Conservative Author Tries to Rehabilitate Reputation of Joe McCarthy

History News Network ^ | November 23, 2007 | History News Network Staff

[america4vr]

M. Stanton Evans, a stalwart of the conservative movement for half a century, has written a new book about Joe McCarthy, the long-reviled senator from Wisconsin whose name became a term of opprobrium.

In a review in the conservative magazine, the Weekly Standard, Robert Novak asserts that Evans make a convincing case that McCarthy was innocent of the three main charges leveled against him:

The demonization of McCarthy was essentially a three-part indictment. First, he labeled as security risks and drove from public life officials (especially skilled Foreign Service professionals) whose only sin was liberalism. Second, he accused innocents of being Communists, sometimes in cases of mistaken identity. And third, he degraded the political process by accusing major rivals of treason.

Evans makes a convincing case that McCarthy is innocent on all three counts, and he does so with a painstaking case-by-case approach. The jacket blurb says it took over six years to write Blacklisted by History, but in fact, the 73-year-old Evans, born and bred in the conservative movement, has spent his whole career thinking about Joe. A relentless researcher, Evans was frustrated by the mysterious disappearance of government files and even newspaper clippings. But he tracked down much of the missing data, helped immeasurably by the Venona files of decrypted secret Soviet communications and by the new accessibility of both FBI reports and Soviet archives.

McCarthy's oft-stated goal, says Evans, "was to get his suspects out of the federal government and its policy-making system." So the book begins by listing 10 senior government officials (the most prominent of whom was the Soviet agent Lauchlin Currie, an executive assistant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt) who, because they were "targets" of McCarthy, "must have been mere innocent victims of his mid-century reign of terror."

[Enchante]

Actually, I doubt that many liberals/Democrats really believed that either Alger Hiss or the Rosenbergs were innocent. It’s just that Democrats (1) could not bear to see communist espionage prosecuted because (2) Democrats feared the serious political repercussions for the party which had coddled and nurtured and protected so many spies and fellow travelers.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I disagree: Like the Italian anarchists convicted of murder, they (the liberals) simply cannot believe (as a matter of faith) that they could be guilty.

It simply isn’t possible that they (liberals/socialists/Communists/anarchists/etc.) could be guilty. Of anything. They (the "good guys") could not possible be guilty - and the evil, rich, capitalistic/white/European/American/republican/male/Christian (the "bad guys")could not possibly be innocent.

[america4vr]

The problem is that ever since the relegation of the Soviet Union to the dustbin of history, the sort of moonbat left-wing pathology that still exists in our society/the fed as remnants of disastrous social engineering are deemed anachronistic vestiges of a now extinct beast, not at all considered any threat
to our way of life.

Unfortunately, when eradicating a particular disease, the tendency in nature is for it to mutate into a
more virulent, resistant strain. So while the scourge of Bolshevism is now extinct it has mutate into a more virulent, sinister threat in the guise of Islamic Militancy,Al Qaeda and their ilk.

[carola]

This was interesting until the bit at the end about Plame. Let’s you know exactly where the staff of the HNN is coming from.

[Stepan12]

It is quite clear that McCarthy’s reputation was trashed because he got too close to the truth.

Absolutely!

The viciously maligned, Ann Coulter, started the rehabilitation and M. Staton Evans is finishing the job.

[Stepan12]

Wallace was a naif. He wasn’t an evil man like Owen Lattimore, but he wasn’t that savvy toward Communism either.

[baltodog]

Without getting into name-calling and political bashing...
The thing that concerns me is that, on the surface, much of what we call the left appears to be based on emotion and heartfelt feelings.

I think that a vast majority are unaware that the doctrine some of them preach and endorse (essentially, “Eat the Rich”) is based off communism.

We are not equal. There are rich, and there are poor. There will always be people who are employed, and people who are unemployed. Hungry, and well-fed. Etc., etc., etc.

I have talked to my kids about this. It is all good and well and noble to try to help someone who has less than you, but our founding fathers did not intend for everyone to reach some kind of equal level.

Why try to achieve success? Why go to college? Why try to get a better job?

This is the reason that socialist and communist governments eventually stagnate.

A democratic republic, like ours, is constantly vibrant and ever-changing...it is a living, breathing "thing"...it’s very nature keeps it alive.

[america4vr]

