REMEMBERING McCARTHYISM James J. Drummey is NewsEditor o/"The Review OfThe News. This article is taken from his address to the McCarthy Foundation in Wisconsin on the twenty-seventh anniversary of the death of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
AjeCL . • The enemies of the late Senator ical and more dishonest as the years Joseph Raymond McCarthy continue pass. Two examples come immedi A> their venomous campaign of vilifica ately to mind. tion against him. In a dozen books, In June of1983, the ABC television unending newspaper and magazine network broadcast a one-hour pro articles, and a continuing series of gram called "McCarthyism: The television programs and films, the American Inquisition." A full-page specter of McCarthyism is raised advertisement for the program in again and again. And critics of Joe Time magazine said that, during the McCarthy seem to grow more hyster- McCarthy era, "thousands of ordi-
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i The alleged "reign ofterror" was notconducted by SenatorJoseph IVIcCarthy but against him. And it continues today with vilifying television programs, dishonest books, and criticisms bya press grown morehysterical as the years pass. Senator Joe McCarthy was and is smeared because he identified guilty people. naryAmericans lost their livelihoods leged victim's name in congressional and their homes. Without real evi Hearings, you find he neither ap dence, without hard proof, without peared before the McCarthy Subcom ever knowing their accusers." But, of mittee nor had any connection with these "thousands" of alleged victims, Senator McCarthy. ABC could only come up with two — A current example of dishonest a man who was denied a security writing about McCarthy is a book clearance by theAtomic EnergyCom published last year, A Conspiracy So mission, and a schoolteacher in West Immense: The World Of Joe Mc Virginia who lost her job chiefly be Carthy, by Rutgers University Pro cause of her unpopular views on reli fessor David M. Oshinsky. With more gion and sex. Neither of these people than a thousand footnotes, some of had the slightest connection with Joe them with multiple references, the McCarthy. The producer of the ABC documentation looks impressive and smear, Marshall Frady, had done a Oshinsky's conclusions seem con similar hatchet job on J. Edgar Hoo vincing until you compare them with ver a year earlier. the historical record. For instance, This linking of Senator McCarthy Oshinsky says that the McCarthy with anybody and everybody who Subcommittee conducted only sev was accused of anything in the de enteen public or semi-public Hear cade from 1945 to 1955 is common. ings in 1953. The fact is that the Sub Hardly a month passes that some al committee held 169 executive and leged victim of McCarthyism, some open Hearings in 1953. Oshinsky obscure professor somewhere, says the Senate Internal Security doesn't receive an award or an hon Subcommittee during the same pe orary degree for having courageously riod "conducted one hearing on sub survived the "horrors of Mc version in government" and "held 11 Carthyism." Whenyou look up the al hearings in all." The record shows. V* COMMUNIST PARTY ORGANIZATION ^U.i;.A.-FEB. 9.1950 I ]1.
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Senator Joseph McCarthy's desire to ferret out subversives was tempered by his concern for people's rights. Most of the subjects under investigatior] were identified only by a case number because, said the Senator, "If we should label one man a Communist when he is not a Communist, I think it would be too bad." however, that the Senate Internal j was no longer aCommunist problem? SecuritySubcommittee held a total of Not at all. What the S.I.S.S. said was seventy-eight Hearings in 1953, that "the Soviet international orga thirty of them dealing with "Inter nization has carried on a successful locking Subversion in Government and important penetration ofthe Departments." United States Government and this Now why do you suppose Professor penetration has not been fully ex Oshinsky failed to mention so signif posed." The Senate Subcommittee, of icant a series of Hearings? Perhaps which Joe McCarthy was not a mem because they would contradict his ber, called attention to the testimony statement that by 1950 "the Com of former Communist Elizabeth munist problem had been almost Bentley, who said that "to her knowl eradicated by the strenuous — and edge there were four Soviet espio sometimes questionable — efforts of nage rings operating within our the Democratic Administration." government and that only two of That's a good one, isn't it? Crediting these have been exposed." Thirty-one the Truman Administration, which years later, the members of those fought the removal of such top-level other two spy rings havestill notbeen Communist spies as Alger Hiss in the exposed. State Department and Harry Dexter Mr. Oshinsky's reputation as an White in the Treasury Department, historian gets even worse when he with stamping out Communism in says that Joe McCarthy "never ex government. posed a real subversive" and "never On July 30,1953, theSenateInter uncovered a Communist." But there nal Security Subcommittee released are many such lies about Senator its Report on "Interlocking Subver McCarthy. Let us consider three of sion in Government Departments." them. Did the Subcommittee sav that there Lie NIIMRF.R OnR- .Top MrPnrtViv 1 If'
