Guest Columnist
John Richard Schrock
McCarthyism
“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?” was the question asked during the Joe McCarthy era—an actual American witch hunt that occurred from 1950 to 1954. Today, “McCarthyism” is used to describe hatred-filled and unsubstantiated attacks on political opponents and groups. Because the U.S. has re-entered an era of similar reckless political fury, there is good reason for returning to an understanding of this earlier and disgraceful episode in U.S. history.
Since few people remember events in their life before they are age six, that means that only folks in their mid-80s or older will personally remember this post-World War II episode and recognize that famous question used by both McCarthy’s Senate committee and the House Un-American Affairs Committee. That is why the biography, “Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy” by Larry Tye and published by Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt in 2020 is again important reading. This exhaustive history is heavily footnoted and followed by 36 pages of notes, 47 pages of article & bibliographic citations and 27 pages of double-column notes.
Author Tye provides a highly detailed biography of Joe (1908–1957) including his “completing” high school based on mostly correspondence courses in just one year, his less than mediocre law school performance, his service as a Marine Captain in World War II, and his time as Wisconsin U.S. Senator from 1947 until his death in 1957.
The end of World War II saw a rise in anti-communism, in part due to the decline of Western colonialism and the rise of the Soviet Union. President Truman “launched the most sweeping peacetime security screening measure ever” on March 21, 1947. As a senator, Truman had earlier chaired such an investigative committee, but it had been relatively fair.
Cold War tensions grew, accelerated by the 1949 defeat of Chiang Kai-shek by Mao’s forces in China in 1949. McCarthy became the main (but not only) agent spreading fear of widespread communist subversion, alleging with little proof that communists and Soviet sympathizers were rampant within the U.S. government, film studios, media and universities.
While McCarthy was Republican, he was a friend of Joe Kennedy, Sr. of the influential Kennedy clan. Robert Kennedy was selected by McCarthy as counsel for his Senate committee and participated in the interrogations. Bob Kennedy would later resign after disagreements with Committee Counsel Roy Cohn.
As head of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover provided support to McCarthy at the beginning, but would later stop cooperating when McCarthy’s accusations expanded well beyond evidence.
One of our greatest American heroes was General George Marshall who had served at the very top during WWII and then recognized the need for aid rather than retribution at the end of the war. He promoted the “Marshall Plan” designed by Keenan. But McCarthy even accused Marshall of treason despite his respected record. Marshall was fed up and resigned three months after the unfounded accusations. Sadly, President Eisenhower failed to rise to Marshal’s defense. History has since recognized Marshall’s excellence, McCarthy’s demagoguery, and Eisenhower’s weakness. This biography provides extensive detail and documentation of the nuanced positions of the time.
But when it got to the stage of promoting book-burning, Eisenhower told graduating students at Dartmouth College in 1953 “Don’t be afraid to go into your library and read every book....” When reporters asked McCarthy for his reaction, McCarthy said the president “couldn’t very well have been referring to me. I have burned no books.” Of course, today, we again see calls for book censorship.
In June, 1953, McCarthy’s committee became “unglued.” Democrats on the committee resigned and walked away. Tye spends a chapter titled “Body Count” attempting to list all of the careers and lives damaged or lost due to the rampage of McCarthy. Then in the chapter “The Fall” we learn the details of his rejection. On December 2, 1954, the Senate closed its case and “by a margin of 67 to 22, it denounced its Wisconsin colleague for having treated fellow members with contempt in 1952 and again in 1954.”
In today’s negative political atmosphere loaded with empty charges from extremists less concerned with governing than courting extremists, this book is important reading. History should not repeat itself.