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→McCarthy citations
McCarthy sought to characterize President Truman and the Democratic party as soft on or even in league with the Communists. McCarthy's allegations fell flat with Truman who was unaware of [[Venona project]] decrypts which corroborated [[Elizabeth Bentley]]'s debriefing after her defection from the Communists.
McCarthy sought to characterize President Truman and the Democratic party as soft on or even in league with the Communists. McCarthy's allegations fell flat with Truman who was unaware of [[Venona project]] decrypts which corroborated [[Elizabeth Bentley]]'s debriefing after her defection from the Communists.
It was McCarthy's charges of Communist infiltration of the State Department that shot him into prominence. During his famous February 9th, 1950 speech in Wheeling, [[West Virginia]] at the Colonnade Room of the McClure Hotel he stated:
''And ladies and gentlemen, while I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as active members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, 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 and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”<ref>"The life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography, Thomas C. Reeves, pg 224."</ref>
The State Department denied McCarthy’s claims. In a radio interview in Utah the following day, McCarthy had changed the number to 57, and on February 11, in Reno at the Mapes Hotel, McCarthy again invoked the number 57 instead of 205, and named Robert Service, Gustavo Duran, Mary Jane Keeney and Harlow Shapley as being on the list. Several days later, when McCarthy was speaking to the Senate in Washington DC, the number had changed to 81. .”<ref>Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, pg 241"</ref>
The source for the original number McCarthy offered, “205,” turned out to be a letter written in 1946 by Secretary of State James Byrnes in reply to a question from Democratic Congressman Adolph Sabath about the screening of several thousand federal employees in the wake of post-war reassignments. There was no mention of either Communist party membership or names in that letter. The names McCarthy later offered in Reno came from a 1948 report by an ex-FBI agent Robert E. Lee on “incidents of inefficiencies” in the state department that had subsequently been passed on to the HUAC.
Thomas C. Reeves painstakingly well-documented 1982 biography of McCarthy includes part of the exchange in the Senate between Senator McCarthy and Democratic Majority Leader Scott Lucas on February 20th, during which McCarthy offered evidence for his claims by going through the Lee list. There were marked differences between what the Lee report actually said, and what Senator McCarthy claimed on the Senate floor. For instance, the Lee list read:
“The subject was described in reports by various witnesses as interested in communism as an experiment but his political philosophy is in keeping with liberal New Deal social reform under democratic processes of government; ‘he is a very ardent New Dealer; he is a live liberal;’ but an informant who also lived in the International House at one time said ‘He was one of those accused of being a Red here but the people who do get up and talk communism are refuted.’”
McCarthy read this as “He was described in reports by various witnesses as interested in communism and by his roommate at the International House as a communist.”
Where the Lee list read "This employee is with the office of Information and Educational Exchange in New York City. His application is very sketchy. There has ben no investigation. (C-8) is a reference. Though he is 43 years of age, his file reflects no history prior to June 1941. Case is awaiting a report from the New York Office."
McCarthy read: "This individual is 43 years of age. He is with the Office of Information and Education. According to the file, he is a known Communist. I am not evaluating the information myself, I am merely giving you what is in the file. This individual also found his way into the Voice of America broadcast. Apparently the easiest way to get in is to be a known Communist." <ref>The life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography, Thomas C. Reeves, pg 240."</ref>
McCarthy made charges of Communist infiltration of the State Department, the administration of [[Harry Truman|President Truman]], Voice of America, and a United States Army research laboratory. He tried to expose government employees as CPUSA members and security risks. With the highly publicized Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, McCarthy's support and popularity began to fade due to his lack of actual evidence and defendant convictions. Later in 1954, a special Senate committee was appointed to study and evaluate McCarthy's methods and actions. The committee exonerated McCarthy on all substantive charges (citation needed). Following the recommendations of this committee, the full Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 65 to 22 (the votes for censure included all the Democratic senators and about half the Republican senators) for failing to cooperate with the subcommittee that was investigating him, and for insults to the committee that was trying to censure him <ref>Senate Report 104-137 - Resolution For Disciplinary Action. Library of Congress (1995). Retrieved on 2006-10-19.</ref>, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. [http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/60.htm] McCarthy died in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The cause of his death was acute hepatitis from smoking and drinking.
McCarthy made charges of Communist infiltration of the State Department, the administration of [[Harry Truman|President Truman]], Voice of America, and a United States Army research laboratory. He tried to expose government employees as CPUSA members and security risks. With the highly publicized Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, McCarthy's support and popularity began to fade due to his lack of actual evidence and defendant convictions. Later in 1954, a special Senate committee was appointed to study and evaluate McCarthy's methods and actions. The committee exonerated McCarthy on all substantive charges (citation needed). Following the recommendations of this committee, the full Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 65 to 22 (the votes for censure included all the Democratic senators and about half the Republican senators) for failing to cooperate with the subcommittee that was investigating him, and for insults to the committee that was trying to censure him <ref>Senate Report 104-137 - Resolution For Disciplinary Action. Library of Congress (1995). Retrieved on 2006-10-19.</ref>, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. [http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/60.htm] McCarthy died in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The cause of his death was acute hepatitis from smoking and drinking.