Posted on 08/04/2005 3:37:22 PM PDT by Coleus
One of the highlights of the Conservative University conference that Accuracy in Academia recently held was the image of veteran journalist M. Stanton Evans delivering his talk on the late Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wisc., to an audience which included a lawyer from the ACLU.
Evans, who is becoming as accomplished an historian as he is a writer on current events, has come to the conclusion that the crusading anti-communist was wronged by his critics and, hence, by history itself particularly in textbooks. The ACLU, of course, has long held otherwise. The former newspaper editor and syndicated columnist is determined to set the record straight.
The attorney from the ACLU came to the conference to debate Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid on the panel which followed Evans’ lecture. Amiable and considerate, the ACLU’s Marvin Johnson brought along his two equally pleasant and courteous assistants.
Taking note of his presence, I asked the founder of the National Journalism Center to address a long-offered supposition about Sen. McCarthy’s quest to expose communist agents of the Soviet Union who were working in the United States government. “Stan,” I asked, “would you answer the assertion that we have heard for a half a century that in his investigation of Soviet agents working in the U. S. government, Sen. McCarthy smeared a lot of innocent people.”
Turning to face me, the former editor of the Indianapolis News said, “Well, Mal, as you know, I have a standard answer to that charge.” Evans then turned, looked directly at Johnson and said, “Name one.” Still facing Johnson, Evans allowed about a minute and a half elapse in order for the veteran attorney to offer up at least one name of a McCarthy victim. None came.
Such encounters are not unusual for the author of The Theme Is Freedom: the Religious Roots of American Liberty, Revolt on the Campus, The Liberal Establishment, The Politics of Surrender, The Future of Conservatism, The Lawbreakers, and Clear and Present Dangers. Evans has read so many of the case files and hearings on Soviet agents investigated by Sen. McCarthy in the 1950s that he is a recognized regular visitor to the Library of Congress, the FBI reading room and the National Archives.
Additionally, he has obtained information on Soviet agents working in the U. S. from both the KGB archives and the Venona project in which U. S. government code breakers decoded cables that Soviet Union officials sent their agents from the 1930s to the 1950s. “There were hundreds of agents we are sure of,” Evans told students at the AIA conference, “probably thousands.” Evans is currently finishing a book on Sen. McCarthy’s work for the Crown Forum publishing house.
In the course of his research, Evans read the declassified executive sessions of the Army-McCarthy hearings long thought to have brought about the Senator’s downfall. Finding that the wraparound text and public statements by an official U. S. Senate historian named Donald Ritchie did not match the reality of the original hearing transcript, Evans called him on it, literally.
Ritchie pointed to government employee Annie Lee Moss as an innocent victim of Sen. McCarthy who had been smeared and offered quotes from three books as evidence of her innocence. Evans pointed to the official record as proof of her guilt.
Critics of the late Senator have maintained that the Annie Lee Moss McCarthy named as a security risk was not the same woman whose name showed up on the membership rolls of the Communist Party of the District of Columbia. Evans crosschecked the lady’s address with the one for the government employee unearthed by the U. S. Subversive Activities Control Board.
“What are the odds that there were two Annie Lee Moss’s living at the same address and one was a communist and one was not?,” Evans asked rhetorically. Evans had also interviewed Moss when he worked as a reporter in Washington, D. C. in the 1950s.
When Evans pointed out the results of his research to Ritchie, the latter said, “I’m tired of this,” and hung up the phone. As Evans indicated, such a response is curious for an allegedly intrepid historian.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, please e-mail mal.kline@academia.org
That name brings back some interesting memories!
Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies,.....Or... Joe McCarthy was more right than he ever knew
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/622675/posts
Wish he'd finish it.
Didn't Lucille Ball had to go on TV to proof her innocence before she got dragged down by the Red Scare?
Was she innocent? Was she dragged down? Who dragged her down?
The fact that an innocent American had to take extra effort to protect her career shows that there were flaws in the Red Scare.
There were flaws? How so? and what the heck did one little-old senator from Wisconsin have to do what happened in Hollywood?
As I'm sure you know, many people still are angry for the House Un-American Activities Committee and for the touble it caused in Hollywood, what with the whole blacklist thing.
And Senator McCarthy is seen as the ring-leader of the whole HUAC thing. Which is odd, because US Senators don't usually have a lot to do with House Committees.
(FWIW, I consider McCarthy to be a great Amerian hero.)
Of course McCarthy was wrong. He UNDERestimated the number of communists in government.
Violation of civil and constitutional rights, even if they were lefties', is a flaw.
The sudden discovery by some that Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy was right about there being communists high in government positions in the 50s is the only thing surprising about this story.
It was common knowledge that McCarthy was condemned because he was naming names and Moscow sent out instructions to "get" him.
Indeed, the names of people high in government, including one Russian spy who was executive assistant to the President and another, Alger Hiss, who was high in the Agriculture and later the State Department, was also well known except to those who get their news from the major media.
The Left still gets it wrong. It was not the few hearings McCarthy held that flushed out so many communists, but the many hearings held by Congressional committees.
Many hundreds more were kicked out of government work because they could not pass a simple loyalty oath such as is administered when you get a driver's license.
It's ironic that McCarthy's state of Wisconsin is now known as the "People's Republic of Wisconsin" because of its solicalist leaning.
You mean, McCarthy wasn't investigating the government and military (as part of the Red Scare) and making it clear to the witnesses that they had to name names?
You mean, McCarthy wasn't investigating the government and military (as part of the Red Scare) and making it clear to the witnesses that they had to name names? >>>
I mean SENATOR McCarthy did not investigate Hollywood or Lucille Ball as you stated in previous posts. Don't change the topic and learn from your mistakes. I never said Joe was a saint, just that he was right on target. McCarthy was vindicated many times by unbiased researchers and reporters.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/933775/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1011937/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/945685/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/941688/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/622675/posts
My post #5 mentioned Red Scare. Didn't mention anything about McCarthy.
Sure, that's why you made your very wrong statement in #5 on a McCarthy thread and again in #11. Just be glad you learned something new today on the FR about SENATOR McCarthy and that it was the HOUSE who investigated Lucille Ball and NOT SENATOR McCarthy and NOT the US SENATE.
??? Have you ever heard of Frank Zeidler or Victor Berger?
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