This is the final installment in this series of conversations with Uncle Abe. We hope you have enjoyed visiting with Siren’s resident historian, I know I did.-Dusty

The Beginning of the End: Joe McCarthy Self-Destructs and the After Effects of McCarthyism

Having already attacked the Truman Administration for being soft on Communism, McCarthy leveled the same charge at he Eisenhower Administration. He objected to Eisenhower’s choice for the new administrator to Russia, Charles Bohen, on the grounds that he had been at Yalta. He claimed that Army Signal Corps at Fort Mammoth was a hotbed of Communist subversion.

At one point McCarthy sent two of his advisers to Europe, where, under McCarthy’s orders, they had been instructed to rummage (some might say it was a rampage) through the American Information Service in search of “subversive literature. “We’re talking about Emerson and Thoreau,” Abe remembered. “Any author or any volume that might contain ideas contrary to what the McCarthyites considered UnAmerican. Of course,” Abe continued, “greatest danger was that at no time did McCarthy and his goons bother to define terms such as ‘patriotic,’ ‘American,’ or ‘UnAmerican.’ Instead these were arbitrary decisions and I suspect that was deliberate because it gave the miserable aschloch enough what you kids call ‘wiggle room’ to persecute and torment any one McCarthy saw fit to persecute.’” As for he obvious attempt at censorship Abe can see striking similarities between then and now. “Whenever the anti-intellectuals come to power they almost always try to determine what other people can read. Look at the books that have been challenged or even banned in our public and school libraries. I won’t say that the left doesn’t try to censor, clearly we have a few on our side of the aisle too, but the right wingers, the anti-intellectuals, have turned censorship and book banning into art forms. These people challenge everything from books about women’s health, to political writings, to religious volumes. And it’s usually the same list of hackneyed excuses. ‘It’s UnAmerican.’ ‘It’s immoral.’ ‘It’s UnChristian.’ Of course, what they really mean is that it doesn’t promote some right wing, theocratic agenda. Talk about UnAmerican. I always thought being American included tolerance for ideas with which you might disagree: freedom of speech, debate, freedom of expression…Clearly some of the people who cry the loudest about American values wouldn’t recognize an American value if it bit them on the ass.”

Still not satisfied, McCarthy decided to attack the United States Military, specifically, the United States Army. In the early part of 1954 McCarthy seized upon the promotion of an Army major, a dentist, who had just received a promotion and an honorable discharge. McCarthy, as you might have guessed, claimed that the Major had Communist sympathies. Once again, McCarthy launched an investigation and during the course of that investigation he verbally assaulted the Major’s immediate superior, General Zwicker. Still not satisfied, McCarthy took aim at Secretary of the Army, Robert Stevens, who was eventually bullied into signing a “memorandum of agreement” with the Republican Senator.

But on March 11, 1954, the United States Army struck back, claiming that McCarthy had demanded preferential treatment for Army Private G. David Schine, who had been one of McCarthy’s aids. McCarthy escalated the conflict by leveling 46 charges against the United States Army. The stage had now been set for 36 days of televised hearings, during which time, the American people saw for themselves the true nature of Joe McCarthy. And what they saw was a petty dictator, a bully and a thug who whose only interests in life were himself and the accumulation of personal and political power.

At this point, President Eisenhower finally, finally made a decision to speak out against McCarthy, claiming that McCarthy had “set the himself above the laws of our land to override orders of the President of the United States.”

“That always struck me as touch unusual,” Abe said. “I know there’s an effort to paint Dwight D. Eisenhower as some kind of heroic figure because he chose to speak out, but let’s remember that Ike remained silent until the moment McCarthy began to lose credibility with the American people. His actions might have been seen as courageous if he had spoken out during the high point of McCarthy’s popularity, but that never happened. Instead he waited for McCarthy to show signs of self-destruction, and then he decided to speak out. I’m sorry, but that isn’t courage. That’s politics at best and cowardly opportunism at the very worst.” And that isn’t the only aspect of the situation that Abe finds revolting. “I have always suspected that this was just another one of those pissing matches that Republicans seem to enjoy so much. Isn’t it unusual that Ike specifically mentioned the ‘orders of the President of the United States?’ That says a lot. That says that both, McCarthy and Eisenhower were interested in power. In some ways it reminds me of the Bush Administration–these Neocons and right wing theocrats would eviscerate each other if they believed it would bring them a scrap of personal or political power. Look at the conflicts that Bush has had with his own military over Iraq, the way dissenting voices are ‘retired’ or ‘let go’ and replaced with obedient lap dogs.”

