McCarthyism

Lessons Learned (And Not Learned) from McCarthyism
By Ruth Rosen

Ms. Rosen is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and former Professor of History at the University of California Davis.

McCARTHYISM. The very word conjures up the image of someone using smear tactics to question a person's patriotism and to silence dissent. Could such political persecution happen again in our country?

That is the question some Americans pondered last week when the U.S. Senate unsealed 4,000 pages of transcripts from secret sessions held by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1953-54. He used these closed hearings to weed out witnesses who refused to be intimidated and as dress rehearsals for public hearings.

What are the lessons to be learned from this poisonous period in our nation's past?

One is how quickly our fragile freedoms can be eroded. McCarthy rose to power in 1950 on a tsunami of anti-communist hysteria, brandishing a list of "known communists" in the State Department, and held public trials to enhance his own political clout. He fell from power only when his attacks against the U.S. Army -- broadcast to millions of Americans in their living rooms -- exposed his indecent persecution of innocent people. The Senate censured him in December, 1954. Discredited and disgraced, he died three years later, at age 47.

Nevertheless, his influence lasted for more than a decade. Loyalty oaths, indictments and blacklists destroyed the reputations and careers of thousands of innocent people. Fear of internal sabotage and infiltration of all institutions crushed dissent. A pervasive atmosphere of fear quarantined permissible debate.

Anti-communism, in short, turned into a political weapon. In his splendid "Story of American Freedom," historian Eric Foner reminds us that "Anti-communism became a tool wielded by white supremacists against black civil rights, employers against unions, and upholders of sexual morality and traditional gender roles against homosexuality. . .." It was, he writes, "an inauspicious time to raise questions about the imperfections of American freedom."

Another lesson is that most official secrets and lies eventually see the light of day. Some repentant former official writes a revelatory memoir. A new administration opens up the archives and historians and journalists excavate deeply buried secrets. It only took days, for example, for the world to learn that Secretary of State Colin Powell had received forged and faked evidence when he made his case for war in Iraq at the U.N. Security Council.

The Bush administration, infamous for its excessive secrecy, should take this caveat to heart. Attorney General John Ashcroft has encouraged federal agencies to reject Freedom of Information Act requests; President Bush has illegally sealed the papers of former presidents; and the USA Patriot Act has expanded government surveillance powers and trampled upon the privacy rights of American citizens.

Could the chill of fear that froze political debate in the 1950s occur again? In an interview with National Public Radio, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., says, "History is a powerful teacher . . . I think there's greater awareness of McCarthyism and there's greater resistance against those who would try to still voices that they disagree with."

He's partly right. As of last week, more than 100 communities had passed resolutions against cooperating with the USA Patriot Act. San Mateo and Marin counties, as well as the city of Sausalito, recently added their names to the growing list. Librarians in Santa Cruz and other communities, moreover, are shredding the library-use records of their patrons, rather than give them up to John Ashcroft.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who initiated the release of the transcripts, thinks the newly released McCarthy papers provide a timely reminder of the danger posed by fear itself. "We hope that the excesses of McCarthyism will serve as a cautionary tale for future generations."

But Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator who voted against the USA Patriot Act, is far more pessimistic. In an interview with NPR, he warns that "This is a dark hour for civil liberties in America. What I'm hearing from Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, South Asians and others, suggests a climate of fear toward our government that is unprecedented."

Last lesson to be learned: Never take civil rights and liberties for granted. Freedom, as it turns out, requires constant struggle, not only on the battlefield, but here at home as well.

This article was first published by the San Francisco Chronicle and is reprinted with permission of the author.

Joe McCarthy: Dangerous Buffoon
By Ronald Kessler
Mr. Kessler is the author of The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI

In her latest book, Treason, Ann Coulter claims that Joseph McCarthy was a hero. Mr. Kessler in this excerpt from his recent book about the FBI, reminds us why McCarthy is usually remembered as a dangerous buffoon.

On February 9, 1950, Joseph R. McCarthy, an obscure Republican senator from Wisconsin, gave a speech to 275 members of the local Republican women's club at the McClure Hotel in Wheeling, West Virginia. The spy cases had heightened concerns about Communist penetration of the government. Republicans were using the issue to attack the Truman administration, which they said was "soft on Communism." With Lincoln's birthday coming up, Republican politicians had fanned out across the country.

