...it really says this:
Posted on 05/05/2003 9:26:21 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:50:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pushing an anti-communist crusade that riveted America a half century ago, Joseph McCarthy manipulated his Senate hearings by calling witnesses he could intimidate and ignoring those likely to oppose him, newly released transcripts show.
Among the roughly 400 witnesses covered in transcripts of closed door meetings, made public Monday by the Senate, are composer Aaron Copland, New York Times journalist James Reston and Eslanda Goode Robeson, the wife of blacklisted singer-actor Paul Robeson. Some 4,000 pages of newly released documents also show that McCarthy was convinced that many writers, government officials and secretaries had access to classified information.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
...it really says this:
William Morgan MD testified that his boss at the CIA, Horace S. Craig, told him "conclusions had been drawn that Senator McCarthy's influence was the most important factor in negating the influence of U.S. activities abroad".
Senator Potter. I would like to go back to where this man Craig stated that he felt that Senator McCarthy should be liquidated. I'd like to place the date of this. When did it happen?
Dr. Morgan. It happened in September.
Senator Potter. September of what year?
Dr. Morgan. Last year, 1953.
Senator Potter. He stated in essence that this man should be liquidated, referring to Senator McCarthy?
Dr. Morgan. It may be necessary.
Senator Potter. And that there are madmen----
Dr. Morgan. For a price willing to do the thing.
Stalin's tactics sucked.
yitbos
He may have been right in the abstract, but he went after popular figures and did so in a way that disgusted ordinary Americans. In so doing, he discredited honest conservatives, led to the election of Kennedy and Johnson, and probably Carter and Clinton.
The most underestimated American President of my lifetime was Eisenhower, who cooked this turkey in his own grease. Although I agree that communists had infiltrated the government, I cannot think of a single good thing that came out of the McCarthy hearings.
A rivalry soon simmered between those two and it got nasty. Joe fell for one of the Kennedy girls, I think the one that later married that twit-Brit actor. Joe McC. went to Joe K. and asked for her hand.
This created a huge dilemma for the scheming Kennedy: on the one hand, he'd have loved to have the intermarriage of the ambitious Kennedys with the wildly popular McCarthy; on the other, there was a religious problem: while both Joes were Catholic, McCarthy was divorced & remarried, a major no-no in those days that would have portended trouble among Catholics in the event of a run by a Kennedy nationwide.
In the end, Joe K. refused Joe McC. The latter didn't take it well, and eventually RFK was given the gate. Roy Cohn came smugly to the fore and the rest, as they say, is history. This is one of those facinating "what-if" situations.
P.S. -- to show you the incestuousness of Washington, know ye that Dick Morris is Roy Cohn's nephew!
Read here an excerpt from "Reagan's War -- The epic story of his 40-year struggle and final triumph over Communism"
Geee... I guess that also means I need to know what the meaning of "is" is.
Sheesh, it's good to know that the communism that is modern liberalism has ALWAYS been so completely vacuous.
:) ttt
Michael Moore is a popular figure. He is also a socialist.
Nothing protects the famous or powerful from being called on the carpet (there was a House Committee On Un-American Activities at the time, commonaly misidentified as HUAC, it had its origins in an investigating group established in 1938).
It is illegal for the communist party to be on a ballot for public office.
Note that they are all socialists, worker, progressive, green, or other euphemism parties.
