[DPB101]

An ER nurse I know who has seen many alcoholics die of liver failure told me she finds it difficult to believe drinking is what killed McCarthy--not at his age and not so fast.

The recently released transcripts of the executive sessions of McCarthy's committee has sworn tesitmony that the Communist Party USA had a hit out on him and that Horace S. Craig, a top CIA official, mused "It may be necessary" to liquidate McCarthy.

[MEG33]

I read he died of acute hepatitis.Barry Goldwater said he probably drank too much.I just read enough hateful descriptions,though, in a google search to last me forever!One described him as a rebel without a cause.Guess how credible I found that writer!

[DesertWalker]

An historical note - I don't know if it is important - in about 1970 I read an article in the Washington Post about Joseph McCarthy. It as supposedly an interview with a pharmacist in Washington D.C. who claimed he had been supplying McCarthy with --- HEROIN --- and claimed McCarthy had a long history of drug use.

At the time I knew that this was simply propaganda from the Washington Post. The idea that a pharmacist would supply an illegal drug that was easily available on the streets of D.C., and untraceable, was obviously a lie.

At the time, I thought, "Joseph McCarthy was right all along." Yes, he was.

[HISSKGB]

It would helpful if more were known about the cause of McCarthy's death.

Acute hepatitis has been listed as McCarthy's cause of death. Rarely, if ever, is this listed as the cause of death for chronic alcoholics unless he ingested some poisoned bad booze. No one ever said he died from the chronic(not acute)condition called cirrhosis or its sequelae.

The only other cause of a sudden demise is seen in an acute toxic poisoning where, usually college freshmen, ingest so much they are actually poisoned. In this case they die before hepatitis develops.