Joe McCarthy - Demagogue or Misunderstood?

[Sherman]

I was just reading some excerpts from the new book Treason by High Priestess of conservatism Ann Coulter. Aside from usual her
drone of "liberal bad, conservative good" and how Democrats are
unpatriotic and treasonous, she makes the case that Joe McCarthy wasn't all that bad and that he was a victim of a
"vast left wing conspiracy."

I have to admit that most of what read and viewed about McCarthy has been very negative. Mostly about his smear tactics,
use of innuendo, and outright lying to root out Communists in the government.

McCarthy wasn't the first politician and definitely not the last to
use this strategy to try to get ahead in Washington. Also some
Communists were uncovered in the government. One problem I have with McCarthy is that it seem he used an ax where a scalpel would have done better, cleaner, and more efficient. In the pursuit of a worthwhile cause, he needlessly ruined too many innocent lives.

Well that's my two cents. Any comments.

Oh yeah. I think Ann's next book should be a heroic treatment of J. Edgar Hoover. You know like "UNDRESSING the Lies - The Liberal Smearing of a Great American Conservative" ;)

[tomndebb]

I would not call Coulter a priestess of Conservatism; I really do not see much "Conservative" philosophy in her tirades. More likely the High Priestess of the Mouth-foaming Rabid Right.

That said, she is clearly lying. Joe's heart was in garnering power for Joe. As an example, recently released transcripts of the closed door hearings he held prior to the public hearings indicate that only those people whom he was able to cower or coerce were called back to be bullied in public. Anyone who challenged him in the private hearings was excused and not called back for public crucifixion.

[Beagle]

It's now clear that the US government was penetrated (I love that verb in this context) by Soviet agents during the time period that JM said it was. The fact he could not ferret out one actual Soviet agent throughout his tenure is a testament to his incompetence... Or, perhaps McCarthy was a Communist! :eek:

JM was a bad man. You'd think he was as bad as Stalin, given the ink he gets today.

[andros]

Nah, Tailgunner wasn't as bad as Stalin.

Coulter, well . . .

[smiling bandit]

Joe was a total jerk. He was indeed out for himself, and he trod on anyone who got in that way.

That said...

What he was saying was, in fact, true to a great extent. DOn't get me wrong, the State Department wasn't a hotbed of Communist conspiracy. There were, however, a lot of spies in the US government, alog with a lot of people with questionable loyalties.

Joe was a still a jerk, though. Sort of like Harlan Ellison, only Joe was right by accident as much as anything else.

[BrainGlutton]

There was a period, in the 1940s, when some American Communists, acting on orders from Moscow, became "crypto-Communists," concealing their allegiance while seeking positions of influence in government, the labor unions, etc. You can read about it in It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States, by Seymour Marks and Martin Lipset.

However, when the Truman Administration learned there were Communists in the State Department, it fired them. The problem was solved before McCarthy ever began his crusade. And McCarthy can be blamed for whipping up an irrational hysteria that sought to root out Communists in Hollywood and everywhere else. See the Woody Allen movie, The Front.

[Beagle]

The problem was solved before McCarthy ever began his crusade. Not true. The Venona Files, Mitrokin(sp?) archives, etc., have changed the ball game in recent years. Lefty claptrap saying it was all untrue was itself untrue.

[tracer]

Originally posted by BrainGlutton
McCarthy can be blamed for whipping up an irrational hysteria that sought to root out Communists in Hollywood and everywhere else.
Whipping up, maybe, but he wouldn't've had a leg to stand on had the Red Scare not already been firmly entrenched in America. People were already afraid that Commies were lurking under every shrub since that 1949 Soviet atomic bomb test.

[tomndebb]

Actually, the Red Scare goes back to the aftermath of the Russian Revolution (and there were propaganda campaigns in the right-wing press against the unholy pair of "communists and anarchists" extending back into the nineteenth century). That is the point of the criticism of McCarthy: He did nothing to discover any actual agents, simply using the easy press of "communism" to badger and harrass (mostly innocent) people for his own political gain.

[Bryan Ekers]

McCarthy had the same problem as most (if not all) fanatical ideallists: there were no 'victory conditions' in his approach. What does it mean, really, to free America from communism? How do you know when you've succeeded? It was always possible to find another person to accuse, just as it was always possible to find another "witch" or "heretic" to burn. Since there was no checkpoint at which Joe would admit "I've done enough commie-rooting for America, it's Miller time!" he was free to get worse and worse until he was subject to blatant ridicule and self-destruction.

Had he been even a touch more self-controlled, he might now be remembered positively, instead of as a schmuck.

[tomndebb]

Had he been even a touch more self-controlled, he might now be remembered positively, instead of as a schmuck. Only if he had actually discovered a person who was sharing secrets with the Soviets. He found a lot of people who were philosophically inclined toward Marxism, but I cannot recall any actual agent or spy that he discovered.

