Joseph McCarthy

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Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy
Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy

Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public figure to stand up to Communist infiltration of the United States government and is now considered an American hero by many, though liberals still seek to tarnish his name. He was noted for claiming that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers, engaged in a conspiracy to undermine the United States, inside the federal government and was proven correct by government documents and inquiry, including decrypted Venona files. Ultimately, his detractors, including the Communist Party, were able to organize an effective effort to having him censured by the United States Senate. The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's attempts to expose Communists, was soon applied to similar dogmatic pursuits.

Contents

Early life

Born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, McCarthy earned a law degree at Marquette University in 1935 and was elected as a circuit judge in 1939, the youngest in state history. When McCarthy took over as circuit judge, his district had a backlog of more than 200 cases. By working long hours, including keeping the court open past midnight at least a dozen times, and eliminating a great deal of red tape, Judge McCarthy cleared up the backlog quickly. And, in the words of one local newspaper, Judge McCarthy "administered justice promptly and with a combination of legal knowledge and good sense."[1]

Military service

Joseph McCarthy in the U.S. Marine Corps
Joseph McCarthy in the U.S. Marine Corps

Even though that as a judge McCarthy was exempt from military service, at age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps. He was sworn in as a first lieutenant in August 1942 and served during World War II. He served as an intelligence officer for a bomber squadron stationed in the Solomon Islands, and also risked his life by volunteering to fly in the tail-gunner's seat on many combat missions. McCarthy was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1952. During his 30 months of military service, McCarthy's achievements were unanimously praised by his commanding officers and Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz issued the following citation regarding the service of Captain McCarthy:


“ For meritorious and efficient performance of duty as an observer and rear gunner of a dive bomber attached to a Marine scout bombing squadron operating in the Solomon Islands area from September 1 to December 31, 1943. He participated in a large number of combat missions, and in addition to his regular duties, acted as aerial photographer. He obtained excellent photographs of enemy gun positions, despite intense anti-aircraft fire, thereby gaining valuable information which contributed materially to the success of subsequent strikes in the area. Although suffering from a severe leg injury, he refused to be hospitalized and continued to carry out his duties as Intelligence Officer in a highly efficient manner. His courageous devotion to duty was in keeping with the highest traditions of the naval service.[2] ”

Additionally, Major General Field Harris, Assistant Commandant (Air) of the United States Marine Corps, sent a letter to McCarthy stating the following:


“ Dear Judge McCarthy: I note with gratification your unusual accomplishments during 30 months of active duty, particularly in the combat area, and that you received a citation from Admiral Nimitz for meritorious performance of duty. Without exception, the commanding officers under whom you served spoke of the performance of your duties in the highest terms.

The Marine Corps will not forget the fine contribution you have made. It is largely through the devoted effort and sacrifice of patriotic Americans like yourself that the corps is able to maintain its unbroken tradition of defeating the enemy, wherever, whenever, and however encountered.
You have my warm appreciation of your services, and my wishes for your continued success and good luck in the years ahead.[3]

”

Lastly, in a recommendation for a citation, McCarthy's immediate superior, Major E.E. Munn not only praised McCarthy's record as a volunteer tail-gunner, observer, and aerial photographer on combat missions, it specifically referred to the air strikes in which he took part. This included heavily defended areas such as Kolombangara, Ballale, Bonis, Kara, Kahili, and Buka. The recommendation in part states:


“ The cool bravery and high devotion to duty consistently displayed by Captain McCarthy are in keeping with the highest standards and traditions of the United States Marine Corps.[4] ”

United States Senate

FBI Master Chart of distribution in 1945-46 of investigative reports to the White House, Attorney General, and employing agencies of Communist agents in the Federal government.Courtesy The Education and Research Institute. Used with permission.
FBI Master Chart of distribution in 1945-46 of investigative reports to the White House, Attorney General, and employing agencies of Communist agents in the Federal government.
Courtesy The Education and Research Institute. Used with permission.

It was McCarthy's charges of Communist, security, and loyalty risk infiltration of the State Department that shot him into prominence in 1950. On February 9th speech in Wheeling, West Virginia at the Colonnade Room of the McClure Hotel he stated:


“ I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy. [5][6][7][8] ”

McCarthy compiled a list of 57 security risks and publicly named John S. Service, Gustavo Duran, Mary Jane Keeney, Harlow Shapley, and H. Julian Wadleigh [9] as being on the list. [10] These names came from the "Lee List" of unresolved State Department security cases compiled by the earlier investigators for the House Appropriates Committee in 1947. Robert E. Lee was the committee’s lead investigator and supervised preparation of the list. [11]

In a six hour speech on the Senate floor on February 20, 1950 in which McCarthy was constantly interrupted by hostile senators; four of whom -- Scott Lucas (61 times), Brien McMahon (27 times), Garrett Withers (22 times), and Herbert Lehman (13 times) -- interrupted him a total of 123 times, McCarthy raised the issue of some eighty individuals who had worked in the State Department, or wartime agencies such as the Office of War Information (OWI) and the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW). Democrats insisted McCarthy name names. McCarthy responded,


“ The Senator from Illinois demanded, loudly, that I furnish all the names. I told him at that time that so far as I was concerned, I thought that would be improper; that I did not have all the information about these individuals. . . .I have enough to convince me that either they are members of the Communist Party or they have given great aid to the Communists: I may be wrong. That is why I said that unless the Senate demanded that I do so, I would not submit this publicly, but I would submit it to any committee - and would let the committee go over these in executive session. It is possible that some of these persons will get a clean bill of health. . . . ”

McCarthy is said by some to have made the claim, "I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party." [12] This alleged statement was made only about his speech in Wheeling, WV and not in the other cities where he made a speech addressing the issue of subversion in government. The 205 number came in another part of his speech. On February 20, 1950, in a speech made on the floor of the Senate, McCarthy officially clarified the issue:


“ I have before me a letter which was reproduced in the Congressional Record on August 1, 1946, at page A4892. It is a letter from James F. Byrnes, former Secretary of State. It deals with the screening of the first group, of about 3,000. There were a great number of subsequent screenings. This was the beginning.