Excerpted from Wikipedia In February 1952, Lattimore was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (S.I.S.S), headed by McCarthy's ally, Senator Pat McCarran. Before Lattimore was called as witness, investigators for the S.I.S.S. had seized all of the records of the Institute of Pacific Relations(I.P.R). Lattimore's twelve days of testimony were very stormy, marked by frequent shouting matches and verbal joustings between McCarran and McCarthy (who attended the S.I.S.S. hearings for nine of the twelve days of Lattimore's testimony) on one hand and Lattimore on the other. The degree of antagonism between McCarran and Lattimore can be gauged by the fact that it took three days for Lattimore to deliver his opening statement; the delays were caused by frequent interruptions as McCarran challenged various claims made by Lattimore in his opening statement. During the hearings, McCarran used the records from the I.P.R. to ask questions that often taxed Lattimore's memory. During the hearings, Budenz again testifed against Lattimore, but this time claimed that Lattimore was both a Communist and a Soviet agent. Also testifying before the S.I.S.S. was Nicholas Poppe, a Russian émigré and a scholar of Mongolia and Tibet, who stated that Lattimore’s writings reflected Communist influence; Poppe, who had collaborated with the Nazis as an interpreter in the Caucasus in 1942 and later worked at the SS Wannsee Institute in Berlin[24], bore a great grudge against Lattimore[citation needed] for refusing to help him immigrate to the United States in 1949.[citation needed] In 1952, after 17 months of study and hearing, involving 66 witnesses and thousands of documents, the McCarran Committee issued its 226-page, unanimous final report: "Owen Lattimore was, from some time beginning in the 1930s, a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy". On "at least five separate matters," charged the committee, Lattimore had not told the whole truth. One example: "The evidence . . . shows conclusively that Lattimore knew Frederick V. Field to be a Communist; that he collaborated with Field after he possessed this knowledge; and that he did not tell the truth before the subcommittee about this association with Field . . ."[25] In 1952, Lattimore was indicted for perjury on seven counts. Six of the counts related to various discrepancies between Lattimore's testimony and the I.P.R. records; the seventh accused Lattimore of seeking to deliberately deceive the S.I.S.S. Lattimore's defenders, such as his lawyer Abe Fortas, claimed that the discrepancies were caused by McCarran deliberately asking questions about arcane and obscure matters that took place in the 1930s out of the hope that Lattimore would not be able to recall them properly, thereby giving grounds for a perjury indictment. Within three years, the charges against him were dismissed. His book Ordeal by Slander is his own account of this episode,

His book 'Ordeal by Slander' is his own account of this episode,
his only work of fiction, among otherwise non-fiction/Asia/history.

[muskeg13]

I have long thought that “Tail Gunner Joe” is a martyr. History has proven his inclinations, if not his methods, were right.

[ml/nj]

self ping

[elcid1970]

“Wallace was a naif”

This is true. It’s said though, toward the end of his life that Wallace acknowledged having been duped by the Soviets and their fellow-travelers in the U.S.

And frankly, I don’t know how Ann Coulter’s rehabilitation of Sen. McCarthy can be improved upon, except Stan Evans will bring more I-was-there historicity to the effort, which should be continuous and ongoing.

“Judge a man by his enemies, not by his friends.”

[DustyMoment]

Question: Had McCarthy not been demonized and driven out of office, would we ever have had the Clintons?

Bill Clinton is known to have gone to Moscow while a college student at the invitation of the KGB. What remains speculation is whether or not he and Hillary (AKA The Bride of Frankenstein) returned to the US as sleeper agents and/or moles.

Their actions scream volumes at us, even though we refuse to hear.

The demonization of McCarthy may turn out to be one of the most traitorous acts of the 20th Century. McCarthy discovered at the time that there were untold dozens of communist spies actively working in the Pentagon, and that Hollyweird was filled with active members of the Communist Party.

And, yet, we continue to ignore these facts and keep excoriating those who seek the truth. Much like the leftists have tried to do with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!!

Will we EVER learn!!??

[Little Ray]

Ann Coulter credits Evans in her book Treason. He provided a lot (most?) of the material on McCarthy.

[holden]

“Nevertheless, the country was indeed crawling with Communists. “

“Nevertheless, the country was indeed already crawling with Communists. “

HF

[Domangart]

His big mouth reveled the Anzio landing to the Germans. That would be enough.

[Cacique]

btt

[Fudd Fan]

BUMP

[Kenny Bunk]

Bill Clinton is known to have gone to Moscow while a college student at the invitation of the KGB. What remains speculation is whether or not he and Hillary (AKA The Bride of Frankenstein) returned to the US as sleeper agents and/or moles.

Two greatest mysteries of the 20th Century:
(1)WTF did Bill Clinton do behind the "Iron Curtain" for almost 2 years?
(2) Why did George Bush I throw in the towel in 1992, instead of taking down Bill? George I after all, had been head of the CIA. It's not really credible that I know more about Bill'd mis- and malfeasance than he, now is it?

As far as Joe McCarthy goes, subject done to a turn two weeks ago on this site: this would be a repeat post.

[af_vet_rr]

If not for his alcoholism, McCarthy would likely been able to fight off the attacks of the left and would have lived long enough to be elected President.

It wasn't just his alcoholism - he associated with some people that were...well let's just say I don't think too highly of Cohn and some of the others.

As well, he also lied about his military service as well as being wounded (the stories he told changed quite a bit). While much of that didn't come out until later, when it did, it pissed off a lot of WWII vets (and even before a lot came out, his background in the war seemed very suspect to a lot of people). I don't give a damn who you are - you don't lie about your military service or being wounded.

As it stands, he ultimately took himself down. Whether it was his drinking or his associates, or his lies about his military service or his going after the military in general, in the end he gave the liberals his head on a platter.

[Jonah Johansen]

“1)WTF did Bill Clinton do behind the “Iron Curtain” for almost 2 years?”

2 years behind the Iron Curtain or several visits over 2 year period?

Do you have a source I can quote so I don’t look like an idiot if I repeat this assertion.