Joe Mccarthy Has Been Called A Liar But The Facts Show That He Was ...
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In the Heart of the Heart of Conspiracy
A full-throated (and heavily footnoted) defense of Joe McCarthy is getting attention on the right.
January 27, 2008Enter: Joe McCarthy
An Epic Story in Truth-Telling
Patrick Ford
- Page 1 of 1
Most college students recognize that the majority of their professors will deliver left-wing lectures and assign left-wing books. Ralph Nader can easily gain more votes from most university faculties than George W. Bush. But surely intellectuals would never allow some simple-minded bias to deny that certain historical events actually occurred. But what if there were historical "facts" that were not true? We trust ourselves to be intellectually honest, but what if the story told about a major historical event or figure was built on a myth? Would any of us have the ability to see the truth for what it is? Enter George Clooney's movie, Good Night, and Good Luck and the myth of McCarthyism, American history's greatest hoax.
The truth about Senator Joe McCarthy will sound crazy, because it is supposed to. History books tell of one senator in the 1950s who started a movement that challenged the political establishment and unsettled much of the American populace. That, for the most part, is where the truth ends. From here we are told that a great "Red Scare" swept the country, leading to the blacklisting and arrests of hundreds or even thousands of innocent people with absolutely no evidence of guilt. (Of course this did happen once, but we hardly talk about FDR rounding up thousands of innocent Japanese anymore.) Historians will go on to say that the lives of these people were completely ruined, leading to years of unemployment and sometimes suicide. But if we are to assume all of this is true, is it rude to ask Mr. Clooney where all of the bloody corpses went? A simple list of names of those falsely accused by McCarthy would end all debate about the legitimacy of his actions. It is ironic that the greatest criticism against McCarthy was that he could not or would not publicly produce his alleged list of 57 Communists in the government, when one considers that decades after the "Red Scare" no one-including George Clooney-has provided a list of those wrongly accused by Senator McCarthy.
Before we delve too deeply into the merits of the movie, it is important to supply some background information on just what exactly Mr. McCarthy was assigned to do, and whether what he did was fair and just. McCarthy was assigned by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to find "loyalty risks" working for the federal government. He was not particularly looking for Communists, just government workers who may have had conflicts of interest while working sensitive jobs. But those on the left seem to tie his investigation together with the mass Hollywood blacklisting and really any independent investigation into Communism anywhere. Characteristically, a few years ago the New York Times gave "Sen. McCarthy's grp." as a crossword puzzle clue. The correct answer ended up being HUAC, standing for the House Un-American Activities Committee, a committee principally involved in much of the Hollywood blacklisting that took place. But isn't there something funny about Senator McCarthy being a part of the House Un-American Activities Committee? The obvious fact is that Mr. McCarthy was not a part of any House committee, as a basic prerequisite is that you are a member of the House.
This same sense of confusion and ignorance is displayed in Clooney's picture. As GW students, especially those interested in journalism, have gone crazy over this movie that lambastes Joe McCarthy and lionizes Edward R. Murrow almost as much as the American mainstream media, it seems necessary that someone should provide an honest critique of the McCarthy myth in general and the Clooney movie in particular. If someone with no prior knowledge of the McCarthy years entered local theater to see Clooney's movie, they would leave the theater unable to name one unfair accusation made by McCarthy. The typical anti-McCarthy allegations are made, but rather than telling an accurate story about those unfairly accused by the Wisconsin senator, Clooney fails miserably.
Mr. Clooney makes two false accusations about McCarthy's actions against Communists in the federal government. McCarthy charged that Annie Lee Moss, a Pentagon code clerk, was a Communist and could have possibly had a conflict of interest decoding messages from Communist countries. The movie portrays Moss as a victim who was smeared and publicly defamed. What the movie does not address is whether Moss was actually a Communist. The disturbing truth is that Moss was a dues-paying member of the D.C. Communist party and had sympathetic opinions of the Soviet Union. It is true that in America you have the right to belong to any political party you wish and to think whatever you wish. Unfortunately you do not have the right to a security position in the federal government, decoding messages from a hostile country that you are sympathetic towards. This is the distinction Clooney and most historians fail to recognize.
The second victim in Clooney's movie is Lt. Milo Radulovich, who was accused of being a security risk because his relatives were admitted Communists. After Murrow publicly scrutinizes the case, the charges against the lieutenant are dropped and cheers of victory erupt from the offices of CBS news. And in fact, history has proven that Radulovich was innocent. So there is one major victory against McCarthy, right? Actually, the insinuation that Radulovich was a victim of McCarthy is completely and intentionally misleading. The truth is that Radulovich was never involved in any investigation by McCarthy; any wrongful accusations were made by others in organizations that had nothing to do with McCarthy. Are we as moviegoers left to assume that when Clooney sat down to write what he has called "an epic story in truth-telling," he was completely unable to find anyone falsely accused except for one man who had absolutely nothing to do with McCarthy?
Despite these inconvenient historical facts, many still contend that McCarthy's accusations lacked any merit. But hindsight has now affirmed the validity of many of McCarthy's accusations. In February of 1943, the US Army's Signal Intelligence Service undertook a program to examine and exploit Soviet diplomatic communications. Shortly after its creation, the Army found that it could be more effectively used for decrypting Soviet messages to covert agents. Although it took almost two years before American cryptologists were able to break the KGB encryption, the information gained through these transactions provided American leaders with insight into the intentions of Soviet leaders, as well as the treasonous activities of U.S. government employees. The first of six public releases of translated VENONA messages were made in July 1995 and included 49 messages about Soviet efforts to gain information on the U.S. atomic bomb research and the Manhattan Project. Today, all of the approximately 3,000 VENONA translations have been made public. A mere sampling of names that were both alleged by McCarthy as being Communists and were confirmed to have received Soviet transmissions in the United States is as follows: T.A. Bisson, Mary Jane Keeney, Cedric Belfrage, Solomon Adler, Franz Neumann, Leonard Mins, Gustavo Duran, and William Remington. These Communist subversives are the supposed "Victims of McCarthyism." But McCarthy's reputation still stands tarnished by the accusations of those like George Clooney who are more dedicated to defending liberal dogma than the truth.
Joe McCarthy was not a perfect man. His rhetoric was sometimes reckless and late in his life Mr. McCarthy slipped into a sad state of alcoholism and often acted inappropriately while Edward R. Murrow's cameras were standing by to get a good shot. But despite McCarthy's flaws, Good Night, and Good Luck was not an epic story in truth-telling. It was an intellectually dishonest perpetuation of a myth that should end up on the ash heap of history. If this movie is the best shot Hollywood has at attacking the infamous Wisconsin senator, then he is well on his way to redemption. The only epic story in truth-telling to be found here is the story of a senator who attempted to reveal an extensive Communist infiltration into the federal government 40 years before anyone had the facts (or the guts) to defend him. As college students, we are at a time in our lives where we have not yet been completely cemented into our ideas and beliefs. We are at a point where we can honestly examine the ideas of the past and question their legitimacy now. Honestly examining the story of Joe McCarthy is a good starting point.
The complete Venona decryptions can be found at http://www.nsa.gov/venona/index.cfm.
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