The letter deals with the first group of 3,000 which was screened. The President--and I think wisely so--set up a board to screen the employees who were coming to the State Department from the various war agencies of the War Department. There were thousands of unusual characters in some of those war agencies. Former Secretary Byrnes in his letter, which is reproduced in the Congressional Record, says this:

Pursuant to Executive order, approximately 4,000 employees have been transferred to the Department of state from various war agencies such as the OSS, FEA, OWI, OIAA, and so forth. Of these 4,000 employees, the case histories of approximately 3,000 have been subjected to a preliminary examination, as a result of which a recommendation against permanent employment has been made in 285 cases by the screening committee to which you refer in your letter.

In other words, former Secretary Byrnes said that 285 of those men are unsafe risks. He goes on to say that of this number only 79 have been removed. Of the 57 I mentioned some are from this group of 205, and some are from subsequent groups which have been screened but not discharged. I might say in that connection that the investigative agency of the State Department has done an excellent job. The files show that they went into great detail in labeling Communists as such. The only trouble is that after the investigative agency had properly labeled these men as Communists the State Department refused to discharge them. I shall give detailed cases.[13]

”

McCarthy was able to characterize President Truman and the Democratic Party as soft on or even in league with the Communists. McCarthy's allegations were rejected by Truman who was unaware of Venona project decrypts which corroborated Elizabeth Bentley's debriefing after her defection from the Communists.

McCarthy's support and popularity peaked in early 1954 when a January 1954 Gallup Poll showed that 50 percent of the respondents had a generally "favorable opinion" of him. McCarthy was also fourth on the list of the "most admired men".[14] On March 9, 1954, CBS broadcasted Edward R. Murrow's See It Now TV documentary attacking McCarthy.

VENONA files

In 1995, when the VENONA transcripts were declassified, further detailed information was revealed about Soviet espionage in the United States. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was among only a handful of people in the U.S. Government who was aware of the Venona project, and there is no indication whatsoever Hoover shared Venona information with McCarthy. In fact, Hoover may have actually fed McCarthy disinformation, or dead end files, in an effort to put pressure on relatives, friends, or close associates of real Venona suspects by threatening to reveal embarrassing information about them in a public forum if they failed to cooperate and reveal what they might have known about someone's else’s activities and associations. [15][16] And there is no indication McCarthy might have known he was being used by Hoover in this way.

On February 7, 1950, three days before McCarthy's acclaimed Wheeling West Virginia speech, Hoover testified before House Appropriations Committee that counterespionage requires "an objective different from the handling of criminal cases. It is more important to ascertain his contacts, his objectives, his sources of information and his methods of communication" as "arrest and public disclosure are steps to be taken only as a matter of last resort." He concluded that "we can be secure only when we have a full knowledge of the operations of an espionage network, because then we are in a position to render their efforts ineffective." [17]

McCarthy is said to have made the claim, "I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party." The famous "List", as it has come to be known, has always engendered much controversy. The figure of 205 appears to have come from an oral briefing McCarthy had with Hoover regarding espionage suspects the FBI was then investigating. The FBI had discovered on its own five Soviet agents operating in the United States during World War II; defector Elizabeth Bentley further added another 81 known identities of espionage agents; Venona materials had provided the balance, and by the time a full accounting of true name identities was compiled in an FBI memo in 1957, one more subject had been added to the number, now totaling 206. [18]

Much confusion has always surrounded the subject. While the closely guarded FBI/Venona information of identified espionage agents uses the number of 206, McCarthy in his Wheeling speech only referred to Communist Party membership and other security risks, and not espionage activity. Being a security risk as a CPUSA member does not necessarily entail or imply that a person was or is actively involved in espionage activity. Venona materials indicated a very large number of espionage agents remained unidentified by the FBI. When McCarthy was questioned on the number, he referred to the Lee List of security risks, by which it appears Hoover was attempting to match unidentified code names to known security risks. Hoover kept the identities of persons known to be involved in espionage activity from Venona evidence secret. Hoover in the very early days of the FBI's joint investigation with the Army Signals Intelligence Service in May of 1946 did precisely the same deception with a confidant of President Truman using Venona decryptions. Hoover reported that a reliable source revealed “an enormous Soviet espionage ring in Washington.” Of some fourteen names, Soviet agents Alger Hiss and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster were listed well down the list. The name at the top was “Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson” and included others beyond reproach, thus discrediting the Hiss and Silvermaster accusations, which actually were on target. Hence the Truman White House always suspected Hoover and the FBI of playing partisan political games with accusations of various administration members’ complicity in Soviet espionage. [19][20]

The Venona project specifically references at least 349 pseudonyms in the United States—including citizens, immigrants, and permanent residents—who cooperated in various ways with Soviet intelligence agencies, however not all were ever identified. In public hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) conducted by McCarthy, 83 persons plead the fifth amendment right against self incrimination. An additional 9 persons refused to testify on constitutional grounds in private hearings, and their names were not made public. [21] Of the 83 persons pleading the fifth amendment, several have been identified by NSA and FBI as agents of the Soviet Union in the Venona project involved in espionage. Several prominent examples are:



Venona transcripts confirm the Senate Civil Liberties Subcommittee, chaired by former Senator Robert LaFollette, Jr., whom McCarthy defeated for election in 1946, had at least four staff members working on behalf of the KGB. Chief Counsel of the Committee John Abt; Charles Kramer, who served on three other Congressional Committees; Allen Rosenberg, who also served on the National Labor Relations Board, Board of Economic Warfare (BEW), the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA) and later argued cases before the United States Supreme Court; and Charles Flato, who served on the BEW and FEA, all were CPUSA members and associated with the Comintern.