conducted a "reign of terror" in the of a grand total of forty-six people, early Fifties during which people and particularly dramatized the were afraid to speakout againsthim. cases of only twenty-four of those Only one whowas not aroundin the forty-six. That's a far cry from thou 1950s could believe such nonsense. sands. The truth is that the reign of terror Longtime McCarthyites will re was not conducted by Joe McCarthy member that in Joe's first Senate butagainst him. Those who were not speech on Communists in the State afraid to denounceMcCarthyand call Department, on February 20, 1950, him every derogatory name included he repeatedly refused to make any of theiVeu; York Times, the Washington the eighty-one names public, even Post, Time, Life, Walter Lippmann, though his critics were demanding the Alsop brothers, Drew Pearson, that he do so. Joe identified his tar the cartoonist Herblock, Edward R. gets only as Case Number One, Case Murrow, Presidents Truman and Ei Number Twenty, Case Number senhower, virtually every "Liberal" Forty-five, etc. He stated that "if I politician, and famous people on the were to give all thenames involved, it Left from all walks oflife. might leave a wrong impression. If James Burnham, author of The we should label one man a Commu Web OfSubversion, a classic study of nist when he is not a Communist, I Communist penetration into the think it would be too bad." That's the highest levels of the U.S. Govern real Joe McCarthy talking, not the ment, once reviewed the statistics of fictional monstercreated by the Reds the so-called McCarthy terror: and their sympathizers and dupes. Number of persons killed — zero. The same concern for people's Number of persons wounded or in rights continued when Senator Mc jured — zero. Carthy took over the Permanent In Number of persons tortured — vestigations Subcommittee. In 1953, zero. for example, his staff examined 546 Number of persons arrested with persons in executive session and told out warrant — zero. them of the evidence against them. Number of persons held or impris The vast majority of these people oned without trial — zero. gave satisfactory explanations, were Number of persons evicted, exiled, waived off by the staff, and nobody or deported — zero. ever knew they had been summoned. Numberof persons deprived ofdue Those who appeared in public ses process — zero. sions were either hardened Fifth Lie Number Two: Senator Mc Amendment pleaders or persons Carthy smeared thousands of inno about whom there was a reasonably cent people. The best retort to this strongpresumption ofguilt. Buteven canard is to ask the accuser to name those brazen, insulting, and defiant oneperson smearedbyMcCarthy. Joe witnesses were afforded their consti McCarthy never even mentioned tutional rights to confer with their thousands of people in connection counsel, to confront their accusers, with subversion; he didn't even men and to invoke the First and Fifth tion hundreds. From the Wheehng Amendments rather than answer speech on February 9,1950, until he questions about theirCommunist as became Chairman ofthe Permanent sociations. Investigations Subcommittee three One witness who appeared be- yearslater,Joe mentioned thenames {Continued on page eighty-one.) ing in the suspension or discharge of more than twenty Fifth Amendment Communists. fore the McCarthy Subcommittee on Looking back from a vantage point March 10, 1954, a man named Peter of twenty-seven years, we can see Gragis, said that he had come to the that Senator McCarthy was right Hearing terrified because the press about a lot of things. He was right "had pointed out that you were very about Annie Lee Moss, the code clerk abusive, that you were crucifying in thePentagonwho had been a mem people .... My experience has been ber of the Communist Party. Mc quite the contrary. I have, I think, Carthy's detractors to this day refer been very understandingly treated. I only to her appearance before the have been, I think, highly respected McCarthySubcommitteein 1954 and despite the fact that for some 20 years insist that she was a victim of mis I had been more or less an active taken