TBP:
If you honestly believe that McCarthy never claimed that Pearson, Acheson, and Marshall were “in any way supporting Communism” — then you are so incredibly ignorant that you have totally disqualified yourself as a credible person.
With respect to Acheson, read this McCarthy speech:
http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/DC/JRM/JRM_1950_Hyattsville_excpt.pdf
With respect to Marshall, read this McCarthy speech:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1951mccarthy-marshall.html
The entire premise underlying McCarthy’s accusation regarding “a conspiracy so immense” — was that TRAITORS were devising and implementing the foreign policy of the United States. And McCarthy used every possible opportunity to attack and defame both Acheson and Marshall as major and conscious instruments of that “conspiracy”
His attack on Marshall was a policy criticism. Marshall’s policies were advancing Communism — not deliberately, in all probability, but that was the effect that they were having. Ditto Acheson.
Pearson was helping to spread Communist propaganda — again, not knowingly, probably, but that is what he was in fact doing.
Somehow, though, it’s wrong to say so?