It was all show and power for Joe.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Originally posted by Bryan Ekers
McCarthy had the same problem as most (if not all) fanatical ideallists: there were no 'victory conditions' in his approach. What does it mean, really, to free America from communism? How do you know when you've succeeded? It was always possible to find another person to accuse, just as it was always possible to find another "witch" or "heretic" to burn. Since there was no checkpoint at which Joe would admit "I've done enough commie-rooting for America, it's Miller time!" he was free to get worse and worse until he was subject to blatant ridicule and self-destruction.

Had he been even a touch more self-controlled, he might now be remembered positively, instead of as a schmuck.
Change commies to terrorists in your post and we could be talking about John Ashcroft. The more things change...

[Marley23]

Lefty claptrap saying it was all untrue was itself untrue.
The fact that there were Communists in the government is almost irrelevant to what McCarthy did. There were surely traitors against Germany and very bad people killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. To pretend that McCarthy was trying to save America from a Communist takeover is to ignore, and perhaps whitewash, what he did. What he DID to was bluster and bully people and try to cash in on the hysteria of the times. Perhaps he believed it himself, perhaps he didn't. But what he did was profoundly un-democratic, and dare I say un-American. He represents one of the most disgusting chapters in American history, and yeah, like Diogenes, I sorta wish more people were reading that chapter right now. ;)

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by tomndebb
Only if he had actually discovered a person who was sharing secrets with the Soviets. He found a lot of people who were philosophically inclined toward Marxism, but I cannot recall any actual agent or spy that he discovered.

The trouble with this is that McCarthy never claimed to be uncovering Soviet agents. That was the job of the FBI, not a junior Senator from Wisconsin. McCarthy's claim was that security procedures in the government, and particularly in the State Department, were so lax that numerous communists (or communist sympathizers) were employed there. In addition, McCarthy claimed that the employment of these communists constituted a security threat to the US.

The fact that the Venona documents indicate that at least 250 soviet agents were employed at the State Department during the years in question does show that McCarthy was essentially correct.

I’d also like to point out something interesting about your observation (also made by Beagle) that McCarthy never discovered a Soviet agent, namely that the charge used to be that McCarthy had never identified any communist working for the governmant at all (see A Conspiracy So Immense, Oshinsky; 1985 or The Politics of Fear, Griffith; 1971 or Senator Joe McCarthy, Rovere; 1959 etc, etc……….) Now that this claim has become completely untenable it would appear that the bar has been raised, so to speak.

Nevertheless, actual spies who were denounced by McCarthy, though “discovered” by others, would include Lauchlin Currie and Mary Jane Keeney, both of whom were identified by Venona, and “probable” agents would include Owen Lattimore and Gustavo Duran.

The problem with McCarthy is that although he was sometimes (or even often) correct, he was also frequently dead wrong. For instance he denounced China expert John Paton Davies whose only sin would appear to be suggesting that the US had better start dealing with Mao because Mao was obviously going to defeat the Nationalists and we needed to avoid driving Mao into the Soviet camp (something which we obviously failed to do, thanks in part to McCarthy).

But even in this respect one could argue that McCarthy is not exactly the villain he is often painted to be. Remember that, when McCarthy first made his famous accusations in Wheeling; the media and his detractors demanded that he publicly name names. (On Feb. 20, 1950 Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas demanded on four separate occasions that McCarthy immediately name all individuals concerned) McCarthy at first refused and insisted on referring to various cases by numbers only. He did agree to release the names to a Senate committee in secret:


“………I may be wrong. That is why I said that unless the Senate demanded that I do so, I would not submit this publicly, but I would submit it to any committee – and would let the committee go over these in executive (secret) session. It is possible that some of these persons will get a clean bill of health…….."

McCarthy, Congressional Record, Feb. 20, 1950

It was the Tydings Committee (which was supposedly formed to investigate McCarthy’s charges but seemed to spend most of its time investigating McCarthy himself) which made the decision to hold all hearings in public despite McCarthy’s requests for secret sessions.

[vanilla]

both.

[tracer]

Demagogue, nothing. McCarthy was a full-fledged gogue, if you ask me.

[vanilla]

What Does demagogue mean? language-wise?

[tomndebb]

The fact that the Venona documents indicate that at least 250 soviet agents were employed at the State Department during the years in question does show that McCarthy was essentially correct. No. They had spies and we had spies. (They had done a slightly better job of recruiting than we had.) McCarthy went around (on the tails of numerous preceding witch hunts) looking for "sympathizers" that basically amounted to anyone who had flirted with Marxism in college at the height os the Great Depression. People's lives were destroyed for actions and associations they had tried out in college and while they were unable to get work after college.

The approach was wrong. The intent was dishonest. The result was farce (or tragedy for those he "caught").

30 years ago, long before the more recent access to the KGB files, I presumed that there were, indeed, Soviet spies in the U.S. However, the whole tenor of the period was to go looking for spooks everywhere and condemn any person for beliefs that they might or might not have held twenty years earlier. McCarthy was not even the one who perfected that approach; HUAC was operating long before he came along. He was just so ham-handed and stupid about it that he got his name associated with the phenomenon. (In fact, some right wing apologists go so far as to claim that he ruined what had been a "good" practice by getting the country to begin shying away from witch hunts.)

