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.
No, I haven't had the opportunity, but it is on my List Of Books To Read When I Get A Chance.
I know nothig of Faulk but nearly every organization which endorsed Wallace for president was a Soviet front. If Faulk was slandered, it is a shame. But that was not the norm. The threat was real and those who refused to testify were, almost to a person, on the side of the Soviet Union. The CPUSA was funded and directed by Moscow. Those who belonged knew that. They were agents of a foreign power.
What receives little attention today is that the real "witch-hunt" occurred a dozen years before McCarthy was elected to the Senate.
McCormick-Dickstein hearings of 1934 smeared many Americans by accusing them of being part of a fascist conspiracy to overthrow the US government.
Dickstein (D-NY) was on the payroll of the Soviet Union.
The 1934 hearing were only the start for Dickstein. On February 11, 1941 he took to the floor of the House of Representatives and alleged:
One hundred and ten fascist organizations in the United States have had, and have now the key to the back door of the Un-American Activities Committee!
Nice huh? Less than a year before we entered WWII, when America was helping the UK fight Nazism, Dickstein smeared decent Americans, some of whom, no doubt, would soon give their lives fighting fascism.
Dickstein himself had introduced, on Stalin's orders, the bill creating HCUA (HUAC). He was furious that his baby had turned on his comrades and was now investigating communists. And he was willing to smear anyone who hinted that communists had infiltrated the US government. This from a person who was selling visas to the Soviets when he chaired an immigration committee.
A similar parallel existed with Hollywood. The real Hollywood Blacklist happened before the testimony of the Hollywood Ten in the 1950s (who were, by the way, members of the Communist Party USA).The real blacklist denied jobs to those who were not communist sympathizers. And it was ugly. Rumors were floated to studio executives, many of whom were Jewish, that this writer or that actor supported Adolf Hitler. Talk about a career killer. More on the real Hollywood Blacklist here.
Until the speech, billed as a tribute to mark the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, McCarthy was best known in Washington for pushing legislation to benefit Wisconsin's industries and for exaggerating his service record during World War II. He calls himself "Tailgunner Joe" in campaign literature, even though he was a paper-pusher in the Marine Corps.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:MIL1950/1:MIL1950011899.html
America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8Mb File Here (Requires RealPlayer)
Sounds like he deserved what he got. Wallace was an airheaded fellow-traveler with the enthusiastic support of all the Communists and the worst left-wing elements int he country. Faulk supporting him simply shows his real character.
At a time when many men were being drafted, McCarthy gave up his judicial bench at the age of 34 and enlisted in the Marines. He was made an intelligence officer for Marine aviation at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant and worked his way up to Captain at discharge. When the anti-McCarthyites haggle over how many missions he flew, they miss the point - not only did he not have to be in the Marine Corps in harms way, but he was not required to fly on any missions - he volunteered for that too.
Not that many others did such a thing, and he was hardly under the threat of the draft. "He didn't have to go to war, but he did." (Wisconsin State Journal, 7/18/1946). You defame a great American, sir.
Greta Van Susteren's father, Urban Van Susteren, ran Joe McCarthy's successful 1946 campaign for the U.S .Senate.
Link works fine. Do a string search for "Tailgunner" when you get there.
America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8Mb File Here (Requires RealPlayer)
Yeah, right. Use a 1946 article to defend someone who committed his crimes years later.
America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8Mb File Here (Requires RealPlayer)
Sounds like a Bill Klinton defense. It depends on what your definition of "lie" is.
It was "doctored" to make G. David Schine look like he was someone of importance who should be elevated from private to Lt. But, far from hobnobbing with anybody really important, he was shown to be just part of a large group shot when the actual photo was released.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And, with a little "surgery" maybe 10,000.
America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8Mb File Here (Requires RealPlayer)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.