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."

[DustyMoment]

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?

Bush I let himself be setup by the Dem Congress who manipulated him into agreeing to a tax increase after he famously told the nation "Read my lips, no new taxes!" (In retrospect, I believe that his Texas accent was misunderstood and what he actually said was "no new taxis". LOL!).

With respect to his CIA thing, I believe that there are a couple of reasons he may not have gone 'mano a mano' with Clinton. One, the information may have been classified and he may not have been able to reveal it. Two, I believe that Bush I, much like his sons Jorge and Jeb, is an inherently nice guy who was unwilling to climb into that particular gutter.

Your question #1 is an excellent point that has NEVER (to the best of my recollection), ever been explored or explained. Until/unless we ever get access to the KGB records (I'm not holding my breath on that!), I don't believe that we will ever have this question answered.

[trumandogz]

I heard that McCarthy would usually nurse one drink for an entire evening.

Thanks for the insight. I was not aware that nursing one drink for an entire evening would lead to death caused by cirrhosis of the liver for a 48 year old man.

[america4vr]

Have you forgotten the greatest propaganda fraud in the history of American presidential electioneering perpetuated by the Arkansas mafia and zealously drummed into the American psyche by the more than obsequious Clinton sycophantic panderers, the MSM, time and time and time again that it was the worst economy in fifty years????

[Stark_GOP]

Thanks for the insight. I was not aware that nursing one drink for an entire evening would lead to death caused by cirrhosis of the liver for a 48 year old man.

---

Touche’
I didn’t know his cause of death.
I’m just telling ya what I heard others say which is how I had stated in my post.

[DustyMoment]

(Speaking softly but carrying a big stick) Nope. I knew that it was such a laughable lie that I found it (and still do) impossible to believe that anyone actually bought that.

[Kenny Bunk]

.....couple of reasons he may not have gone 'mano a mano' with Clinton....

There are a million reasons, pal. And not one of them is worth a damn. George I tanked that campaign of '92. Sometimes in the dark of night I think it may be because of what Bill had on him!?

[trisham]

I was not aware that nursing one drink for an entire evening would lead to death caused by cirrhosis of the liver for a 48 year old man.

************

I believe there are other diseases that can cause cirrhosis, such as hepatitis.

[america4vr]

Oh, please. Nobody had anything on President Bush, except for that supermarket scanner Mt Everest out of a mole hill much ado about nada thing and the lurking on the periphery of gossip,speculation, rumor, innuendo,about his supposed,alleged, maybe, maybe not,fling he had, that his handlers had him rehearse about as many times as his Dan Rather dander-upper, the only one who did President Bush was himself.

All blame most go to the didn't-lift-his-butt campaign manager Jim-F**K-the-Jews-Baker as reported by Ed Koch NY Mayor who I would say ran the most unconscionably limp presidential campaign ever.

[radioman]

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.

That could be true. I remember watching his drunken rants during the hearings. He killed his own credibility.

[radioman]

Unfortunately, when eradicating a particular disease, the tendency in nature is for it to mutate into a more virulent, resistant strain.

Right on...
The Law of Unintended Consequences in action.

[america4vr]

Well, the Law of Unintended Consequences is not always necessarily the same as the phenomena in which a pathology,biological or social, is eradicated develops resistance and re-emerges stronger, more virulent,deadlier, although what you pointed out where the demise of the Soviet Union spawned Islamic militancy does seem to fit that pattern.

[radioman]

True...Islamic militancy was nothing but a gang of pirates until we promoted them to evil empire status.

[Wallace T.]

President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover all turned their back on McCarthy during the censure proceedings that followed the Army-McCarthy hearings. So did the supposedly conservative Southern Democrats like John Stennis and James Eastland. In the 1950s, as is the case today, pseudo-conservatives will back off when faced with a full blown liberal assault.

[DustyMoment]

Eisenhower was a nice man and a great general but, IMO, the country went to sleep during his administration. As a president, he was popular, but largely benign and spent a lot of time playing golf (as I recall). Nixon, like most VPs, was placed in a corner out of sight and told to play quietly. Hoover was too much of a girly-man to get involved.

However, the point I get from your comment is that Republicans have always been linguini-spined and would rather turn tail and run rather than fight for principles, ethics and honor. No different from the current crop of GOP reps, just more visible and more obvious.

[usurper]

Unfortunately, when eradicating a particular disease, the tendency in nature is for it to mutate into a more virulent, resistant strain.

I fear you are correct. The moonbats of today don’t even try to base their arguments on any level of reason. It is pure faith and emotion that leads them.

[Tlaloc]

McCarthy did actually die of hepatitis. Except it wasn’t chronic hepatitis, the kind you get from chronic alcohol abuse. It was acute hepatitis, the kind you get from being poisoned.

[trisham]

Do you have a link for that?

[RichardMoore]

Henry Wallace is named in Mitroikin’s book as a KGB agent. Just how that information got to our CIA is anybody’s guess.

[RichardMoore]

I think that you might be interested in Mitroikin’s KGB/The Sword And The Shield. He names the agents(KGB) that were involoved in Hollywood and newspapers throughout the USA. You can get it in the library.

[RichardMoore]

Miroikin names Wallace as a KGB agent. KGB/The Sword & The Shield