McCarthyism revisited.

The BBC has an article out to commemorate the anniversary of Senator Joe McCarthy’s claim that 205 members of the State Department were Communists: 1950: McCarthy Launches Anti-Red Crusade. There is a link also to Secret McCarthy papers released.

My feelings when writing about McCarthyism are similar to those of Jonah Goldberg expressed in this article. There are two messages to get across.

Message One: McCarthy was a state-backed bully and demagogue who harmed many innocent people. The banning of the Communist party was a disgrace to the freedoms of the US. (Did you know Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors’ Guild, opposed it?)

Message Two: Communist infiltration was rife in the State Department and elsewhere. Many of those McCarthy named were Communists. Some were Communist agents.

The BBC articles linked two are strong on Message One. Message Two – or Fact Two, rather (as since the publication of the Venona Intercepts carried out by the National Security Agency, there can no longer be serious doubt about the extent of Communist infiltration) is nowhere mentioned.

From the first-mentioned BBC article:

He named Dr Owen Lattimore as “the top Russian espionage agent”.

McCarthy’s claim that Owen Lattimore was the top Soviet spy in the US was certainly wrong. The question of whether he was a spy at all is subject to heated debate. There is no doubt, though, that he sucked up to Stalin in the most sickening way. After visiting the notorious Kolyma complex of labour camps he wrote an article for National Geographic magazine in which he commended one commandant for his “deep sense of civic responsibility”. (Scroll down to “Blinded by the truth” on this link.)That pronouncement was not an isolated incident but consistent with his general line. If Lattimore is to be mentioned at all, something of this should be mentioned too.

The article goes on:

His [McCarthy’s] claims were not substantiated, but many lost their jobs or reputations. He used a combination of intimidation and hearsay evidence to browbeat the accused.

The implication is that none of his claims were substantiated. Yet the idea that not all of McCarthy’s victims were innocent is neither new, nor little-known, nor confined to right-wing extremists. Back on 4 April 1996 an article appeared in the Washington Post by the liberal journalist Nicholas Von Hoffman saying “Was McCarthy Right About The Left?” (The link takes you to summary of the article in WaPo archive – you must pay to read it all.) That article became famous, particularly as it came from a left-winger.

Since then there has been a stream of writing on the subject.

You’d never know any of this from the BBC.