Click to scroll to commentary.
Revisionist Critics Misrepresent McCarthy's Legacy
HUMAN EVENTS ^ | May 19, 2003 | Patrick J.
Buchanan
Posted on 05/21/2003 10:28 PM PDT by TBP
Latest Episode Shows Why Left Refuses To Let Go Revisionist Critics Misrepresent McCarthy's Legacy By Patrick J. Buchanan
Why do they keep digging up the corpse of Joe McCarthy for a ritual flogging? The Wisconsin senator died in 1957. He never killed anyone. He never sent anyone to prison.
Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on two defenseless cities of a prostrate nation and sent 2 million Russian prisoners back to Stalin to be murdered in Operation Keelhaul. Yet Truman remains a hero to those who despise McCarthy with an undying hatred.
Why? Even if what is alleged is true—that McCarthy bullied witnesses and accused men of disloyalty who only made mistakes—that still does not explain why the Left cannot let go of him.
The answer: As no other man, Tailgunner Joe stripped the old establishment of its reputation, credibility and moral authority in the eyes of the people.
McCarthy convinced Middle America that FDR and Truman had been duped by “Uncle Joe,” had tolerated treason, and had blundered and lost in five years all the fruits of the victory won by the blood and sacrifice of the Greatest Generation in World War II.
The establishment has never recovered from that beating.
In the latest document dump by the Senate, we learn—horror of horror!—that McCarthy questioned witnesses in private before selecting those he put on the stand. But so, too, did the Watergate committee of the sainted Sam Ervin. This is a common practice of senators who don’t want to be surprised before TV cameras.
The New York Times’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes that those few historians shown the latest documents claim they “do not support McCarthy’s theories that, in the 1950s, communist spies were operating in the highest levels of government.”
Perhaps not, Ms. Stolberg. But if so, that is only because, by the 1950s, the spies had been rooted out, though their collaborators remained. But they had been there, selling out their country.
Indeed, the espionage and treason, proven again by the Venona transcripts—the intercepted coded messages from Soviet agents to Moscow—were far more extensive than even McCarthy imagined. In the 1940s, the U.S. Government was honeycombed with traitors and spies. Even today, not all the names have been revealed. Call the roll:
Alger Hiss and Lawrence Duggan, two of the highest ranking diplomats at State, were communist traitors and spies. Hiss stood behind FDR at Yalta when Eastern Europe was signed away to Stalin and helped shape the United Nations for Harry Truman. Harry Dexter White, father of the International Monetary Fund and the “Morgenthau Plan” to smash all German industry after the war—a plan embraced, then disowned, by FDR—was a Soviet agent. Truman knew it by 1946 and covered it up. Lauchlin Currie was a Soviet spy on the White House staff. William Remington was the Soviet spy at Commerce. Judith Coplon headed up a spy ring at Justice with access to the FBI secrets and files she transferred to Soviet agents. The Rosenbergs were communist traitors who gave their Russian handlers secrets of the atom bomb. The brother of Robert Oppenheimer, father of the A-bomb, was a communist, as was his wife, who was a lifelong friend of Steve Nelson, a key figure in the Communist Party underground apparatus. On and on the list goes. For an unbiased account of McCarthy’s life, Arthur Herman’s Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator is indispensable.
McCarthy’s career as an anti-Communist began in February 1950 with his Wheeling speech and was effectively ended with his censure in December 1954. Why was Harry Truman chased out of Washington in 1952 with an approval rating of 23%? Why did Joe McCarthy enjoy a 50-29 favorable rating as late as January 1954?
Because McCarthy, almost alone, was exposing the treason and folly of those who had ceded half of Europe to Stalin and all of China to the murderous hordes of Mao Tse-tung. And with 200 American boys dying every week in Truman’s “no-win war” in Korea, Americans were demanding explanations.
The 1950s were good years. No one was terrified then, except the fools who had joined a Communist Party that turned out to be a lickspittle of the Comintern. Gallup polls of the era show not even 1% of Americans were concerned about “witch-hunting” or “anti-Communist hysteria” or “McCarthyism.” That is pure myth.
In 1954, when some snot at the 15th reunion of his class got up to toast
Harvard College for never having produced an Alger Hiss or a Joe McCarthy, John
F. Kennedy stood up and walked out, roaring, “How dare you couple the name of a
great American patriot with that of a traitor.” Yes, indeed, that was when the
Right was right.
Comments?
1 posted on 05/21/2003 10:28 PM PDT by TBP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies ]
Absolutely right. We loved the House Un-American Activities Committee, and
the only good communist was a dead communist.
2 posted on 05/21/2003 11:41 PM PDT by mcsparkie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
Tailgunner
Joe--Patriot Whistleblower or Right-Wing Witch-hunter?