While the underlying premise of Communists in the government was true, many of McCarthy's targets were not complicit in espionage. Recent scholarship has established of 159 persons investigated between 1950 and 1952, there is substantial evidence nine had assisted Soviet espionage using evidence from Venona or other sources. Of the remainder, while not being directly complicit in espionage, many were considered security risks. [32]

Known security/loyalty risks

In June 1947, a Senate Appropriations subcommittee addressed a secret memorandum to Secretary of State George Marshall, calling to his attention a condition that developed and was continuing in the State Department. The memo stated that

“ it was evident there was a deliberate, calculated program being carried out not only to protect communist personnel in high places, but to reduce security and intelligence protection to a nullity. On file in the department is a copy of a preliminary report of the FBI on Soviet espionage activities in the United States which involved a large number of State Department employees, some in high official positions. ”

Robert E. Lee was the committee’s lead investigator and supervised preparation of the list. The Lee list, also using numbers rather than names, was published in the proceeding of the subcommittee. [33]

The memorandum listed the names of nine State Department officials and said that they were "only a few of the hundreds now employed in varying capacities who are protected and allowed to remain despite the fact that their presence is an obvious hazard to national security." Ten persons were removed from the list by June 24th. But from 1947 until McCarthy's Wheeling speech in February 1950, the State Department did not fire one person as a loyalty or security risk. [34] In other branches of the government, however, more than 300 persons were discharged for loyalty reasons alone during the period from 1947 to 1951.

Most but not all of Senator McCarthy’s numbered cases were drawn from the “Lee List” or “108 list” of unresolved Department of State security cases compiled by Lee for the House Appropriates Committee in 1947. [35] The Tydings subcommittee also obtained this list. In addition to some of the person involved in espionage identified in the Venona project listed above, there are other security and loyalty risks identified correctly by Senator McCarthy included in the following list:

Murrow's See It Now attack on Senator McCarthy

One of the most prominent attacks on Senator McCarthy was an episode of the TV documentary series See It Now, hosted by Edward R. Murrow, which was broadcast on March 9, 1954.[88] By the time Murrow produced his "See It Now" assault on Senator McCarthy in 1954, the senator had been under almost constant vicious attack for four years. According to McCarthy biographer Arthur Herman, Murrow and his staff had spent two months carefully editing film clips to portray McCarthy in the worst possible light. There were no clips showing McCarthy in a professional manner. Despite Murrow's claims, this "was not a report at all but instead a full-scale assault, employing exactly the same techniques of 'partial truth and innuendo' that critics accused McCarthy of using."[89]

The episode consisted largely of clips of McCarthy in the most unflattering context, including "belching and picking his nose".[90] In these clips, McCarthy accuses the Democratic Party of "twenty years of treason" because of the Democratic Party's concessions to the Soviet Union at the Yalta conference and Potsdam conference, describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of,' the Communist Party," and berates General Zwicker for Zwicker's claim that he would protect any other general who promotes Communist's within the military. Murrow also portrays a Pentagon coding room employee, Annie Lee Moss as an innocent victim of McCarthy even though it was later established that the F.B.I. had warned the Army and the Civil Service Commission about her Communist Party connection.[91]

However, even some McCarthy critics were outraged by this one-sided presentation. Consistent McCarthy critic, John Cogley of Commonweal, "sharply attacked Murrow and his producers for their distorted summary and selected use of video clips."[92] Cogley commented that a different selection of footage could have easily portrayed McCarthy in an extremely positive light and, then further warned against the misuse of television in this fashion. He and another McCarthy critic from the Saturday Review agreed that it "was not a proud moment for television journalism".[93]

To counter the negative publicity, McCarthy appeared on See It Now on April 6, 1954, and presented his case in order to clarify the misconceptions that Murrow had televised. McCarthy countered that his committee, "has forced out of government, and out of important defense plants, Communists engaged in the Soviet conspiracy." McCarthy went on to say, "For example, 238 witnesses were examined [in] public session; 367 witnesses examined [in] executive session; 84 witnesses refused to testify as to Communist activities on the ground that, if they told the truth, they might go to jail; twenty-four witnesses with Communist backgrounds have been discharged from jobs [in] which they were handling secret, top-secret, confidential material, individuals who were exposed before our committee." McCarthy also exposed Murrow's left-wing background and previous associations with Communist organizations.[94]

The Murrow report, together with the televised Army-McCarthy hearings of the same year, and four years of consistent anti-McCarthy media reporting were the major causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against McCarthy. However, well-known broadcaster Eric Sevareid said the Murrow assault "came very late in the day. The youngsters read back and they think only one person in broadcasting and the press stood up to McCarthy and this has made a lot of people feel very upset, including me, because that program came awfully late."[95]

Even Murrow discounted his role in the decline of Senator McCarthy's popularity. Murrow stated, "My God, I didn't do anything. (Times columnist) Scotty Reston and lot of guys have been writing like this, saying the same things, for months, for years. We're bringing up the rear."[96]

Nevertheless, despite the deceptive nature of the See It Now program and the late date in which it appears, anti-McCarthy historians have credited and celebrated Murrow as playing a major role in damaging Senator McCarthy's campaign to remove security risks from the U.S. government.