yitbos
Did Joe McCarthy himself lead to the election of liberals, or did the liberal/socialist establishment that counter-attacked and destroyed his reputation lead to the election of liberal Presidents? I always look at history in the context of its era. Communism had indeed infiltrated into the government, schools, business, (Armond Hammer), and even our churches, (read what Bella Dodd, a former Communist Party leader turned Catholic said about this). Communism in those days was spreading faster and more furious than AIDS and SARS combined. Suddenly a backwards peasant country like Russia had become a mighty Communist Empire, and China became Communist too. And Cuba became a surrogate Soviet State right off our coast. People were building underground nuclear bomb shelters, and public schools were sending chldren home with mimeographed evacuation plans for thermo-nuclear war. There were influential Communist parties in France and Italy, and some other Asian nations like North Korea had taken on Communist governments. Add to this the fact that even some traditionally conservative Catholic governments in South America were leaning towards socialism, and you get a much better picture of Joe McCarthy and his times. He became a convenient scapegoat becasue he was, in fact, a Roman Catholic. So hated were Catholics then, (and now), that a few years later a young, handsome, brilliant, charismatic Catholic named John Fitzgerald Kennedy, (also a war hero), had to publicly renounce his Catholicism to get elected. TWICE he was forced to publicly declare, (in W. Virginia and Texas), that he would "never allow my Catholic beliefs to get involved in public policy". Now, how many Protestant Presidential candidates felt compelled to make similar statements about their faith? NONE. Look how they have marginalized and ostracized poor Pat Buchanan, who has been right far more than he has been wrong. Joe McCarthy was right. Maybe his tactics were wrong, but HE was right.
A lot of that in these transcripts.Julius Reiss, an American employed by the Polish Delegation to the United Nations, is questioned by Roy Cohen:
Mr. Cohn. Have you served on the enlarged National Committee of the Communist party of the United States?
Mr. Reiss. I refuse to answer on the grounds previously stated. .
Mr. Cohn. Now, let me ask you this, Mr. Reiss: In your opinion, who was responsible--who was the aggressor in the Korean War?
Mr. Reiss. I refuse to answer on the grounds previously stated. .
Mr. Cohn. Do you believe in our form of government? Do you believe in a capitalistic democracy?
Mr. Reiss. I refuse to answer on the basis of the First and Fifth Amendments.
Mr. Cohn. Have you ever engaged in sabotage?
Mr. Reiss. What do you mean by sabotage?....
I'm not clear on their motives for the release of this information, other than the historian offered that it has been 50 years since the hearings were conducted.
Your comments about Senator McCarthy's behaviors are well-taken. But, regrettably, if not for him , no one else would have done a thing about what was an infiltration by communist influences into the government. To belittle that fact, in the end, gives those who support Big Red, the last laugh this time but not the final victory.
Also, by that time, Richard Nixon had moved on to the Vice Presidency after the successful prosecution of Alger Hiss.
I was also struck by the sh*t-eating grins on Senators Collins and Levin. To me , it looks like they did the grandstanding that senators are so prone to do in this new age of media.
The end game, again imho.. To legitimize and patronize and promote communism and the cause and show how "innocent" people were castigated in a supposed free nation respective of the rights of all to believe as they will. Sad, but not surprising, so thorough has the infiltration been into all of our institutions and the media. Coincidental, timing-wise, I think not, in light of C-SPAN and other media outlets fascination with groups like A.N.S.W.E.R. and the UN.
I. The present ``peace offensive'' is designed to be the last stage in the program of administering a ``sedative'' to the American people before the hammer of war falls on Continental United States. All functionaries have been alerted to concentrate on this present phase of the ``peace offensives'' for the purpose of building resistance to war and clamour for tax reduction so as to effect the defensive power of the Nation.
II. In line with the ``peace offensive,'' all trade union functionaries have been ordered to lay low, to make it appear that the class struggle has been sidetracked by the present Russian regime.
III. Actual ``operation propaganda'' is concentrating upon school, churches and children with principal reliance on front agencies, notably Civil Rights Congress.
IV. Senator McCarthy is among those listed for liquidation or murder--an American agent assigned to the job (L.B.).
V. The pending communist cases against known communist functionaries have been ordered dragged out for the purpose of diverting the attention of the American people to the `down in the mouth defendants' to make it appear that the communists apparatus U.S.A. is bankrupt, defunct and on its way to the prison, when actually, there has never been more money or more activity in the communist apparatus in the past eleven years.
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