McCarthy- Partially right (let me explain)?

[FVZA_Colonel]

I was tooling around on wikipedia, reading about Star Wars of all things, when I eventually connected to the article on Joseph McCarthy. What intrigued, and bothered me, was the section on the VENONA Intelligence-

VENONA files
In 1995, when the VENONA transcripts were declassified, further detailed information was revealed about Soviet espionage in the U.S. VENONA specifically references at least 349 people in the U.S.—including citizens, immigrants, and permanent residents—whom the NSA identified engaged in clandestine activities with Soviet intelligence agencies. It is generally believed that McCarthy had no access to VENONA intelligence, but VENONA supports the view that some of the individuals accused by McCarthy were indeed Soviet agents. These are several prominent examples:

Mary Jane Keeney, a United Nations employee, and her husband Philip Keeney, who worked in the Office of Strategic Services;
Lauchlin Currie, a special assistant to President Roosevelt;
Virginius Frank Coe, Director of Division of Monetary Research, U.S. Treasury; Technical Secretary at the Bretton Woods Conference; International Monetary Fund
William Ludwig Ullman, delegate to the United Nations Charter Conference and Bretton Woods Conference;
Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Chief Planning Technician, Procurement Division, U.S. Treasury and head of the Silvermaster network of spies;
Harold Glasser, U.S. Treasury Representative to the Allied High Commission in Italy;
Four staff members of the LaFollette Civil Liberties Committee, a Senate subcommittee on labor rights chaired by Senator Robert La Follette, Jr., whom McCarthy defeated for election in 1946;
Allan Rosenberg, Chief of the Economic Institution Staff, Foreign Economic Administration; Counsel to the National Labor Relations Board; argued cases before the United States Supreme Court.
Cedric Belfrage journalist; British Security Coordination
However, McCarthy himself was consistently unable to provide any evidence for his allegations. On one particular occasion, he declared in a floor speech that he would happily turn over evidence of subversive activities by government employees, whereupon Senator Herbert Lehman approached him and held out his hand. McCarthy, having no evidence, ignored Lehman, as did the rest of the Senate, testifying to other Senators' fear of McCarthy's political attacks.

Many of the people McCarthy accused of Communist party membership were not later identified in VENONA intellegence as being Soviet espionage agents.



I am not trying to say I accept the arguement that McCarthy was right, but it is interesting to note that these people he pursued were found to have Soviet ties. Of course, he was never able to prove a single thing, but I am sure that some people out there would use this as proof that what McCarthy did was perfectly acceptable.

[bowens43]

1. McCarthy was a paranoid, ignorant, arrogant

fear mongering, self-serving hack. Nothing more.

[jayctravis]

3. Like most misguided fearmongers, don't they usually start out

with something that is based in truth...like saying we need to pursue terra'ists? Of course in theory it's a good idea.

Then with McCarthy it got out of hand and people were losing their jobs without even being formally charged or convicted with the blacklists. Sort of like, "You got an Arab-sounding name, you must be a terra'ist!"

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. And what happened? Those bad bad people built a

bomb and blew up Washington, right? Those commies are gonna get us! better build more ICBMs!!!!!

[0007]

4. The John Birch Society would agree with you and then some. n/t

[FVZA_Colonel]

6. I did not say I agree with them.

I just wanted to put this up as a topic of debate.

[aquart]

8. If you can't take the heat, don't turn on the stove.

[FVZA_Colonel]

10. Hmm?

I thought I made my position clear. I guess I was wrong.

[LoZoccolo]

12. He brings up an interesting point...

...requiring some sophistication and nuance to understand, and you fling a stupid knee-jerk accusation. For that, you're gone. :hi:

[FVZA_Colonel]

14. Self Delete.

Self Delete.

[melody]

5. Of course there were spies

We sent spies there... we had spies here. All nations spy on all others (well, most others - I think the UK, the US and Australia have fairly solidified into one government, so they probably don't on each other).