Condemnation and the Watkins Committee

While over the previous few years, Senator McCarthy had withstood countless biased and unsubstantiated attacks by Liberals, Communists, etc., who sought to prevent him from damaging their causes any further; the organized and co-ordinated effort between the two groups to remove McCarthy from his Chairmanship and officially condemn him began in March of 1954.

Senate opposition

On March 9, 1954 a fellow conservative and anti-communist Republican Senator, Ralph E. Flanders of Vermont, gave a speech criticizing what he felt was Senator McCarthy’s "misdirection of our efforts at fighting communism” and his role in “the loss of respect for us in the world at large.” Flanders felt the nation should pay more attention looking outwards at the “alarming world-wide advance of Communist power” that would leave the United States and Canada as “the last remnants of the free world.” [97][98] Eisenhower Administration cabinet officials told Flanders to “lay off,” while President Eisenhower sent Flanders a brief note of appreciation for his speech, but did not otherwise confer with him or explicitly support him.[99] In a June 1, 1954 speech, Flanders emphasized how the Soviet Union was winning military successes in Asia without risking its own resources or men, and said this nation was witnessing "another example of economy of effort...in the conquest of this country for communism." He added, "One of the characteristic elements of communist and fascist tyranny is at hand as citizens are set to spy upon each other."[100] Flanders told the Senate that McCarthy's "anti-Communism so completely parallels that of Adolf Hitler as to strike fear into the hearts of any defenseless minority"; he accused McCarthy of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."[101]

On June 11, 1954 Flanders introduced a resolution charging McCarthy “with unbecoming conduct" and calling for his removal from his committee chairmanship. Upon the advice of Senators John Sherman Cooper and J. William Fulbright and legal assistance from the National Committee for an Effective Congress, a liberal organization, he modified his resolution to “bring it in line with previous actions of censure.”[102] After introducing his censure motion, Flanders had no active role in the ensuing Watkins Committee hearings. Flanders bore McCarthy no personal animosity and reported that McCarthy accepted his invitation to join him at lunch after the hearings had taken place.[103]

Watkins Committee

Ultimately, McCarthy was accused of 46 different counts of allegedly improper conduct and another special committee was set up, under the chairmanship of Senator Arthur Watkins, to study and evaluate the charges. This was to be the fifth investigation of Senator McCarthy in five years. This committee opened hearings on August 31, 1954. After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on only two of the original 46 counts. The committee exonerated McCarthy on all substantive charges.[104]

On November 8, 1954, a special session of the Senate convened to debate the two charges. The charges to be debated and voted on were: 1) That Senator McCarthy had "failed to cooperate" in 1952 with the Senate Subcommitee on Privileges and Elections that was looking into certain aspects of his private and political life in connection with a resolution for his expulsion from the Senate; and 2) That in conducting a senatorial inquiry, Senator McCarthy had "intemperately abused" General Ralph Zwicker.

The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. Many senators felt that the Army had shown contempt for committee chairman McCarthy by disregarding his letter of February 1, 1954 and honorably discharging Irving Peress the next day. So, for this reason, the Senate concluded that McCarthy's conduct toward Zwicker on February 18th was justified.

Therefore, the Zwicker count was dropped at the last minute and was replaced with this substitute charge: 2) That Senator McCarthy, by characterizing the Watkins Committee as the "unwitting handmaiden" of the Communist Party and by describing the special Senate session as a "lynch party" and a "lynch bee," had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity."[105] On December 2, 1954, even though more than a dozen senators told McCarthy that they did not want to vote against him but had to do so because of the enormous pressure being put on them by the Eisenhower Administration and by leaders of both political parties, the Senate voted to "condemn" Senator Joseph McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats voted unanimously in favor of condemnation and the Republicans split evenly.

Analysis of the resolution

The resolution condemning Senator McCarthy has been criticized as a ridiculous attempt to silence the strongest voice in the Senate investigating security and loyalty risks in the U.S. government. When examined closely, the two counts used in condemning McCarthy were hopelessly flawed.

In analyzing the first count, "failure to cooperate with the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections", the fact is that the subcommittee never subpoenaed McCarthy, but only "invited" him to testify. One senator and two staff members resigned from the subcommittee because of its dishonesty towards McCarthy. In its' final report dated January 2, 1953, the subcommittee, stated that the matters under consideration "have become moot by reason of the 1952 election." Up until this moment in U.S. history, no senator had ever been punished for something that had happened in a previous Congress or for declining an "invitation" to testify. Therefore, the first count was a complete fraud and nothing more than a trumped up charge in order to damage Senator McCarthy.

