On McCarthy

The problem, when a cause attracts the lowest common denominator, is that the cause attracts some pretty stupid people. And a cause that defends its leader on his personality rather than his record is going to have a pretty low denominator.

Thus we have the recent spate of apologists for Joseph McCarthy. I remember when I first read about the HUAC hearings: it was a satire in a science fiction story (Wildcards I, I believe the collection was called) that substituted mutants for communists. I read that, then went to the library and read about McCarthy. (A library is kind of like a paper-based internet with very little porn.)

Then I asked my father about it. His take on the situation was that the whole McCarthy thing was a snowball that built up and built up until Edward R Murrow said his little piece; then it was like America woke up from a dream. Were we really doing that? Did we really go along with that? And then, more or less, it was over.

For some reason, there is a burning need for some people nowadays to go back to defending this lizard. Here's a typical apologia:

Joe had his flaws and made his mistakes, but on the century's great issue – the mortal struggle between America and the evil empire of Lenin and Stalin for control of mankind's destiny – Joe was right and his enemies worse than wrong.

You see, he "made his mistakes", but that's okay because he hated Communism. That's the end justifies the means argument, and it doesn't hold for a democracy. This defence is pointless.

And here's the next apologia on the list:

...the "Venona papers"... from Russian intelligence officers to their bases in Moscow provided snapshot views of Russian espionage in the United States in the early 1940s. They showed that literally hundreds of Americans may have been working for Russian intelligence, and scores of them in government.

You see, there were actual spies in the government (the end justifies the means again). And what's more, some of those spies were actually questioned in McCarthy's hearings! Slam dunk!

The proper response to this point is to ask the following questions:

• How many of those spies were actually identified and caught as a direct result of the hearings?


• How many people who were not spies were imprisoned or lost their livelihood as a direct result of the hearings?


• What proportion of the people who were questioned by McCarthy were named in the Verona papers, or were otherwise identified as spies?


• Can we see McCarthy's list of names, now, please?

The answers, in case you can't guess, are zero, dozens, an extremely small proportion, and no, because the list of names never existed outside of McCarthy's alcohol-soaked dream world.

And then there's the moaning that McCarthy didn't get his due, in bits like this:

Any objective reader of the McCarthy material will realize that in death, as in the latter years of his life, McCarthy was treated with less than American justice. The hysterical terms "witch-hunt," "star chamber" and "secret sessions," all attributed to McCarthy's investigations of Communists in our government and public life, were once again heard.

So we're to feel sorry for McCarthy, who cared not a whit for justice when he had power, because he was treated unjustly? We're supposed to cluck at the use of terms like "witch-hunt", when an affirmative answer to his question "Were you or were you not a member of the communist party?" was taken to be all but an indictment of the person who was, for all intents and purposes, being investigated? You'll excuse my derision.

The fact is that the communism that McCarthy was after was a large shadow thrown by a very small group of people. There's no denying that the USSR had to be confronted and, one way or another, defeated; there's no connection at all between that behemoth and the people who joined the communist party during the depression because capitalism had done, for them, sweet bugger-all.

If you're looking for a role model, you can do a lot better than tailgunner Joe. We would all gain by remembering him for what he was and what he did, and learning from that to do better for ourselves and our children.