The difference is that McCarthy started seeing spies everywhere. He started attacking normal people who happened to disagree with him politically, as if they didn't have the right to express themselves and their own vision. He was the enemy of traditional American values. He was the enemy, just as Bush is today. The only thing these men do -- and perhaps are meant to do -- is destroy this country from within.

[aquart]

7. Which means, WHAT, precisely?

Have you ever, say, MET a communist? What IS a communist? What is it a communist wants?

And these "identifications" were based on WHAT, precisely?

I'm sure VENONA is the sacred, mystical word of God from on high, but it's not my religion and I need further explanation.

[FVZA_Colonel]

9. No, I have not met one, and I am not sure I could identify one based

on the ideology laid down by Marx and Engels. In this case, I assume they were defined as agents working for the Soviet government. However, as I said, I did not agree with the idea that the presence of Soviet spies in the United States, and the fact that some of them were attacked by McCarthy (though he couldn't prove a single charge he made), justifies what McCarthy did, and that I simply thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss.

[aquart]

11. And you couldn't, say, identify the differences and schisms

Between American Communists, or between American and European, or American and Russian Communists, then?

But you know you've heard who the boogeymen are?

How nice of you to go looking for topics for us to discuss.

You don't seem very prepared, however.

[FVZA_Colonel]

13. I should have been clearer, okay? Here is what I believe about this:

I don't think McCarthy was justified in doing what he did even if a few of the many people he accused did turn out to be Soviet agents.

I wasn't trying to identify a "boogeyman." What I really wanted to discuss was the issue of people who did feel that because a few of the people McCarthy accused turned out to be Soviet agents, that McCarthy was somehow some sort of a saint, and everything he did was justified (like, say, Ann Coulter).

[aquart]

15. So you still have NO idea of the difference

Between being an American Communist and a Soviet agent.

Unless, of course, you are still not being clear.

[FVZA_Colonel]

17. Again, I should have been clearer.

I do have a working idea. Certainly not an indepth one, as I have not studied the ideology of the agents working for the Soviet Union vs. that of the American Communist groups, but I do know that they were different groups, fighting for different causes. I realize I was very foolish in writing what I did, and for that I appologize.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. Communism in America

This country did not always persecute people who belonged to the Communist Party. There was a time when people could join the Communist Party freely without terror and fear.

American People that joined the Communist Party generally did so in response to the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, the people that suffered horribly were not the rich, who already had a huge nest egg to live off of, but the working poor and the small working middle class. It was they who customarily joined the Communist Party.

Quite a few Jewish people joined the Communist Party when they became aware that millions of Jews were being savagely murdered in Hitler's fascist Germany, and that while Russia was fighting the murderous fascists, the U.S. was doing nothing about it. In fact, it wasn't until the German Ambassador officially declared the U.S. an enemy of Germany, that the U.S. even considered attacking Germany. By then, millions of Jews had been murdered, as well as Russians, and the German army was considerably weakened by the Russians.

The U.S.' wrongful executions of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (in which the judge and prosecutors were constantly having ex parte secret meetings, the Rosenbergs were never found to have committed treason, and the judge's sentencing mentions that they were guilty of treason, which they were never found guilty of) took place because this country's government was being manipulated (as it is now) by corporations and the rich, into being terrified of Communists. The Rosenbergs were murdered because they were Communist, and scapegoats were needed to "teach" everyone a lesson about what would happen to people who chose to be Communist in this country.

I recently went to hear Robert Meeropol speak. He's an attorney; the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Fascinating speaker. I strongly recommend you all go see him whereever he is speaking. He also has a wonderful book: An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey.

Here's an excellent and brief article explaining fascinating aspects of the Red Scare and America's expensive, expansive, and murderous widespread propaganda against Communism. The propaganda is still with us and I'm quite sick of it.

http://members.tripod.com/~HazelWolf/Hazel_Witchhunt.html