identity. They studiously ig Communist." nore a Report of the Subversive Lie Number Three: Senator Activities Control Board in 1958 con McCarthy never uncovered so much firming that Annie Lee Moss, the as a single Communist or subversive. Pentagon code clerk, was indeed a Joe McCarthy was hated and de member of the Communist Party. nounced not because he smeared in Joe McCarthy was right in wanting nocent people, but because he to investigate Communist infiltra identified guilty people. Any list of tion of the C.I.A. in 1953, but the identified Communists exposed by probe was blocked by Vice President McCarthy would have to include Nixon. Richard Nixon's worst sin Lauchlin Currie, Gustavo Duran, against this nation was not Water Theodore Geiger, Mary Jane Keeney, gate. He did far greater damage to Edward Posniak, Haldore Hanson, American security by knifing his John Carter Vincent, Owen Latti- friend Joseph McCarthy, selling out more, Edward Rothschild, Irving Indochina to the Communists, or Peress, and Annie Lee Moss. Joe's chestrating a massive flow ofAmeri willingness in 1950 to stand orfall on can aid to the Soviet Union, and the Lattimore case was confirmed in lending respectability to the Com 1952, when the Senate Internal Se munist tyrants in Red China at the curity Subcommittee concluded that same time that a Senate Report ac "Owen Lattimore was, from some cused the Chinese Reds of having time beginning in the 1930s, a con murdered between 34 and 64 million scious, articulate instrument of the oftheir own pebple. Soviet conspiracy." We discovered how rightMcCarthy Other accomplishments of Joe was about the C.I.A. in the mid-Six McCarthy include forcing eighty-one ties when we learned that Soviet security risks outof the StateDepart agent Kim Philby, while serving in ment, uncovering widespread Com the British Secret Service, had munist infiltration in the U.S. helped to set up our Central InteUi- Government Printing Office, expos gence Agency; that the C.I.A. in the ing Communist espionage in the se early Fifties funneled millions ofdol cret radar laboratories of the Army lars to European Socialists allegedly Signal Corps atFort Monmouth, New to help them fight their Communist Jersey, and probing Communist sub comrades on the Left; and, that the version in key defense plants, result- C.I.A. had given $3 million over the
NOVEMBER. 1984 years to the U.S. National Student ! Carthy warned that "we are at war Association, which collaborated with with Communism" and it is "a war the Communist Party and its fronts, which we cannot stop except by vic opposed anti-subversive investiga tory or death." Communist leaders tions and legislation, and advocated from Lenin to Chernenko have made a role for the Vietcongin negotiations it clear by their words and actions to end the Vietnam War. Syndicated that they intend to conquer the columnist Tom Braden, the former world. And, ifyou look at a map of the C.I.A. official who dreamed up the world, you can see how many nations idea offighting Communism with So have fallen into Communist slavery cialism, admitted on the "Crossfire" since the death of Joe McCarthy — television progi-am last fall that the Cuba, Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia, Agency even financed the Commu South Vietnam, Afghanistan, An
• ' nist Party'sDai7y Worker. No wonder gola, and Mozambique, to name just Joe McCarthy was concerned about the most obvious. theC.LA. What of the situation here at Senator McCarthy was also right home? Did the situation improve at in 1952 when he said that"the war in the State Department, for example, Korea is only one of the stepping after the efforts of Senator Mc stones to Communistworld conquest. Carthy? No, it did not. You have only Another stepping stone will be Indo to read the Hearings on "State De china."He was right at the time of the partment Security," which were con ^ >ir% Geneva Conference in 1955 when he ducted by the Senate Internal told President Eisenhower that "you y j. t-K f.^ "n-y „ J, Security Subcommittee from 1962 to cannot offer friendship to tyrants and 1965, to know how bad the situation murderers ... without advancing remained. The Hearings devoted con the cause of tyranny and murder." siderable space to the unmerciful ha And he was right in 1956 when he rassment of State Department said that "coexistence with Commu security chief Otto Otepka by the nism is neither possible nor honor Kennedy Administration because he able nor desirable. Our longterm ob refused to grant clearances for top jective must be the eradication ofCom posts to people with questionable se munism from the face ofthe earth." curity backgrounds. Can anyone doubt the wisdom of Otepka was called to a meeting in Joe McCarthy after reviewing the December 1960 with Dean Rusk and gains