The second count was even more flawed than the first. McCarthy was condemned for opinions he had expressed outside the Senate when he criticized the Watkins Committee and the special Senate session. In an editorial by David Lawrence in the June 7, 1957 issue of U.S. News & World Report, other senators had accused McCarthy of lying under oath, accepting influence money, engaging in election fraud, making libelous and false statements, practicing blackmail, doing the work of the communists for them, and engaging in a questionable "personal relationship" with Roy Cohn and David Schine. However, these other Senators were not censured for acting "contrary to senatorial ethics" or for impairing the "dignity" of the Senate. Only Senator McCarthy would be held responsible for his words. [106]

Final years

The flag-draped coffin containing the body of Senator McCarthy is carried up the steps of the U.S. Capitol for funeral services in the Senate chamber after an earlier service at St. Matthew's Cathedral, May 6, 1957. Photograph courtesy of The Post-Crescent
The flag-draped coffin containing the body of Senator McCarthy is carried up the steps of the U.S. Capitol for funeral services in the Senate chamber after an earlier service at St. Matthew's Cathedral, May 6, 1957. Photograph courtesy of The Post-Crescent

Senator McCarthy's power and clout to continue the search for Communists in positions of power in America was severely curtailed. After the Republicans lost control of the Senate in 1954, McCarthy, now a member of the minority Party, had to depend on public speeches to continue his campaign of warning the American people to the danger of Communism. He did this in a number of important addresses during those two and a half years.

In January 1957, McCarthy and his wife, Jean, adopted a baby girl and named her, Tierney. Unfortunately, several months later, McCarthy died of acute hepatitis, likely brought on by his lifelong struggle with alcoholism, in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48.

McCarthy was given a state funeral attended by 70 senators. McCarthy was the first senator in 17 years to have funeral services in the Senate chamber. Thousands of people viewed the body in Washington D.C. and it is estimated more than 30,000 people from Wisconsin filed through St. Mary's Church in the senator's hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, where the clergy performed a Solemn Pontifical Requiem before more than 100 priests and 2,000 others. Three senators, George Malone, William E. Jenner, and Herman Welker, had flown from Washington D.C. to Appleton on the plane carrying McCarthy's casket. Robert Kennedy attended the funeral in Wisconsin. McCarthy was buried in St. Mary's Parish Cemetery in Appleton and was survived by his wife, Jean, and their adopted daughter, Tierney.

Retrospective views on McCarthy

  • In her popular book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, Ann Coulter said of McCarthy:
"A half century later, when the only people who call themselves Communists are harmless cranks, it is difficult to grasp the importance of McCarthy's crusade. But there's a reason 'Communist' now sounds about as threatening as 'monarchist' -- and it's not because of intrepid New York Times editorials denouncing McCarthy and praising Harvard educated Soviet spies. McCarthy made it a disgrace to be a Communist. Domestic Communism could never recover."[107]

When Ann Coulter asked Fox News’ Bill O'Reilly to identify a McCarthy-tormented innocent, O'Reilly responded with Dalton Trumbo, one of House Un-American Activities Committee's (HUAC) “Hollywood Ten”, not realizing HUAC investigated CPUSA infiltration in Hollywood and called “the Hollywood Ten” of writers, directors and producers to testify in 1947. McCarthy did not start his crusade against Communism until 1950.

  • In 1953-54, McCarthy had been investigating lax security in the top secret facility at Ft. Monmouth, N.J. He was attacked by liberals and Communists on the grounds that there were no security problems at Ft. Monmouth. Years later, in addressing the reason why the U.S. Army's top-secret operations at Fort Monmouth were quietly moved to Arizona, Senator Barry Goldwater, in his 1979 book With no apologies: The personal and political memoirs of United States Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Goldwater stated:
"Carl Hayden, who in January 1955 became chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee of the United States Senate, told me privately Monmouth had been moved because he and other members of the majority Democratic Party were convinced security at Monmouth had been penetrated. They didn't want to admit that McCarthy was right in his accusations. Their only alternative was to move the installation from New Jersey to a new location in Arizona."[108]

Even though McCarthy's investigations proved that his suspicions were right, for many years afterwards and continue to this day, liberals have spread the falsehood that McCarthy had found nothing at Fort Monmouth.

  • Before the 1989 release of Carl Bernstein's book, Loyalties: A Son's Memoir, Albert Bernstein, Carl's father, expressed dismay at the revelations that the book would make regarding Communist infiltration of the U.S. government and other sectors of American society. Albert Bernstein stated:
"You're going to prove [Sen. Joseph] McCarthy was right, because all he was saying is that the system was loaded with Communists. And he was right. ... I'm worried about the kind of book you're going to write and about cleaning up McCarthy. The problem is that everybody said he was a liar; you're saying he was right. ... I agree that the Party was a force in the country."[109]

Both Albert Bernstein and Sylvia Bernstein, Carl's mother, had both been Communists since the 1940's. Albert Bernstein was a Union activist, while Sylvia Bernstein was a secretary for the War Department in the 1930's and, during the Clinton Administration, volunteered in the White House, answering letters that were addressed to Hillary Clinton. During the 1950's, Sylvia Bernstein invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid revealing her party ties to Congress but worked openly in assisting convicted spies Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for espionage.

Venona and Soviet Files

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, documents from the KGB and Comintern Archives in Moscow became available to researchers and the public for the first time, corroborating the facts of McCarthy's underlying premise. In the United States, the Moynihan Secrecy Commission was empowered by statute to investigate and secure documents from the National Security Agency and the FBI which had remained classified for more than 40 years. The Secrecy Commission's Final Report found that,

“ But for every accusation there was a denial. ... For all who could agree there were Communists in government, there were as many who saw the Government as contriving fantastic accusations against innocent persons. A balanced history of this period is now beginning to appear; the VENONA messages will surely supply a great cache of facts to bring the matter to some closure....

