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I think it was in a book about the dangers of communism and the Council on Foreign Relations written in the 1950's by former FBI Agent Dan Smoot...."Invisible Government" but I'm not totally sure. The book is long out of print.

My copy was handed down to me by my father, who was himself a rabid anti-communist as many folks who both witnessed and suffered the ravages of the Russian revolution first hand tended to be! My dad was Russian born and a distant relative of the Czar.

This book documented that McCarthy often ran around DC with a bottle of Scotch in his battered old briefcase. Now, just because somebody has a drinking problem, I don't feel their life's work can be automatically invalidated.

My dad was Russian born and a distant relative of the Czar.

Anticommunists such as your father had trouble keeping their positions in government or the Army. From Volume 3 of the McCarthy executive sessions made public this year:

TESTIMONY OF IGOR BOGOLEPOV
Mr. Bogolepov . . .I went to the Red Army; then came back to the foreign office in the League of Nations desk; then I participated in the Civil War in Spain as interpreter between the Soviet generals and the Republican general staff. I was arrested in Spain by the secret police and shipped back to the Soviet Union for trial. Then I was released in 1938 and restored in the Foreign Service Office in the Soviet Union.
I have participated in many international talks which took place between the Soviet Union and Western nations, including the Soviet-Nazi Pact and President Roosevelt's emissary, Harry Hopkins, in the summer of 1941.
During the war I was in the Baltic countries and on the Leningrad Front and come over to the German lines. I deserted from the Soviet army being in rank of colonel of general staff.
I tried for sometime to convince the Germans to take less stupid political line towards the Russian people and Russian soldiers. Because of my stubbornness and perhaps too hot a defense of the Russian national interests as opposed to Communists and Nazis they put me in Gestapo jail for a while to cool me down.
After release I went to a German farm in Bavaria and was there until the American army came in 1945.
Under American occupation I was obliged first to hide myself, for a couple of years, due to the western policies of extradition to the Soviet police of all Russian people, especially like me who were on the Soviet wanted persons list.
In 1947 I came out and explained to the U.S. Army intelligence officers in Germany who I was actually and my political standpoint and I started my work in the United States Army.
First I worked as instructor in the European Command Intelligence School in Oberammergau and next year I was transferred to the General Staff School in Regensburg, Germany, as an instructor on the matters of the Soviet policies, party organization and similar matters. In 1952 I was brought by the army to this country to testify before the Senate Internal Security Committee against Owen Lattimore. (Note:Lattimore was a Soviet agent)
After my testimony I was dismissed from the army, unfortunately, and I am living now in this country waiting for my bill to be decided.
The Chairman. A bill introduced by Senator Karl Mundt granting Mr. Bogolepov full citizenship.
Mr. Bogolepov. I had forgotten to mention that at the end of the thirties I was able to join the Communist party of the Soviet Union. I did it, as many other Russian anti-Communists do, in order to get in a higher position and to influence in that way the overthrow of the Communist regime in my country. That is all.
Mr. Cohn. Were you dismissed from service with the army after you testified before the McCarran committee?
Mr. Bogolepov. I think in connection with this. If you need more information about it, when I came here the assistant chief of G-2, General Bolling was much eager to get me for his service. He introduced me in the Pentagon to another general and they discussed my further employment as a lecturer in various U.S. military colleges. Two days after the talks were stopped and I got my discharge papers from the army.
The Chairman. What are you working at now?
Mr. Bogolepov. I am not very much happy with work, for evidently my reputation of a radical Russian anti-Communist is speaking against me. Neither State Department or Pentagon wanted to have anything with me. I am working merely on an informal basis. I have here some former students of mine. I examine for them various aspects of psychological warfare; also I am writing for newspapers from time to time, etc., etc.
The Chairman. In the statement I made in the record originally, I understood you objected to testifying because you are now working for the army. I gather you don't; that you lost your job.
Mr. Bogolepov. That is right. The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, may I ask if you could check that.
Secretary Stevens. You bet your life.
The Chairman. We would not like Mr. Bogolepov's name used publicly.
Mr. Bogolepov, the secretary of the army will check into your discharge after you testified before the McCarran committee. It seems on the face to be completely unreasonable that you worked for the army until you were subpoenaed before a United States Senate committee and then were promptly fired. The secretary will check into that.

I see. I really don't want to be a nitpicker and I hope you understand what I am saying. All drinkers are not alcoholics.

It is interesting to note that several reminiscences of the Washington Post grand dame Katherine Graham when she died recalled dinner parties where she had many, too many drinks and would launch into somewhat incoherent tirades against Nixon. I have never read any first hand accounts of McCarthy rip roaring to this extent.

Thanks for your post and your insights.I agree McCarthy's drinking was not enought to invalidate his life's work.He had the press and intellectuals against him.The pen is mighty.