Joseph McCarthy: Suffering for Righteousness' Sake

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.