermaster - Dept. of Agriculture, George Silverman - War Dept., Lauchlin Currie – Assistant to President FDR, Donald Wheeler – OSS [the wartime CIA ], Helen Tenney – OSS, Maurice Halperin – OSS, Capt. William Ullman – US Army, Lt. Col. John H. Reynolds, Julius Joseph – OSS and others were communicating with Soviet intelligence agents.
To expand, ever so slightly, on just one example of the treasonous level of indifference by Democrat administrations, the above mentioned Harry Dexter White - after successfully conspiring to smuggle official US Treasury Dept. printing plates for German marks to the Soviets - and one month after the FBI White House warning – Truman nominated White to be the United States' first representative to the International Monetary Fund.
“Give ‘em Hell” Harry refused withdraw the nomination because it was deemed essential to winning New York in the 1948 election.
So that was and continues to be the bottom line - winning elections no matter what the cost to the nation, criminal negligence that could very easily have destroyed America and a permanently entrenched left-wing fifth column.
One can only hope there are places hot enough in hell for the souls of these people.
Appendix: At the beginning of this piece we mentioned the recently declassified Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations documents, here are some brief excerpts from the testimony of CPUSA functionary, Paul Crouch, p. 1834 -1841, concerning J. Robert Oppenheimer. Bracketed [ ] text is offered for purposes of clarification.
"Chairman - Were you a top functionary of the party?
Crouch - Yes...I was a full time organizer for 15 years [1925 -1942]
Chairman - What were some of the positions you held...?
Crouch - I was a representative of the Young Communist League and the Communist Party of the United States to the meetings of the executive committee of the Communist International, Young Communist International, Moscow...I was an honorary officer of the Red Army...a member of the editorial staff of the Daily Worker...a district organizer...in Virginia, New York and South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah; member of the district bureau in the Alabama district and the California district, Alameda County [CA] organizer, 1941...
Chairman - ...and you were informed by two Justice Dept. lawyers that you would not be used because if you were...you would have to identify Robert J. Oppenheimer? [as a member of the CPUSA]
Crouch - To that effect, yes sir.
Chairman - Is there any doubt in your mind that Oppenheimer was a member of the Communist Party?
Crouch - No, sir, none whatever. I met him in a closed meeting of the Communist Party in a house which was subsequently found to have been his residence at the time...and following that I met him at quite a number of Communist Party affairs in Alameda County.
Chairman - Is there any doubt in your mind that but that Oppenheimer was under Communist party discipline at the time...?
Crouch - No, sir, none whatever
Chairman - And naturally they would be interested in any atomic information he had?
Crouch - Yes, sir. Just as a matter of fact, the Communist Party might have chosen to direct him to turn over the information; they might have chosen to direct him to appoint other Communists to key positions who would in turn, turn over the information. It is a matter of record that Dr. Oppenheimer has appointed many Communists to key positions to the atomic energy program..."
Go ye forth, and set the record straight my friends - you have nothing to fear but fear itself.
© 2003 PipeLineNews. All rights reserved
Tailgunner Joe--Patriot Whistleblower or Right-Wing Witch-hunter?
He was not "right" in any meaningful sense of the word, any more than a quack who feeds people snake oil is "right" when one of his patients happens to recover. Basically, his accusations were the equivalent of tabloid psychic predictions that occasionally score lucky hits -- and did great damage to the cause of legitimate and rational investigation into real Communist infiltration.
Julius Rosenberg was a member of FAECT. David Bohm, who worked on the Manhattan project was an active member of the FAECT as well. He took the fifth when called before Congress. Perhaps because of Albert Einstein's support, Bohm was acquitted of contempt of Congress. He left America and did well teaching in Brazil, Israel and finally the UK.>Mr Crouch . . .There are many other Communists who were employed by Dr. Oppenheimer and also, according to the California committee's information, Dr. Oppenheimer was active in urging atomic scientists to join a Communist espionage apparatus called the FAECT--Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians--headed by Marcel Scherer, who had been trained in the espionage schools in Moscow and who had been in charge of infiltration of scientists since 1928, to my personal knowledge.
The Chairman. This FAECT was headed by a man who went to the Moscow School of Espionage and Sabotage?
Mr. Crouch. Yes.
The. Chairman. That is the Lenin school?
Mr. Crouch. Yes.
The Chairman. Where is he now, do you know?
Mr. Crouch. He is in New York City at the present time.
The Chairman. Is he connected with atomic work now, do you know?
Mr. Crouch. I don't know.
The Chairman. What is his name?
Mr. Crouch. Marcel Scherer.
The Chairman. Oh, yes.
Mr. Crouch. I personally participated in discussions that set up this apparatus for scientific espionage in 1928 and was present at discussions between Scherer and William Z. Foster, and Scherer and Communist international representatives from Moscow, when this project was approved.
Communists of that era in their own words:
The Albert & Vera Weisbord Foundation Archives
Haven't read it all but "Afro-American Guerilla Warfare (Draft)" is chilling. I. The Fascist Tendencies of Roosevelt. is more amusing (and not that off target).
Such as?
The first Hollywood blacklist was a decade before McCarthy by communists against those not in the party. It was vicious. Rumors were floated that those who didn't go along with the party line supported Hitler.
The first Congressional "witch hunt" was led by Samuel Dickstein (D-NY) against German Americans, anti-communists and those opposed to entering WWII. Dickstein was a KGB agent (code name:crook). When he chaired an immigration committee, he sold Soviet agents visas. He was never chastised, never caught and his name never became a household word.
Btw...the word "McCarthyism" was coined by the Communist Party USA and first appeared in print in the Daily Worker.
I agree 100%. Noticed that liberals go boinkers when this topic is mentioned. They have no defense. That is why the "so-called" Senate historian tried to spin the release of these transcripts and handed out talking points for all the media to use. I don't think one journalist in a hundred actually read the testimony. I've written to half a dozen reporters from small town papers across America asking if they read the transcript before writing their hit piece on McCarthy. Not one has answered yet.
The transcripts are devastating and puncture all the liberal myths about McCarthy. He didn't badger witnesses, he protected the animonity of gays, over and over he warned those testifying that being in the CPUSA was no crime but lying about it was and if they simply told the truth, he would see nobody knew they had been party members. And he kept his word. This thread might interest you:
Thirteenth Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities--California
The report, from 1965, was sealed until a few years ago (2000, I believe). It lays out in detail how the student protests at Berkeley and other CA universities--as well as around the world--were organized in the Kremlin.Lots of names we know, including Treuhalf--the Stalinist lawyer who hired Hillary Clinton as an intern.
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