And yet, McCarthy claimed that the government was duty bound to provide him with the information that he demanded, “even though some bureaucrat may have stamped it secret.” With an attitude like that was it any wonder that the televised hearings dragged on for a lugubrious 36 days? Ultimately the witch hunt began to deteriorate when McCarthy decided to persecute a young man by the name of Fred Fischer, who had an association with the National Lawyer’s Guild, a group that J. Edgar Hoover was asking the U.S. Attorney General to designate as a Communist Front organization. That was enough for McCarthy. Forging blindly forward, McCarthy harassed Fischer without mercy, until Joseph Welch, the head attorney for the U.S. Army uttered the now famous words: “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Welch to McCarthy: You’ve have done enough. Photo from the hearing

With those words McCarthy was at long last discredited. Or, one might more accurately say that McCarthy had discredited himself. Support for McCarthy and his tactics disintegrated at an exponential rate. The American people had seen and heard enough. Joe McCarthy had self-destructed before millions of Americans who had tuned in to watch his political Inquisition on their television sets.

In the immediate years after McCarthy’s fall from power, there was a certain degree of moderation on the Supreme Court. The 1957 Yates V United Sates curtailed the scope of the Dennis opinion. Also in 1957, in Watkins V United States the authority of the UnAmerican Activities committee to punish uncooperative witnesses (at will) was mercifully curtailed. Kent V Dulles and Dayton V. Dulles limited the State Department’s right to deny pass ports. In Sweeze V. New Hampshire the high Court rejected claims that a State Attorney General could spy on State University professors (universities being another target during the McCarthy era). in 1958 the Court invalidated a California law that required churches to issue loyalty oaths in exchange for tax free status.

But the pendulum began to swing in the other direction when the Cold war began to heat up (again) in 1958. Some of the more hair-brained Legislation and Court decisions included:

1. A high Court ruling in Communist Part V Subversive Activity Board, that required subversive organizations to register with the Justice Department. That same ruling also allowed incarceration for membership in those organizations. “That was yet another example,” Abe noted, “in which guilt by association became the law of the land.”

2. In Konigsberg V State Bar of California the Court upheld the right of the states to bar qualified candidates from the bar if they refused to answer questions about the groups and organizations in which they had once been members.

3. In Perez V Brownell the High Court sustained a ridicules act of Congress which deprived native born Americans of citizenship of they had voted in an election of a foreign country. Chief justice Frankfurter “reasoned” that Congress could punish the actions and citizens alike of they proved embarrassing to the foreign affairs of the United States. Which raises the question, why strip a natural born American of his or her citizenship just because he or she had embarrassed the United States? Can you say “anal retentive?”

“Is it my imagination?” Abe inquired “Or do Republicans–especially the hard core ones–have a serious problem when it comes to embarrassment? I think we see some of that in the Bush administration. It was no accident that Bush has closed public records to Historians and made it harder for the public to obtain public information. I suppose the hundsfott might–at least one some level–be concerned about public safety and national security, but tell me–don’t you think that he might be trying to conceal embarrassing moments–humiliating escapes–by his own and even past Republican Administrations? Of course he is. Get real. And the part that makes me physically sick is that he is perfectly willing to undermine the (citizens’) right to know to cover his own ass.”

