I basically agree with Coulter’s point that the refusal to admit the extent of Communist penetration of the FDR administration is far more serious than anything McCarthy ever said or did. The reasons for this ongoing scandal are complicated and start with the longterm split in American history between urban sophisticates and the men and women of the frontier. During the thirties, Communists portrayed heartland politicians as ignorant rubes, proto-fascists, and the tools of decadent capitalism, only marginally better than HItler. Liberals in the media and politics often shared this anti-American, pro-utopian socialist bias. They also tended to identify with people like Alger Hiss (he was one of them).
I’m familiar with the research that went into the Radosh/Klehr book on the Amerasia case. I’d say that John Service was pretty clearly not a spy, or even a Communist. But he was heavily targeted by Communist agents during his time in China. They preyed on his naivete and personal ambiiton and turned him into a first-class dupe.
Coulter is entitled to disagree with the Radosh review and maybe she doesn’t like him personally, but I know him well enough to be sure of two things: 1. he wouldn’t review a book he hadn’t read. 2. he isn’t trying to “curry favor with liberals.” That ship sailed for him a long time ago.
Yes, there were also plenty of fellow travellers and useful idiots. Not everyone had a party card.
All this reminds of of another odd experience I had a couple of years before the McCarthy hearings. A friend of mine and I, both interested in science, took a train into New York to see the exhibit at the New York Museum of Science and Industry.
When we got there it turned out that, although there were a few neat things like a Van de Graaf generator that made your hair stand on end with static electricity, the whole hall was filled with little “scientific” pamphlets that proved to be Communist propaganda leaflets of all kinds.
Since they were giving them out for free, my friend and I stocked up on them and brought them home with us. They included one little pamphlet containing Communist Manifesto, and a lot of other neat things. I took them home and read them, probably making me the only kid in my school to have read the entire Communist Manifesto, which is actually fairly short. Shortly afterward, McCarthy appeared on the scene, I ditched my pamphlets lest I be misunderstood and hauled before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, and the Museum of Science and Industry was shut down, permanently.
The pamphlets had no political effect on me; it’s just that I have always had a large curiosity bump, and like to study for myself.