Ellen Schrecker Mccarthyism: Political Repression and the Fear of Communism

Ellen Schrecker McCarthyism: Political Repression and the Fear of Communism THE 28-YEAR-OLD SEAMAN WAS PUZZLED. LAWRENCE PARKER HAD BEEN forced off his job as a waiter on the S.S. President Qeveland in February 1951 as a "poor security risk," but had not been told why. This was not the first time he had been barred from the waterfront under the federal government's Port Security Program. But with the help of his union, he had appealed his earlier removal and was reinstated. "I just can't understand it at all," Parker told the Coast Guard official who was conducting his hearing. "I would like to have some reason or something definite I would hke to know whether I will be able to work." Unfortunately, as his attorney explained, Parker could not clear his record because "there are no facts which have been alleged an}^where ... to give him any knowledge of the charges on which the conclusion of a poor security risk is based. Therefore, it is impossible for him to respond adequately to the charges."^ Unemployable since being identified as a security risk, Parker was desperate to clear up his case and go back to sea, but as long as his status was unresolved, he could not even draw unemployment.^ Parker's encounters with the Alice in Wonderland world of the West Coast Port Security Program were not unique. Nearly 3,800 seamen and dockworkers lost their jobs under this little-known program that had been established in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War {Report of the Commission on Government Security, 1957: 333). Parker suspected that his vocal support for the left-wing Maritime Cooks and social research Vol 71 : No 4 : Winter 2004 1041 Stewards Union may have triggered his removal, but the vagueness of the charges and the refusal of the authorities to give him any specific information about who had launched them made it impossible for him to rebut them.^ Parker's attorney handled dozens of similar cases: union activists in a number of occupations, many of them African Americans like Parker, deprived of their livelihoods on the basis of secret charges by unknown informers."* Ultimately, these screened maritime workers were reinstated when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1955 in Parker's favor on the grounds that he should be allowed to see the evidence against him and confront his accusers (Parker v. Lester 227 F.2d 708). It was a paper victory, however, for the fiercely anticommunist maritime unions that were by then handling most waterfront jobs refused to let the previously screened seamen ship out.^ The story of Lawrence Parker shows us how the anticommunist political repression that we now call McCarthjdsm operated. Today, as we confront the post-9/11 assault on individual rights, it is clear that what happened in the 1940s and 1950s was no aberration but the all too common reaction of a nation that seeks to protect itself by turning against its supposed enemies at home. Obviously, the current crack- down is not a replay of the McCarthy era. Nonetheless, an examination of that earlier moment should help us understand how political repression and the fear that makes it work can take hold within a modern democratic polity like the United States. Significantly, that repression requires no violence, nor—even though it usually suppresses political dissidents—is it always handled by the state. In fact, as we shall see, it is the collaboration of public and private actors that makes American political repression so effective. MCCARTHYISM: AN OVERVIEW It is by now a truism to note that McCarthyism encompasses much more than the antics of a single senator. Joe McCarthy's contributions to the political witch hunt were far from trivial, but by the time he joined the anticommunist crusade early in 1950, the movement to which he gave his name had been going strong for several years and 1042 social research would continue for several more even after he left the political scene. Nor, despite his notoriety, was he the most infiuential of the nation's Cold War redbaiters. That honor belongs to the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover. Still, despite its inaccuracy, the term "McCarthyism" has passed into general usage as a s5Tionym for the anticommunist political repression of the early Cold War. It sticks because of its literary convenience and historical specificity. It is equally misleading to assume that McCarthyism was a single phenomenon. In reality, there were many McCarthyisms, each with its own agenda and modus operandi. There was the ultraconserva- tive version peddled by patriotic groups and right-vdng activists that manifested itself in campaigns like the one in Texas that tried to purge textbooks of favorable references to the UN. There was also a liberal version that supported sanctions against Communists, but not against non-Communists, and there was even a left-wing version composed of anti-Stalinist radicals who attacked Communists as traitors to the socialist ideal.^ In addition, there was a partisan brand of McCarthyism, purveyed by ambitious politicians like Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy who hoped to further their own careers and boost the Republican party. Local politicos, patriots, and businesspeople brought more parochial concerns to the Cold War red scare.^ All, however, sought in one way or another to protect the nation against the threat of domestic communism. And all contributed in one way or another to the overall success of the anticommunist crusade. As the maritime unions' blacklisting of previously screened sailors and dock workers revealed, the diffuse nature of that crusade increased its power. McCarthyism was to become the longest lasting and most widespread episode of political repression in modem American history precisely because of its diversity. Yet, despite its heterogeneous character, McCarthyism did not well up from below. It may have been a popular movement, but it was not a populist one. It began in Washington, D.C., and then spread to the rest of the country. The federal government was the crucial actor here; its activities transformed the Communist party from an unpopular political group into a perceived threat to the American way of life. McCarthyism 1043 But the government's campaign against communism was not mono- lithic. Different branches adopted different and sometimes competing strategies for handling the communist threat. That competition simply intensified the anticommunist furor as politicians and bureaucrats struggled to gain attention or to ensure that they would not be seen as coddling Communists or worse. Central to the process was a stra- tegically situated network of full-time anti-Communists like J. Edgar Hoover who had dedicated themselves to eliminating communism firom all positions of influence in American life. Some of these people were in the govemment, some outside. Politicians, bureaucrats, jour- nalists, and professional witnesses, they knew each other and collabo- rated in a surprisingly self-conscious manner.* Together they managed to structure much of the campaign against domestic communism and bring it to the forefront of American political life once the Cold War made it salient. As the travails of Lawrence Parker and his maritime colleagues reveal, the machinery that these people constructed was deeply fiawed. If nothing else, the political repression of the late 1940s and 1950s, like that of today, was marked by serious violations of due process. Secrecy and unfairness may well be essential to political repression— though as Corey Robin shows, they are not invariably involved (Robin, 2004). Whether it was reflising to let people confront their accusers or forcing witnesses to inform on others or illegally bugging people's homes and offices, almost every criminal prosecution, congressional investigation, loyalty-security hearing, and political surveillance of the McCarthy era infringed on individual rights. Had the courts been more vigilant in protecting those rights, many of these repressive activities might not have occurred. As it turned out, when the judiciary finally began to recover its backbone in the mid-fifties, it came to insist on a modicum of due process and thus brought many of those activities to a halt.9 Although a victim of political repression, Lawrence Parker did not face a firing squad or go to jail. He lost his job. Economic sanctions allowed McCarthyism to stifie political opposition almost as effec- 1044 social research tively as more overt forms of coercion. That kind of coercion existed, to be sure. Criminal prosecutions sent a few hundred people to prison and two—-Julius and Ethel Rosenberg—to the electric chair, while official proceedings like congressional hearings or IRS audits damaged left-wing unions and other organizations by harassing their leaders and diverting their resources to self-defense. But most of the men and women affected by the McCarthy era political repression were, like Lawrence Parker, ordinary workers who found themselves unemployed and often blacklisted because they had associated with the Communist party or the many so-called "front groups" within its penumbra. These sanctions—or more commonly the fear of them—^were sufficient to keep people from joining the Left or advocating unpopular positions in public. The imposition of the McCarthy-era economic sanctions was a collaborative process. The federal government led the way, with the Truman administration's loyalty-security program creating a template that other governments and private employers were quick to copy. While such programs sometimes made it possible to fire people outright, most of the time these sanctions operated in accordance with a two-stage procedure. First, the alleged Communists were identified; then, they were fired. The first stage was usually handled by an official body like a congressional investigating committee or the FBI, while a public or private employer took care of the second.

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