for Communism and the losses Bobby Kennedy and asked why he for the Free World after Roosevelt had blocked the appointment of a went to Yalta, Truman to Potsdam, man they had in mind for the State Eisenhower to Geneva, Kennedy to Department. Otepka replied that the Vienna, Johnson to Glassboro, Nixon manhadbeen denied a securityclear to Moscow, Ford to Vladivostok, Car ance in 1955 and 1957 because he had terto Vienna, andReagan to Peiping? a long history of close association The next time anAmerican President with Communist Party members and ' mentions a summit meeting with the active Soviet espionage agents. To Communists, let's remind him ofJoe avoid a confrontation with Otepka, McCarthy's advice in 1957 that "we the man in question was put on Pres should not talk with them unless they ident Kennedy's national security agree to discuss freeing the satellite staff for a few months and then nations." headed the Policy Planning Council Thirty-two years ago, Joe Mc- atthe StateDepartmentfrom 1961 to
AMERICAN OPINION 1966, when he became President Communist connections or homosex Johnson's top national security ad ual conduct. After much prodding by visor and for three years played a ma- the Senate Subcommittee, it was jor role in U.S. foreign policy, learned that 166 of the 258 security including the conduct of the war in risks were still in the State Depart Vietnam. This man, whom Lyndon ment as of 1965 and that many had Johnson said had "the most impor been promoted since the McLeod re tant job in the White House, aside port and had been assigned to even from the President," was Walt Whit more sensitive positions. The Senate man Rostow. Subcommittee was never able to get No one, as far as I know, has ever the names of the 166, or to find out called Walt Rostow a Communist, what jobs they held — and that was but with a background like his, what almost twenty years ago. was he doing making foreign policy We know from Ambassador Earl for the United States from 1961 to Smith's book The Fourth Floor that 1969? Had Joe McCarthy been alive people who worked on the fourth floor then, he might have reiterated a ofthe State Department helped Fidel statement he made in 1952. "A gov Castro seize power in Cuba in 1959 ernment job is a privilege, not a even though they knew he had been a right," he said. "There is no reason Communist since 1948. Smith, who why men who chum with Commu was Ambassador to Cuba from 1957 nists, who refuse to turn their backs to 1959, wrote a letter to the New on traitors, and who are consistently York Times in September 1979 say found at the time and place where ing that "Nicaragua is Cuba all over disaster strikes America and success again,"that the policy planners in the comes to international Communism, State Department had turned Nica should be given positions ofpower in ragua over to the Communistsjustas government." they had turned Cuba over to the Another man who played a key role Reds two decades earlier. in the vendetta against Otto Otepka Here is one more example of the was Abram Chayes, the State De soft-on-Communism mentality that partment's Legal Advisor from 1961 is so typical ofthe State Department. to 1964. Harvard Professor Chayes At a recent farewell party in Wash was recently before the World Court ington for Lawrence Eagleburger, representing the Communist regime who was retiring after twenty-seven of Nicaragua in its suit against the years in the Foreign Service, Eagle- United States. How's that for loyalty burger singled out for praise only one to your country? ofthe foreign diplomats present: the The Senate Subcommittee Hear Ambassador of the Soviet Union. ings on "State Department Security" "I've dealt with Anatoly Dobrynin for turned up another startling bit of in many years, through good times and formation. It seems that, back in bad," said Eagleburger. "I always 1956, Otto Otepka and his boss Scott found him an honorable and eloquent McLeod had compiled a list of more representative for his country, and I than eight hundred State Depart shall miss the association." ment employees who had "deroga Can you believe that? Describing tory" information in their security as "honorable" the man who lied to Jiv=;^|^;:r;v;:;,;;v:.r • files. Two hundred and fifty-eight of President Kennedy about Soviet mis •• •• •^Ct{'^.'r^>v:. these were considered "particularly siles in Cuba in 1962? Describing as ••• iVcx •• dangerous" security risks because of honorable the representative of a
AMERICAN OPINION Former Communist Elizabeth Bentley tes tified tfiat there were four Soviet espionage rings operating in our government. Two have been exposed, but thirty-one years later the members of those other spy rings still have not been identified. We need people to carry on Senator McCarthy's anti-Communist work.