The first fact is that a significant Communist conspiracy was in place in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, but in the main those involved systematically denied their involvement. [110]

”

Hayden Peake, curator of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Historical Intelligence Collection has stated, "No modern government was more thoroughly penetrated." [111]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Drummey, James J. (May 11, 1987). The Real McCarthy Record. The New American, Section I. The Years Before 1950.
  2. ↑ Cohn, Roy (1968). McCarthy. The New American Library, Inc., pgs. 273-274. ASIN B000KIR8FC
  3. ↑ Cohn, Roy (1968). McCarthy. The New American Library, Inc., pg. 274. ASIN B000KIR8FC
  4. ↑ Cohn, Roy (1968). McCarthy. The New American Library, Inc., pg. 274. ASIN B000KIR8FC
  5. ↑ McCarthy, Joseph (February 9, 1950) "Speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, 9 February 1950," in Michael P. Johnson, ed., Reading the American Past, Vol. II (Boston: Bedford Books, 1998), pgs. 191-195.
  6. ↑ Vernon, Wes (January 13, 2006). AIM Report: Looney Clooney Smears Senator McCarthy. Accuracy In Media
  7. ↑ Irvine, Reed and Kincaid, Cliff (September 13, 2000). Joe McCarthy, a Victimizer or Victim. Accuracy In Media
  8. ↑ Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc., pgs. 41-61. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.
  9. ↑ Alexander Vassiliev, Notes on A. Gorsky’s Report to Savchenko S.R., 23 December 1949.
  10. ↑ Reeves, Thomas C. (1997). The life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography. Madison Books. pgs. 222-238. ISBN 1-56833-101-0.
  11. ↑ U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, State Department Employee Loyalty Investigations (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1950).
  12. ↑ Washington Post (February 12, 1950).Washington Post, February 12, 1950; McCarthy's speech in Wheeling & letter to President Truman are cited in the article titled "Security Risks" to the lower left of the photo. Washington Post[1]
  13. ↑ McCarthy, Joseph (1953). Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951. U. S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-87968-308-2. 
  14. ↑ Kazin, Michael (1998). The Populist Persuasion: An American History. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-801-48558-4. 
  15. ↑ FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 150, pgs. 50-64 pdf. Excerpts from memorandum by FBI agent Edward Morgan asserting that there was no possible legal case against the Bentley suspects and that investigation should be discontinued, with possible exception of trying to get one of the weaker suspects to break.
  16. ↑ FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 93, pgs. 166 - 170 pdf. Original Edward Morgan memo 1/14/47, "The only reasonable hope of salvaging a successful prosecution is (a) to endeavor to make an informant of one of the subjects and/or (b) interview the subjects in the hope that at least one will break...Failing to successfully develop one of the subjects as an informant, I doubt if any more can be accomplished of probative value through further investigation...This case will stand or fall dependent upon the extent to which the subjects may break and in breaking corroborate [Elizabeth Bentley]. I personally am of the opinion that the Bureau would be derelict in its responsibility in this instance if the various subjects were not thoroughly and exhaustively interviewed. The odds are not too good that such interviews would terminate successfully; however, it is quite possible that some lesser lights among the subjects would crack during the course of a careful and pointed interview....one of the subjects, probably the weakest sister, be contacted with a view to making him an informant. This is an outside chance but offers the only reasonable prospect of making a case with respect to contemporaneous and future events. Failing in this respect, that immediately the other subjects be exhaustively interviewed. Since an interview with one would virtually amount to putting all of them on notice, it would seem logical to conduct such interviews as nearly simultaneously as possible....That failing to break any of the subjects, serious consideration be given to exposing this lousy outfit and at least hounding them from Federal service. Several possibilities exist in this regard but this would seem to be a bridge to cross when we get to it."
  17. ↑ In the Enemy’s House: Venona and the Maturation of American Counterintelligence, John F. Fox, Jr., FBI Historian, Presented at the 2005 Symposium on Cryptologic History, 10/27/2005.
  18. ↑ FBI Memo Referencing 206 Communists in Government
  19. ↑ FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 50, pgs. 13-16 pdf, May 29, 1946.
  20. ↑ Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, Chairmans Forward, 1997.
  21. ↑ Drummey, James J. (May 11, 1987). The Real McCarthy Record. The New American, Section III. Committee Chairman (1953-54).
  22. ↑ Senator McCarthy stated, "Then there was a Mrs. Mary Jane Keeney from the Board of Economic Warfare in the State Department, who was named in a F.B.I. report and a House Committee report as a courier for the Communist Party while working for the Government. And where do you think Mrs. Keeney is -- she is now an editor in the U.N. Documents Bureau." ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.  Congressional Record, (February 20, 1950). Page 1956. U. S. Government Printing Office. )
  23. ↑ On September 9, 1950, at the Columbia County Republican Club in Portage, Wisconsin, Senator McCarthy stated, "Just turn back a page of history to 1945. This Lauchlin Currie was administrative assistant to the President. This is the same Lauchlin Currie who has been named under oath by Elizabeth Bentley as the man who tipped off her Russian espionage agents that we were about to break the Japanese code...This is the same Lauchlin Currie whose picture I hold in my hand, with a picture of Harry Dexter White, John Abt, and Alger Hiss -- all named under oath repeatedly as Communists...At that time Lauchlin Currie was Administrative Assistant to the President. The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved sending vast amounts of German captured arms to those fighting Communism in China. After the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Eisenhower had approved the shipment -- after vast quantities had left German ports destined for our allies in China -- Lauchlin Currie, Truman's Administrative Assistant, the man named by Bentley and Chambers, signed an order on White House stationery ordering that all this military equipment be destroyed." ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2. )