[tomndebb]

What Does demagogue mean? language-wise?From the Greek demos (people) and agein (to lead), one who leads people.
Possibly influenced by the Greek mistrust of the people-as-mob, it means one who tells people what they want to hear so as to get them to grant the speaker power and follow where the speaker leads them.

[Scott Dickerson]

1) "Demagogue" comes from two Greek words that signify "the ordinary people" and "leader." The basic notion is that a demagogue is someone who whips up the common rabble.

2) McCarthy was surely a demagogue in that sense, and it appears that that is exactly what he wanted to be, for political purposes. He was neither the first, nor the worst, nor the last.

3) Was he "misunderstood?" Almost certainly. Demagogic politics (which includes both sides--the attacker and the attacked) works by spreading misunderstanding and distortion.

4) This is not to imply that Joe was really a noble figure fighting a true national menace. I'm aware of no indication that he ever considered the likely effects of his attacks on our society, or the general moral issue of proportionality. Thus he gets to be a bad guy--and that's a good thing, because we need our bad examples.

5) He might have gotten a lot further, and found more forgiveness, if he had looked more like a matinee idol and less like a typecast thug.

6) Realistic assessments of Joe, and of foreign agents in the US government, are due and welcome. Attempts by rightists to "redeem" him are both morally offensive and pragmatically stupid.

7) Ann Coulter is an amazing woman. She manages to resemble both ends of the horse at the same time.

[BrainGlutton]

The OP was about Ann Coulter's assertion that McCarthy was a victim of a "vast left-wing conspiracy." Perhaps the left-wing conspiracy, vast and directed by Moscow, was real enough. But is it fair to characterize McCarthy as a "victim" of it? I think he just destroyed his own political career through his own hubris, arrogance and stupidity, with help from nobody. Nothing posted on this thread so far leads me to think otherwise.

[Duckster]

This thread might inspire a GD thread as to how much influence will Colter's book have with others? Will it solidify selected opinions even more? Will it turn fence-sitters to the Dark Side?

It's one thing to address the book on its merits as the posters are doing here. What remains to be seen is whether her lies will believed by the ignorant, spawning even more crap.

[Linty Fresh]

quote:
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The fact that the Venona documents indicate that at least 250 soviet agents were employed at the State Department during the years in question does show that McCarthy was essentially correct.
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No. They had spies and we had spies. (They had done a slightly better job of recruiting than we had.) McCarthy went around (on the tails of numerous preceding witch hunts) looking for "sympathizers" that basically amounted to anyone who had flirted with Marxism in college at the height os the Great Depression. People's lives were destroyed for actions and associations they had tried out in college and while they were unable to get work after college.

The approach was wrong. The intent was dishonest. The result was farce (or tragedy for those he "caught").

30 years ago, long before the more recent access to the KGB files, I presumed that there were, indeed, Soviet spies in the U.S. However, the whole tenor of the period was to go looking for spooks everywhere and condemn any person for beliefs that they might or might not have held twenty years earlier. McCarthy was not even the one who perfected that approach; HUAC was operating long before he came along. He was just so ham-handed and stupid about it that he got his name associated with the phenomenon. (In fact, some right wing apologists go so far as to claim that he ruined what had been a "good" practice by getting the country to begin shying away from witch hunts.)


I'm bringing this thread back from the dead, because I'm looking for clarification on a point. Did Joe really "discover" these agents? I'm trying to check out online sources, but can't find anything remotely unbiased.

If what Joe did directly led to the unmasking of Soviet agents within the government, this would indeed put him in a new light. I have my doubts, however, and McCarthy strikes me as a right-wing blowhard. I'm asking this question, because I'm honestly torn as to any practical results from this witchhunt (and btw, whether or not he was effective, I'm no fan of his. I felt that his means were fundamentally undemocratic, regardless of the ends.).

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by Linty Fresh
Did Joe really "discover" these agents?

No. As I said before, McCarthy didn't "discover" any agents but he didn't claim to have discovered any agents.

Take the case of Lauchlin Currie. Currie was FDR’s White House economist and also acted as an envoy to China, meeting with Chiang Kai-shek and Chou En-lai and advising FDR on policy toward China.

In 1945 Elizabeth Bentley first told the FBI, secretly, that Currie was a Soviet agent. Then in 1948 she testified publicly before the HCUA and named him again. So everyone in the country knew that Elizabeth Bentley had named Currie as an agent. Although her testimony caused quite a stir at first, she gradually came to be dismissed as what we might call a “kook.” (Not entirely surprising since she was naming some fairly important people.)

McCarthy didn’t denounce Currie until 1950, by which time Currie had left his government job (eased out; perhaps?) But McCarthy’s reason for denouncing Currie wasn’t that he had “discovered” an agent. It was that he believed that government security was too lax, he believed Elizabeth Bentley (and Whittaker Chambers and others) when they claimed that various people in the government were agents, and he felt that this was evidence which proved his position.

The Venona documents have verified almost every charge that Bentley, Chambers and others have made. But, they haven’t verified every charge that McCarthy made because Tomndebb is right about his tossing charges around irresponsibly. Look up his speech where he practically accuses General George Marshall of treason and you’ll see that McCarthy didn’t have the strongest grip on reality.