"While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were known to the secretary of state and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping policy of the State Department," McCarthy said, holding up a scrap of paper.

By the time McCarthy got to Salt Lake City, the next stop on his speech itinerary, McCarthy—an alcoholic—could not remember the number he had cited. He told his audience there that the number of Communists was fifty-seven.

The conservative Chicago Tribune had been running a series on the Communist threat. The day after McCarthy's speech in West Virginia, Willard Edwards, the author of the articles, urgently asked to talk with Walter Trohan, the Washington bureau chief, in Edward's office at the Albee Building at 15th and G Streets NW. Edwards confided to Trohan that just before he gave his speech, McCarthy had asked Edwards about the number of Communists in the State Department. Edwards said he gave McCarthy the figure of 205. Now he realized his mistake.

"Edwards said it was more or less a rumor. It was just a piece of gossip," Trohan said. "He probably got it from some ultra-rightist, someone who probably didn't know what he was talking about. Edwards was a drinker, among other problems. He got fired, and I got him back. Then he got into trouble again, and they were going to fire him again. When Edwards gave the figure to McCarthy, he was probably drinking."

Trohan was "furious" at Edwards. "Edwards was afraid that McCarthy was going to blame him for it. I will say that McCarthy never revealed his source," Trohan said.

As for McCarthy, besides being an alcoholic, the senator was "crazy about girls about eighteen" Trohan said. "I always thought if the Commies wanted to get him, all they had to do was supply him with a girl."

Bogus figures or not, McCarthy soon became a national figure. Without Hoover's help, it might never have happened. The FBI, through Hoover's speeches and contacts with the media and Congress, had been highlighting the Communist menace since 1946. McCarthy and Hoover had been friends since 1947, when McCarthy met with the director to convey his respects. Soon, the junior senator was dining with Hoover and Tolson at Harvey's.

McCarthy knew how susceptible Hoover was to flattery. "No one need erect a monument to you," the senator wrote to Hoover in one letter. "You have built your own monument in the form of the FBI—for the FBI is J. Edgar Hoover, and I think we can rest assured that it always will be."

Upon returning from his tour, McCarthy called Hoover and told him his speech was getting a lot of attention, according to a memo Hoover wrote after the call. There was only one problem: McCarthy said he had "made up the numbers as he talked." In the future, Hoover advised him, he should not give specific numbers. McCarthy asked if the FBI would give him information to back up his charges.

"Review the files and get anything you can for him," Hoover ordered.

"We didn't have enough evidence to show there was a single Communist in the State Department, let alone fifty-seven cases," said William Sullivan, who became the number three man in the bureau. Nevertheless, FBI agents spent hundreds of hours reading files and making abstracts for McCarthy. As time went on, the FBI supplied speech writers for McCarthy and for two of his aides, Roy Cohn and G. David Schine. Lou Nichols provided public relations counsel. Nichols cautioned McCarthy not to use the phrase "card-carrying Communists," because that could not be proven. Instead, he should refer to "Communist sympathizers" or "loyalty risks."

The phrases were as fuzzy as Hoover's files, which were a repository of any rumor, third-hand account, or gossip agents happened to hear. Soon, McCarthy began using the files as the basis for hearings he held on Communist penetration of the government, instilling fear in anyone who might have looked at a Communist. Because of the pressure, the Hollywood studios blacklisted playwright Lillian Hellman because her lover, mystery-writer Dashiell Hammett, was one. John Melby, a State Department officer who had impeccable anti-Communist credentials, was fired for having had an affair with Hellman.

Washington Post cartoonist Herbert L. Block (Herblock) dubbed McCarthy's tactics "McCarthyism," a witch-hunt that created as much fear among loyal Americans as terrorism. One of his cartoons portrayed McCarthy with a three-day growth of beard holding up a "doctored photo" and a "faked letter."

FBI agents like Robert Lamphere who worked counterintelligence were aghast at Hoover's support of McCarthy. "McCarthyism did all kinds of harm because he was pushing something that wasn't so," Lamphere said. To be sure, the Venona intercepts showed that over several decades, "There were a lot of spies in the government, but not all in the State Department," Lamphere said. "The problem was that McCarthy lied about his information and figures. He made charges against people that weren't true. McCarthyism harmed the counterintelligence effort against the Soviet threat because of the revulsion it caused. All along, Hoover was helping him."