    On June 14, 1951, Senator McCarthy gave the Senate information about Currie and his connection to the other individuals involved in supporting the Chinese Communists. He stated, "The Stilwell-Davies group took over in China in 1942. Soon thereafter, Lauchlin, at the White House, and John Carter Vincent, and subsequently Alger Hiss at the State Department were exercising their influence at the Washington end of the transmission belt conveying poisonous misinformation from ChungKing. The full outlines of Currie's betrayal have yet to be traced....In this connection it should be recalled that Currie issued an order on White House stationery depriving the Republic of China of 20,000 German rifles." ( Congressional Record, (June 14, 1951). Page 6574. U. S. Government Printing Office. )
  24. ↑ McCarthy Hearings, Testimony of V. Frank Coe, Executive Session, Vol. 1: 147-50, Vol. 4: 3403, 3413, 3417-18, 3421, 3428-29 testimony of, Vol. 2: 1349-72.
  25. ↑ McCarthy Hearings, Testimony of William Ludwig Ullman, Executive Session, Vol. 3: 2146, 2147, 2152, Vol. 4: 3403, 3411-14, 3418, 3421, 3426-29, testimony of, Vol. 3: 2345-49.
  26. ↑ McCarthy Hearings, Testimony of Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Executive Session, Vol. 2: 1349, 1361, 1362, Vol. 4: 3403, 3412-14, 3425-29.
  27. ↑ Alexander Vassiliev, Notes on A. Gorsky’s Report to Savchenko S.R., 23 December 1949.
  28. ↑ Joseph R. McCarthy Papers, Series 14, Senate Subject Files, Marquettte University Library Special Collections.
  29. ↑ Army Signal Corps—Subversion and Espionage, October 22 (PDF). Executive Sessions Of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Of The Committee On Government Operations; Vol. 3. pgs. 2717-2726, U.S. Government Printing Office (1953).
  30. ↑ Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Vol. 2, Eighty-third Congress, 14 May 1953, pgs. 1135-1164.
  31. ↑ Joseph R. McCarthy Papers, Series 14, Senate Subject Files, Marquettte University Library Special Collections.
  32. ↑ Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Lists and Venona, by John Earl Haynes, April 2007.
  33. ↑ U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, State Department Employee Loyalty Investigations (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1950).
  34. ↑ John Emil Peurifoy, Foreign Service Office & United States Ambassador, Arlington National Cemetery Website, retrieved 21 March 2007.
  35. ↑ Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Lists and Venona, by John Earl Haynes, April 2007.
  36. ↑ Presented by McCarthy as Case Numbers 48 and 49 respectively and both are Number 59 on the Lee list. McCarthy stated, "The letters of charges against the Barnetts--both Robert Warren Barnett and his wife, Mrs. Robert Warren Barnett-charge them with close association and constant contact with known Soviet espionage activity." See also FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 116, Robert Barnett contacts with Donald Wheeler formerly of OSS; Robert Barnett also served in OSS. ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.  Congressional Record, (August 9, 1951). Page 9707. U. S. Government Printing Office. ) See also FBI Silvermaster file, Hottel to the Director (May 12, 1947). Vol. 116, pg. 100 pdf. U. S. Government,.  Robert Barnett contacts with Donald Wheeler formerly of OSS; Robert Barnett also served in OSS).
  37. ↑ Presented by McCarthy as Case Number 47 and Number 55 on the Lee list. She belonged to a number of Communist front organizations, including chairman of a meeting of the American Friends of the Soviet Union where the main speaker was a well known Communist and writer for the Daily Worker. "Brunauer was a signer of a call to the annual meeting of the American Youth Congress which was publicly known to be completely dominated by the Communist Party. She admitted that her husband had Communist connections and had been a member of the Young Communist League." Brunauer was suspended by the State Department in 1951 pending adjudication of security proceedings against her. On June 16, 1952, she was discharged by the State Department as a security risk. See McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning for greater detail on this case. ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2. )
  38. ↑ McCarthy stated, "Brunauer, an admitted former member of the Young Communist League, was suspended from his job as head of the Navy's high explosives section where he was engaged in top secret work. He resigned before the Navy's Loyalty Board could complete questioning him and dispose of his case." Brunauer also had a reputation for associating with know Communists. McCarthy stated, "For example, his very good friend, Noel Field, a known Communist and espionage agent, spent night after night with Stephen Brunauer, who had access to all the top secrets in the explosive section of our Navy. Field then left the country, and has since disappeared behind the iron curtain, taking with him all the information which his friend Brunauer had given him ... What forced the Navy to take action was that it appeared during the atom-spy investigations that Stephen Brunauer was involved." ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.  McCarthy, Joseph (1953). Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951. U. S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-87968-308-2.  Congressional Record, (May 8, 1951). Page 5058. U. S. Government Printing Office. 
  39. ↑ Presented by McCarthy as Case Number 55 and Number 65 on the Lee list. Just like Arpad Erdos, Nelson Chipchin, John Tipton Fishburn, Stella Gordon, Myron Victor Hunt, Esther Less Kopelewich, Franz Leopold Neumann, Robert Ross, Sylvia Schimmel, and Frances M. Tuchser on August 9, 1951, Senator McCarthy listed Cameron as being one of the individuals that he had given to the Tydings Committee a year earlier. McCarthy submitted to the Senate, Cameron, as yet another example of a clear security risk who was currently in the loyalty-security channels in the State Department. There was no explanation from the State Department as to why Cameron remained in loyalty-security channels for such a lengthy period of time. In the meantime, Cameron, like, Fishburn, Chipchin, Erdos, Gordon, Hunt, Kopelewich, Ross, Schimmel, Tuchser, and Neumann, was able to carry on her activities despite concerns about her loyalty and security clearance. ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.  McCarthy, Joseph (1953). Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951. U. S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-87968-308-2.  Congressional Record, (August 9, 1951). Page 9707. U. S. Government Printing Office. )
