Posted on 05/27/2003 12:34:23 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The release of 50-year-old hearings conducted by Senator Joe McCarthy gave the media another opportunity to charge that the Wisconsin Senator made reckless charges about communists that destroyed the lives of innocent people. M. Stanton Evans, a scholar on the subject, contacted reporters for Roll Call newspaper, the Washington Post and Reuters in a fruitless attempt to get the name of one innocent victim of McCarthy. They told him to contact Donald Ritchie, the Senate historian who edited the hearings and appeared on several shows to talk about them. Ritchie told Evans to send him a letter.
One of those appearances came on a Fox News show hosted by John Gibson, who said McCarthy was a drunk who "went around the bend" and who had a list of 1000 alleged communists that was "bogus, completely bogus, right?" Ritchie responded that McCarthy did find communists and security risks "from time to time" but no espionage agents or subversion.
McCarthy had actually cited 59 suspected communists in the State Department, and he produced that list, plus 22 others. McCarthy helped uncover a communist spy ring involving foreign service officer John Stewart Service and Phil Jaffe, the editor of a pro-communist magazine. He targeted Owen Lattimore, a key State Department adviser and communist. McCarthy’s charge against Mary Jane Keeney, a State Department, U.N. employee and Soviet agent, was proven correct. McCarthy was right about Annie Lee Moss, an Army Code Clerk who was a member of the Communist Party.
Ken Ringle, in a Washington Post story about the new release of the hearings, still insisted that Annie Lee Moss was "a frail file clerk in the State Department who had no idea who Karl Marx was…" He and John W. Dean, in a column posted by CNN.com, made the claim that the derogatory term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herblock. But Herbert Romerstein, an expert on the Communist Party and Soviet espionage, points out that the term was introduced by the Communist Party to discredit the movement to root communists out of government.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the New York Times insisted that, "Historians who have reviewed the documents [the hearings] say they do not support McCarthy’s theories that, in the 1950s, Communist spies were operating at the highest levels of government." But the John Stewart Service spy ring also involved Laughlin Currie, an adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt, and they succeeded in manipulating U.S. foreign policy to enable the communists to seize China. Other top communists in government included Harry Dexter White at the Department of the Treasury and, of course, Alger Hiss of the State Department, a founder of the U.N.
Joel Brinkley in the New York Times said McCarthy did not hesitate "to destroy reputations and lives." In fact, some in the media wanted to destroy McCarthy. The Washington Post was preparing to publish major allegations of illegal conduct against McCarthy until it realized at the last minute that its major source was a con man. The coverage hasn’t changed that much over the years.
Perhaps William F Buckley should consider re-releasing his book McCarthy and his Enemies. It annoyed quite a few liberals back in the 1950's.
FAULK, JOHN HENRY (1913-1990). John Henry Faulk, humorist and author, fourth of five children of Henry and Martha (Downs) Faulk, was born in Austin, Texas, on August 21, 1913. His parents were staunch yet freethinking Methodists who taught him to detest racism.
He entered the University of Texas in 1932. Under the guidance of J. Frank Dobie, Walter P. Webb, and Roy Bedichek,he developed his considerable abilities as a collector of folklore. For his master's degree thesis, Faulk recorded and analyzed ten African-American sermons from churches in Travis and Bexar counties. His research convinced him that members of minorities, particularly African Americans,qv faced grave limitations of their civil rights.
Between 1940 and 1942, Faulk taught an English I course at the University, using mimicry and storytelling to illustrate the best and worst of Texas societal customs. Often made to feel inferior at faculty gatherings, Faulk increasingly told unbelievable tales and bawdy jokes. His ability both to parody and to praise human behavior led to his entertainment and literary career.
Early in World War II the army refused to admit him because of a bad eye. In 1942 he joined the United States Merchant Marine for a year of trans-Atlantic duty, followed by a year with the Red Cross in Cairo, Egypt. By 1944 relaxed standards allowed the army to admit him for limited duty as a medic; he served the rest of the war at Camp Swift, Texas.
Radio provided Faulk the audience he, as a storyteller, craved. Through his friend Alan Lomax, who worked at the CBS network in New York, Faulk became acquainted with industry officials. During Christmas 1945, Lomax hosted a series of parties to showcase Faulk's yarn-spinning abilities. When discharged from the army in April 1946, CBS gave Faulk his own weekly radio program, entitled "Johnny's Front Porch"; it lasted a year. Faulk began a new program on suburban station WOV in 1947 and the next year moved to another New Jersey station, WPAT, where he established himself as a raconteur while hosting "Hi-Neighbor," "Keep 'em Smiling," and "North New Jersey Datebook."
WCBS Radio debuted the "John Henry Faulk Show" on December 17, 1951. The program, which featured music, political humor, and listener participation, ran for six years.