3 posted on 05/22/2003 12:00 AM PDT by backhoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
It was far worse than McCarthy suspected:
4 posted on 05/22/2003 12:21 AM PDT by DPB101
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
I'm actually debating this on another list. The diatribe is very
interesting.
Indeed, the espionage and treason, proven again by the
Venona transcripts—the intercepted coded messages from Soviet agents to
Moscow—were far more extensive than even McCarthy imagined.
The
current claim is that none of the people McCarthy prosecuted were in the Verona
transcripts.
The Rosenbergs were communist traitors who gave their
Russian handlers secrets of the atom bomb.
Oppenheimer gave the USSR
the secrest of the atom bomb. The Rosenbergs had given what little they could
find, but it wasn't enough to build one. What the Rosenbergs did give was the
proximity fuse which has killed far more people over the years by the USSR and
it's allies. However, the mere existance of this wrong sentence is sufficient to
condemn the entire article by leftists.
Oppenheimer, of course, was
protected by the Justice Department. So McCarthy is excoriated for punishing the
wrong people for the wrong crime without any proof. McCarthy apparently pulled
the handle that hung the Rosenbergs if Leftists are to be believed.
So
bits of the article need a bit more depth to be useful.
Here get
this...one of these guys considered "modern" Nazis to hold the following
beliefs:
The new Nazis:
Hate the government
Oppose the Income
Tax
Oppose Gun Control
Oppose Affirmative Action
Support Prayer in
School
And on and on. All positions taken by the Right, and by Libertarians
in particular.
This is how deep the hatred goes against us.
5 posted on 05/22/2003 3:28 AM PDT by Maelstrom (To prevent misinterpretation or abuse
of the Constitution:The Bill of Rights limits government power)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
Your cited debater should read the McCarthy transcripts which reveals scores
of documentaion and witnesses that refute his condemnation of McCarthy.
Julius Rosenberg was a busy little bee. He set up an extensive espionage
ring at Fort Monmouth to steal military secrets. He recruited them all. Fort
Monmouth was crawling with spies and they were effective. The reports from
military intelligence verified that. Those reports were the basis for much of
McCarthy's hearings.
The NYT defended bolshevik purges by quoting the
famous cracking eggs to make an omelet comment. It is a shame that Americans
were thwarted in cracking the nests of US traitors. Despite sound evidence, most
were freed on technicalities created by ACLU-type lawyers.
6 posted on 05/22/2003 5:26 AM PDT by HISSKGB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]
'Dunderheads' is informative. A parallel can be drawn between Munzenberg's
creation of the Sacco Vanzetti cause and the current glorification of Mumia abul
Jemal. One case pertained to thugs involved in a payroll robbery and murder. The
other was a violent, druggy, part-time cab driver who killed a cop. Leftie PR
raised these bums into international icons serving to illustrate the so-called
evils of Amerika.
7 posted on 05/22/2003 9:10 AM PDT by HISSKGB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies ]
The 1950s were good years. No one was terrified then
8 posted on 05/22/2003 9:13 AM PDT by steve-b
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
Didn't our State Department (Marshall) actually provide support to Mao during
the fall of China?
9 posted on 05/22/2003 9:32 AM PDT by Dead Dog (There are no minority rights in a
democracy. 51% get's 49%'s stuff.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]
If you are implying the 50s were a decade of racism, you're misguided. The
50's were the begining of the end.
By the way, Irish in New York City
hold the record for the mostlynching of innocent blacks in a 24 hour period. I
believe they got 19 in one particularly bad evening.
10 posted on 05/22/2003 9:55 AM PDT by Dead Dog (There are no minority rights in a
democracy. 51% get's 49%'s stuff.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]
Irrelevant. A universal statement ("No one was terrified then") is completely
refuted by a single counter-example.
11 posted on 05/22/2003 10:43 AM PDT by steve-b
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies ]
What's irrelevent?
According to your own straw man, "A universal
statement ("No one was terrified then") is completely refuted by a single
counter-example. ", then the pic you posted is also irrelevent.
Its only
purpose is to sling dirt on the original post, not refute the argument. There is
no real meaning to it, other than 50s=bad, therefor Sen. Mccarthy=bad.
Otherwise, what is your point?
12 posted on 05/22/2003 10:59 AM PDT by Dead Dog (There are no minority rights in a
democracy. 51% get's 49%'s stuff.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]
Bring back HUAC! That would go a long way in the fight against our modern
terrorist ennemies, as well as the Communist remnants who (among other things)
control the antiwar movement. Then we wouldn't need intrusive laws like the
Patriot Act.
And bring back registration of aliens.
13 posted on 05/24/2003 9:50 AM PDT by TBP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.