  40. ↑ An FBI Surveillance report on Edward Fitzgerald from September 1947 notes that on May 20 1947 Fitzgerald's brother-in-law had lunch with J. Robert Oppenheimer and an appointment with Leslie Groves. Sometime later Frank Cameron, a regular contact of Fitzgerald tried to contact Gertrude Cameron in the State Department from the Fitzgerald’s home. FBI Silvermaster file, (September 1947). Volume 130, pgs 17 -18 pdf. Federal Bureau of Investigation. )
  41. ↑ Presented by McCarthy as Case Number 23. Just like Arpad Erdos, Gertrude Cameron, John Tipton Fishburn, Stella Gordon, Myron Victor Hunt, Esther Less Kopelewich, Franz Leopold Neumann, Robert Ross, Sylvia Schimmel, and Frances M. Tuchser on August 9, 1951, Senator McCarthy listed Chipchin as being one of the individuals that he had given to the Tydings Committee a year earlier. McCarthy submitted to the Senate, Chipchin, as yet another example of a clear security risk who was currently in the loyalty-security channels in the State Department. There was no explanation from the State Department as to why Chipchin remained in loyalty-security channels for such a lengthy period of time. In the meantime, Chipchin, like Cameron, Fishburn, Erdos, Gordon, Hunt, Kopelewich, Ross, Schimmel, Tuchser, and Neumann, was able to carry on his activities despite concerns about his loyalty and security clearance. ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.  McCarthy, Joseph (1953). Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951. U. S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-87968-308-2.  Congressional Record, (August 9, 1951). Page 9707. U. S. Government Printing Office. )
  42. ↑ McCarthy presented Clubb's name and evidence against him to the Tyding's Committee. In 1952, by unanimous vote, the U.S. State Department Loyalty and Security Board found that Clubb's employment in the State Department constituted a security risk. The Deputy Under Secretary for Administration, Carlisle Humelsine agreed with this decision. Clubb ultimately resigned. On March 5, 1952, Secretary Acheson confirmed to the Media that Senator McCarthy was correct. ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2. )
  43. ↑ McCarthy stated that, "Both [John Stewart] Service and Davies spent considerable time in China as State Department officials. In their recommendations to Washington both followed the Communist Party line. For example, on November 7, 1944, Davies submitted a memorandum to the State Department outing that the Communist Party in China was 'a modern dynamic popular government.' At the same time he referred to the anti-Communists as 'feudal.' 'The Communists are in China to stay. And China's destiny is not Chiang's but theirs,' said Davies. On December 12, 1944 he urged that we supply the Chinese Communists with arms -- a proposal which Dean Acheson two years later requested Congress to approve." In 1944, Ambassador to China, Patrick J. Hurley, accused Davies of working behind his back to support the Communists. According to Hurley, "Davies had one day flown off to Yenan to tell Mao TseTung, the Communist leader, that Hurley, our Ambassador (an anti-Communist), did not represent the American viewpoint." According to The China Story by Freda Utley, Davies was a great fan of Communist operative Agnes Smedley who operated in China. Utley states, "Davies was also a great admirer of Agnes Smedley, whom he called one of 'the pure in heart.' He used to invite us all to excellent dinners at the American consulate, at which he expressed both his admiration and affection for Agnes. Together with Edgar Snow and other journalists I knew in Hankow, he [Davies] became one of the most potent influences in the Department [of State] furthering the cause of the Chinese Communists." The McCarran Committee had found that Davies had "testified falsely before the subcommittee in denying that he recommended the Central Intelligence Agency employ, utilize and rely upon certain individuals having Communist associations and connections. This matter was...substantial in import." Despite the enormous evidence of Davies' support of the Communists, the State Department cleared him of being a security/loyalty risk. Eventually, in 1954, under political pressure from McCarthy and Senator Patrick McCarran, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asked Davies to resign. When he refused, on 5 November, 1954, Dulles terminated his employment, stating that Davies had "demonstrated a lack of judgment, discretion and reliability." ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.  McCarthy, Joseph (1953). Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951. U. S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-87968-308-2.  Congressional Record, (June 14, 1951). Page 6574. U. S. Government Printing Office.  Utley, Freda (1951). The China Story. Chicago, H. Regnery Co.. ASIN B00005VL2B.  McCarthy, Joseph (1952). McCarthyism: The Fight for America: Documented Answers to Questions Asked by Friend and Foe. The Devin-Adair Company. ASIN B0007DRBZ2. )
  44. ↑ The Duran Case is considered one of Senator McCarthy's "Nine Public Cases". McCarthy attempted to present evidence of Gustavo Duran's status as a security risk during the Tydings Committee. In violation of its mandate, the Tydings Committee refused to discuss McCarthy's evidence. Intelligence reports presented by McCarthy made the case quite clear that Duran was a bad security risk. All evidence submitted indicated that Duran was a Communist agent prior and during WWII, who took orders directly from the Soviet Union. It is unclear whether Duran was either hired with the knowledge that he had a Communist Party background or whether the State Department Loyalty Board simply failed to perform its obligation to properly screen out security risks. Either way, the State Department failed to perform its duties. ( Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472