Faulk's radio career ended in 1957, a victim of the Cold War and the blacklisting of the 1950s. Inspired by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, AWARE, Incorporated, a New York-based, for-profit, corporation, offered "clearance" services to major media advertisers and radio and television networks. For a fee, AWARE would investigate the backgrounds of entertainers for signs of Communist sympathy or affiliation. In 1955 Faulk earned the enmity of the blacklist organization when he and other members wrested control of their union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists from officers under the aegis of AWARE. In retaliation, AWARE branded Faulk a Communist. When he discovered that the AWARE bulletin prevented a radio station from making him an employment offer, Faulk sought redress.
Several prominent radio personalities and CBS News vice president Edward R. Murrow supported Faulk's effort to end blacklisting. With financial backing from Murrow, Faulk engaged New York attorney Louis Nizer. Attorneys for AWARE, including McCarthy-committee counsel Roy Cohn, managed to stall the suit, which was originally filed in 1957, for five years. When the trial finally concluded in a New York courtroom, the jury had determined that Faulk should receive more compensation than he sought in his original petition.
On June 28, 1962, the jury awarded him the largest libel judgment in history to that date-$3.5 million. An appeals court subsequently reduced the amount to $500,000. Legal fees and accumulated debts erased the balance of the award.
Despite his vindication, CBS did not rehire Faulk-indeed, years passed before he worked again as a media entertainer. He returned to Austin in 1968. From 1975 to 1980 he appeared as a homespun character on the television program "Hee-Haw." During the 1980s he wrote and produced two one-man plays. In both Deep in the Heart (1986) and Pear Orchard, Texas, he portrayed characters imbued with the best of human instincts and the worst of cultural prejudices.
The year 1974 proved pivotal for Faulk. CBS Television broadcast its movie version of Fear on Trial, Faulk's 1963 book that described his battle against AWARE. Also in 1974, Faulk read the dossier that the FBI had maintained on his activities since the 1940s. Disillusioned and desirous of a return to the country, Faulk moved to Madisonville, Texas. He returned to Austin in 1981. In 1983 he campaigned for the congressional seat abdicated by Democrat-turned-Republican Phil Gramm. Although he lost the three-way race, the humorist had spoken his mind. During the 1980s he traveled the nation urging university students to be ever vigilant of their constitutional rights and to take advantage of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Center for American Historyqv at the University of Texas at Austin sponsors the John Henry Faulk Conference on the First Amendment.
In 1940 Faulk wed one of his students at the University of Texas, Hally Wood. They had a daughter. After he and Hally were divorced, Faulk married Lynne Smith, whom he met at a New York City rally for presidential candidate Henry Wallace in the spring of 1948. Born of their marriage were two daughters and a son. After his divorce from Lynne, Faulk married Elizabeth Peake in 1965: they had a son. Faulk died in Austin of cancer on April 9, 1990. The city of Austin named the downtown branch of the public library in his honor.
It's true he did find some Communists but he also assisted Roy Cohn in an attempt to get special treatment and a commission for Cohn's queer lover, G. David Schine. He even used a doctored photograph to make his case.
Further, he attacked General Ralph Zwicker, a bona-fide war hero when things didn't go his way.
McCarthy was neither total heel nor total hero. He did some good but he also did some bad.
Although the hearings were slightly more than a month away, McCarthy was examining General Ralph Zwicker of the United States Army – a decorated war hero. General Zwicker failed to divulge the name(s) of those responsible for the promotion of an Army dentist, Major Irving Peress. Major Peress had refused to fill out forms that inquired about his affiliation with groups labeled as “subversive”. Infuriated with Peress’ promotion and frustrated with Zwicker’s failure to deliver, Senator Joseph McCarthy spouted personal attacks at the General, deeming him “unfit to wear the uniform” and announcing that he “does not have the brains of a five-year-old.”
(FWIW, Joe McCarthy's war record is less than sterling.)
http://www.umich.edu/~historyj/papers/winter2002/gottlieb3.html
America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8Mb File Here (Requires RealPlayer)
For those who missed it, "terilyn" transcribed a speech LA Times reporter Robert Scheer gave at a 1968 protest in support of the "Oakland 7" draft dodgers. The Real Audio is archived at Berkeley. "terilyn's" work is probably the only transcript extent. For those who know the threat we faced, Scheer's polemic against America will be a "we told you so." For those who doubt McCarthy's charges, Scheer proves we've had and still have a fifth column in America. The transcript is here
Care to tell us why you do not believe it measures up?
They hyperventilate at the very mention of his name.
I have always found that hilarious.
You Go Joe.!!
Have you read Mr. Buckley's more recent (1999):
The Redhunter: A Novel Based on the Life of Senator Joe McCarthy
Interesting read.
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