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| | McCarthy has been widely criticized for abusing his legislative investigatory powers to perform quasi-executive and judicial functions. McCarthy's Committee, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) only had jurisdictional authority to investigate United States Government (USG) Departments, Agencies, or contractors doing business with the USG. From the evidence it appears the FBI under Hoover fed McCarthy primarily dead end files of persons and associates to prime suspects in espionage cases in hopes of gaining some leverage or further information to prosecute known suspects without revealing secret Venona evidence. | | McCarthy has been widely criticized for abusing his legislative investigatory powers to perform quasi-executive and judicial functions. McCarthy's Committee, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) only had jurisdictional authority to investigate United States Government (USG) Departments, Agencies, or contractors doing business with the USG. From the evidence it appears the FBI under Hoover fed McCarthy primarily dead end files of persons and associates to prime suspects in espionage cases in hopes of gaining some leverage or further information to prosecute known suspects without revealing secret Venona evidence. |
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| − | 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.
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| − | Thomas C. Reeves 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 went through the Lee list. The Lee list read:
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| − | “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.’”
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| − | 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.”
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| − | 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."
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| − | 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>
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| − | In 1953 McCarthy claimed that employees at Voice of America, were engaging in deliberate sabotage, selecting sites for transmitters that would make it easier for the Soviets to jam signals. Attention was also focused on the content of VOA broadcasts, which in Truman’s time had a policy of “balanced presentation” that did not exclude communist writings. VOA overseas libraries were scrutinized, and among the several hundred books that ended up being purged were works by Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, [[Jean Paul Sartre]], and Theodore H. White.
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| − | The VOA hearings often involved closely questioning witnesses about their past and present political or religious orientations. Director of Religious Programming Roger Lyons was asked if he was or had ever been an unbeliever. Lyons insisted “I am not an atheist. I believe in God.” When he mentioned that he studied in Switzerland under associates of Carl Jung, McCarthy asked if “this professor” attended a church or a synagogue. <ref>Time Magazine, March 16, 1953</ref>
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| − | Reed Harris, acting chief of the IIA, was repeatedly questioned over three days about a book he’d written twenty one years before as a college student at Columbia University. (The offending passage was the assertion that communists had the right to teach in the public schools.) Harris resigned from his job shortly after appearing before the committee. <ref>”McCarthy Hearings, 1953-54 Vol 1. February 23, 1953</ref>
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| − | Dr. Julius Hlavaty, a teacher of Mathematics at Bronx High School and the first Chairman of that prestigious target school’s mathematics department, was called as a witness because of a broadcast he’d made in 1952. After being questioned about personal beliefs and asked if he were a Communist, Dr. Hlavaty refused to answer, which resulted in his dismissal from the New York School system. <ref>“Time Magazine, March 23, 1953"</ref>
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| − | One potential witness, Voice of America engineer, Raymond Kaplan, was so frightened to testify that he committed suicide. In a lengthy suicide note which specifically referenced the placement of VOA transmitters he wrote, "I guess I am the patsy for any mistakes"...."You see, once the dogs are set on you everything you have done since the beginning of time is suspect," and “I have never done anything that I consider wrong but I can’t take the pressure upon my shoulders any more.” <ref>The life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography, Thomas C. Reeves, pg 485</ref>
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| − | No evidence of sabotage of VOA tranmitters were found, but hundreds of employees were fired, some overseas libraries were closed, and some foreign language programming discontinued.
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| − | During Senate debate on the Communist Control Act of 1954, [[Senator Hubert Humphrey]] proposed making membership in the CPUSA a [[felony]]. <ref>McAuliff, Mary Sperling (1978). ''Crisis on the Left: Cold War Politics and American Liberals, 1947-1954''. University of Massachusetts Press, 142. ISBN 0-87023-241-X.</ref><ref>Art Preis, [http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/preis/1954/xx/liberals.htm ''A Case of “Midsummer Madness”? Police-State Liberals''], From Fourth International, Vol.15 No.4, Fall 1954, pp.111-114. Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).</ref> If implemented this proposal would have resulted in the United States openly prosecuting individuals strictly for their political views.
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| − | What ultimately destroyed McCarthy’s public career were the famous [[Army-McCarthy hearings]] of 1954. The focus of the Army-McCarthy hearings was the accusation that McCarthy had sought special treatment for an army private named David Schine, a friend of Roy Cohn’s who had been added to McCarthy’s committee as an unpaid consultant and who, it was claimed, had through this association enjoyed special privileges. It is unclear what Schine’s qualifications were for being on McCarthy’s committee other than his friendship with Cohn.
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| − | The most famous exchange from the hearings is the “have you no decency” speech that many people today see as the fatal blow to Senator McCarthy’s public career. It happened while Boston attorney Joseph Welch was cross-examining Roy Cohn about the work Schine had had done with Cohn for the committee. When the interrogation seemed to be going badly for Cohn McCarthy, contrary to an agreement earlier made with Welch that he would not bring up the subject if Welch did not bring up Cohn's military history, launched into an attack on a young law associate of Welch’s, Fred Fisher:
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| − | “In view of Mr. Welch’s request that the information be given once we know of anyone who might be performing any work for the Communist party, I think we should tell him that he has in his law firm a young man named Fisher whom he recommended, initially, to do work on this committee, who has been for a number of years a member of an organization which was named, oh, years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party…I am not asking you t this time to explain why you tried to foist him on this committee. Whether you knew he was a member of that Communist organization or not, I don’t know. I assume you did not, Mr. Welch, because I get the impression that, while you are quite an actor, you play for a laugh, I don’t think you have any conception of the danger of the Communist party.”
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| − | “Until this moment,” Welch responded, “I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…” Welch went on to explain that he had discussed Fred Fisher’s membership in the Lawyer’s Guild with Fisher, and had decided not to recommend him for the committee because he feared that membership would be used against Fisher. "Little did I dream you would be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is with Hale & Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale & Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you..." Welch added the now famous words, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” <ref>”http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html."</ref>
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| | 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'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. |