Ultimately Abe sees the climate of fear, paranoia, and hatred for the Constitution as the greatest dangers in both, the McCarthy Era and our own. “McCarthy claimed that he wanted to protect America. Bush drums in the phrase 911. It’s a mantra. Nine-one-one, nine-one-one, nine-one-one. Over and over as if we haven’t heard the phrase before or watched those images on our television. With McCarthy it was the Communists. Both talked about American values (such as) freedom, liberty, and the like, but in their desire to protect–or self promote–they trampled on the Constitution and created a climate of fear in which the American people were afraid to speak out. More than fifty years ago we were afraid of being smeared as Communists. Today we were–until recently–afraid of being smeared as terrorists or America haters, or Bush haters. But,” Abe continued, “in the end both McCarthy and Bush depended too (heavily) on the same tactics. What gave them their power–fear, intimidation, and the repetition of simple buzz words and catch phrases couldn’t prevent the truth from coming out. Joe McCarthy used that damned subcommittee coupled with smear and fear tactics to promote himself into a position of power. George W. Bush used 911, the presidency, and a once popular war to promote himself into a position of power. And to be frank, Bush has been more successful than McCarthy. Unlike a Senator, George W. Bush has the power of the entire Executive Branch with its many bureaucracies and obedient officials to magnify his power. McCarthy did not. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think we should sit on our asses and wait for George W. Bush to further undermine himself. As I have suggested before, Bush has found a way out-McCarthy McCarthy. He won’t just go away. This is one time when the American people need to do more than wait for a power mad leader to undermine his own position. This is a time for the American people to stand up and actively take control of their own destiny and their own country. We need to impeach. We should have impeached this modern day McCarthy months ago. I hope it isn’t too late. After all, even Joe McCarthy was eventually censured.”

Joe McCarthy died in 1957, a chronic alcoholic, the victim of cirrhosis of the liver.

“Resolved, That the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, failed to cooperate with the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration in clearing up matters referred to that subcommittee which concerned his conduct as a Senator and affected the honor of the Senate and, instead, repeatedly abused the subcommittee and its members who were trying to carry out assigned duties, thereby obstructing the constitutional processes of the Senate, and that this conduct of the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, is contrary to senatorial traditions and is hereby condemned.

“Sec 2. The Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, in writing to the chairman of the Select Committee to Study Censure Charges (Mr. Watkins) after the Select Committee had issued its report and before the report was presented to the Senate charging three members of the Select Committee with “deliberate deception” and “fraud” for failure to disqualify themselves; in stating to the press on November 4, 1954, that the special Senate session that was to begin November 8, 1954, was a “lynch-party”; in repeatedly describing this special Senate session as a “lynch bee” in a nationwide television and radio show on November 7, 1954; in stating to the public press on November 13, 1954, that the chairman of the Select Committee (Mr. Watkins) was guilty of “the most unusual, most cowardly things I’ve ever heard of” and stating further: “I expected he would be afraid to answer the questions, but didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to make a public statement”; and in characterizing the said committee as the “unwitting handmaiden,” “involuntary agent” and “attorneys-in-fact” of the Communist Party and in charging that the said committee in writing its report “imitated Communist methods — that it distorted, misrepresented, and omitted in its effort to manufacture a plausible rationalization” in support of its recommendations to the Senate, which characterizations and charges were contained in a statement released to the press and inserted in the Congressional Record of November 10, 1954, acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity; and such conduct is hereby condemned.”

Source: 83rd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Resolution 301 (2 December 1954).

Finis

Editors’ notes by PraetorOne and BibleBelted.
One point that was not covered during the course of this series was the devious nature of Roy Cohn, McCarthy’s co-conspirator and under-handed attorney. Roy Cohn was a closeted homosexual who, in addition to championing right wing causes, also denied his sexual orientation and through occasional persecution of homosexuals, attempted to cover up that sexual orientation. Personally, we don’t care about a person’s sexual orientation. But we do care when those individuals use a position of power to persecute their own kind. In many ways the situation with Roy Cohn reminds us of the repressive attitude that the contemporary GOP has towards gays and lesbians, and we wish with all our hearts that the GOP would stop persecuting and humiliating that part of its constituency and treat them like the legitimate human beings that they really are.

Final picture Roy Cohn.

Tags: Joe McCarthy, Eisenhower, Bush, Roy Cohn

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