Government whose imperialistic and ployee was convicted of selling to So aggressive policies have caused us to viet agents a top-secret manual on a spend hundreds of billions of dollars U.S. spy satellite; in 1981, a former to defend ourselves? A Government Army code custodian was sentenced that tried to kill Pope John Paul in to prison for selling the Communists 1981, and whose K.G.B. agents are information about a machine used to conducting "active measures" decode and encode U.S. military and against our own country at the pres diplomatic messages around the ent time, seeking to weaken our de world; and, this year, a former Army fenses by opposing all new weapons counterintelligence officer was con systems, hamstringing our security victed for selling the Reds informa and intelligence services, and manip tion aboutsix American double-agent ulating the "peace" and "nuclear- operations aimed at penetrating the freeze" campaigns? K.G.B. The Communists have for years And you know that this is just the carried out a massive espionage ef surface. But how can we expose the fort against the United States, steal rest of the Communist iceberg when ingvital defense secrets and valuable we no longer have the House Internal •vV high-technology information and Security Committee; we no longer equipment when they couldn't find have the Senate Internal Security someone to give it to them outright. Subcommittee; we no longer have the Consider just a few examples of Internal Security Division of the Jus Americans who have betrayed their tice Department. We do havetheSen country since Joe McCarthy's time: ate Subcommittee on Security and In 1960, twoemployees ofthe top-se Terrorism, under the Chairmanship cret National Security Agency de of Senator Jeremiah Denton, whose fected to the Soviet Union with first-hand knowledge of Communism importantcryptologic information; in comes from seven and a halfyears in 1963, an Army sergeant committed North Vietnamese prison camps. suicide after selling vital code infor Senator Denton, however, has only mation to the Reds while he worked limited funds and staffto carry on his at the National Security Agency; in important work. Nevertheless, he 1966, an Army lieutenantcolonel was has been able to hold Hearings on in convicted ofpeddling atomic, missile, ternational terrorism. Communist and bomber secrets to the Soviet disinformation via the American me Union; in 1978, a former C.I.A. em- dia, Justice Department curbs on
NOVEMBER. 1984 surveillance of domestic terrorists One morning I got up and we went and subversives, and activities ofSo out on a work detail — that was the viet agents on Capitol Hill. Senator day. Denton has also co-sponsored legis "Along about 11 o'clock in the lation to require Soviet-blocagents to morning," Solzhenitsyn reported, register with the Justice Department "the guards let us sit down at the edge every time they visit Capitol Hill. ofa clearingfor a restbreak, provided And isn't it high time Congress that no more than two prisoners sit passed a law like that? under the same tree, and provided Every year that goes by provides further that no prisoner say one syl additional vindication of Joe Mc lable to another prisoner." He contin Carthy, and sometimes that vindica- ued: "I chose a tree by myselfbecause tion comes from an unexpected I didn't want to get anybody else in source. One of the Senator's most volved in what I was planning to do. venomous critics was Cedric Parker, You are not going to believe this," he the editor of the Madison Capital declared, "butI had my hands behind Times. When Parkerdied in 1978, an mybackpreparing to push myselfup obituary in the Communist Party to make that dash, knowing they newspaper Daily World confirmed were going to pull the trigger on me. what McCarthy had suspected — "And along came another prisoner that Cedric Parker had been a Com — whom I had never seen before and munist for many years. Another will never see again, and whose name nasty critic ofJoe McCarthy was Mi I will never know — and he sat down chael Straight, editor in the Fifties of beside me, and our eyes met." Sol the New Republic and author of an zhenitsyn said that "I have never be anti-McCartliy bookentitled TrialBy fore or since had conveyed to me the Television. Early in 1983, Straight lovethat I saw in that man's eyes.We admitted that he had been recruited looked at each other for at least 30 or as a Soviet agent back in the 1930s 40 seconds. Then my friend reached and was a secret Communist in the down and he took up a stick and in the Fifties when he was denouncing Joe sand he drew a cross, praise God. I McCarthy for being concerned about realized then that the Lord was the Communist threat to America. speaking to me through the eyes of In the hills ofVermont there lives that man and saying: 'I have need for a famous Russian novelist who you.'" knows from brutal first-hand experi The Lord has need for many of us i j rj-i- ence the horrors of prison life in the to carry on the work of Senator Mc -rrM-r, Soviet Gulag Archipelago. A few Carthy against the Communists and years ago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn their apologists. The specter of Mc- told of a desperate plan he had made Carthyism continues to haunt Com to escape from his Communist cap munism, and patriotic Americans tors. "I decided I would try to escape," must never stop reminding the world he said, "knowing that I could not es thatMcCarthyism is still the fight for cape, that I would be shot if I tried. America. •• CRACKERBARREL 'V- • Blaming guns for crime, notes Robert W. Lee, isequivalent to blaming pencils for misspelled words. • SenatorJeremiah Denton ofAlabama, Chairman ofthe Subcommittee on Se O V .,-. curityandTerrorism, has introduced a bill to make terrorism a federal crime. o- -*<>-
AMERICANOPINION