Senator McCarthy's appearance on Longines Chronoscope on September 29, 1952
By Eddie Howell
Few American public figures have been
more unfairly maligned than Senator Joseph McCarthy. M. Stanton Evans's
meticulously researched and thoroughly documented book Blacklisted
by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight
Against America's Enemies [1] demonstrates that a grave injustice
was perpetrated upon the senator by government officials and the
press, and this continues to the present day by historians
perpetuating untruths about him when
the records show that they are wrong. “McCarthyism” is the
persistent label applied to the Senator's accusations of people who
turned out to be communist agents.
McCarthy
was thoroughly disliked by both Presidents Truman and Eisenhower
because his work called into question (justifiably) the weak security
measures in place that should have been more effective in preventing
communists from working in sensitive government positions. Starting
with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, many left-leaning people,
including communists, were hired to help administer the new agencies
and programs. And later, during World War II, when the U.S. was
allied with the Soviet Union against Germany, the government in
general didn't seriously question the use of communist employees.
Thus at war's end, as the Cold War got started, the Soviets had
infiltrated virtually the entire Administration.
Some
of the communists in the government were involved in espionage and
some were used because they were able to influence government policy.
Examples: Harry Dexter White, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury;
Harry Hopkins, close friend and adviser to FDR, with residence in the
White House; and Alger Hiss, whose career took him through several
government agencies, and included time as a presidential adviser.
(White and others succeeded in getting the Truman Administration to
abandon Chiang Kai-shek in China and leave Mao Tse-Tung and the
communists in power.)
The
FBI was investigating, using wiretaps, hidden microphones,
surreptitious entry and other techniques. Some of the information
from the FBI's classified files were not released until after 50
years, and many Russian archives were opened after the fall of the
Soviet Union in 1992. These and other sources show that McCarthy's
“victims” were actual Communist Party members working to
undermine the United States through espionage or through positions of
influence in government. Also established was the fact that the
Communist Party USA was very active with secret agents and the
party's loyalty was to the Soviet Union, not the United States.
Ample
evidence existed at the time of the McCarthy hearings to show this,
but for various reasons, interest in following McCarthy's
accusations, at first seemed strong, but faded when government
authorities, such as the Tydings committee refused to actually
investigate (as McCarthy was doing), and turned their hearings into
an “investigation” of McCarthy.
Under
the New Deal, many left-wing people came into the federal government,
including many communists, and in World War II, when the Soviet Union
was our ally, more came in. Some were able to gain positions of power
and to bring more of their comrades into sensitive positions.
McCarthy focused a good deal on the State Department, and showed the
inadequacy of their security procedures. He was able to point out
individual communists during a time when the Communist Party was
outlawed. The problem with McCarthy wasn't a lack of names or a lack
of evidence. It was a lack of interest on the part of the federal
government to deal with the very real problem through McCarthy.
McCarthy
was a thorough researcher and didn't name anyone who was an innocent
victim, with the apparent exception of going after General Marshall,
which was a serious mistake in judgment. He blamed Marshall for
decisions that allowed the Soviets too much power in the redrawn
postwar map of Europe. Marshall, however, was simply following the
leadership of FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower in their desire to placate
Stalin. This, of course, was a serious mistake, and set the stage for
the Cold War, but it was not Marshall's fault. McCarthy here
overreached.
But
otherwise, McCarthy was on target with his accusations. His opponents
in Congress and in the Executive Branch firmly resisted what he was
trying to do. The liberals and communists managed to turn public
opinion against him, and he was eventually censured by the Senate.
But he knew that several high officials in government were Soviet
agents. Ex-communists Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley
provided much information, and McCarthy's information came largely
from or through the FBI.
Some
reviewers of Author Evans's book acknowledged his thorough research,
but said he was “biased.” In fact, Evans was trying to correct a
great injustice which eventually took its toll on McCarthy,
destroying his career, and ultimately, his life.
In his
book Betrayal at Bethesda: The Intertwined Fates of James
Forrestal, Joseph McCarthy, and John F. Kennedy [2], J. C.
Hawkins makes a plausible case for his theory that Joseph McCarthy
was murdered at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He checked in with a knee
ailment from a World War II injury, not thought to be serious, and
died from “acute hepatitis,” under mysterious circumstances.
The
connection Hawkins makes concerning the three men of the book's title
is as follows: Forrestal mentored both McCarthy and Kennedy, who were
good friends although of different political parties. McCarthy and
Forrestal died at Bethesda, and experienced odd and mysterious
handling, and very possibly, murder. The body of Kennedy, who was
murdered in Dallas, was taken to Bethesda, where it was oddly
handled, and described in very questionable terms, suggesting a
falsified autopsy and other irregularities.
[1] M.
Stanton Evans, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator
Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies. New York:
Crown Forum, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., 2007.
[2] J.
C. Hawkins, Betrayal at Bethesda: The Intertwined Fates of James
Forrestal, Joseph McCarthy, and John F. Kennedy. North
Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Platform, 2017.
Further
reading:
Herbert
Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet
Espionage and America's Traitors. Washington, D.C.: Regnery
Publishing, Inc., An Eagle Publishing Company, 2000. This book ia an
analysis of the declassified FBI's Venona decrypts of Soviet
messages, which confirm much of McCarthy's work.
Christopher
Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign
Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev. New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, 1990. This 776-page book does not take McCarthy's work
seriously, but provides a thorough general account of the activities
of the KGB and its predecessors. Co-author Gordievsky was a colonel
in the KGB, a station chief in London and also a British agent, who
defected to the West. The book predates the declassification of the
Venona files and the official opening of Kremlin archives.
