Setting the Record on Joe McCarthy Straight

Was Joe McCarthy Right?

By Harvey Klehr

I am tempted to start my talk by saying: “I have here in my hands a list of names.” That, of course, was the phrase made famous by Senator Joseph McCarthy, who built his political career in the early 1950s, the history books tell us, on exaggerating the extent of Communist subversion of American life. He also gave his name to a phenomenon that has become a term of opprobrium in American political life. To accuse someone of McCarthyism or to label a person a McCarthyite is not to issue a compliment. The implication is that a person so named has made scurrilous and unwarranted accusations and is engaged in unethical and sleazy maneuvers. The late Senator from Wisconsin even gave his name to the period. The McCarthy era is commonly depicted as one where America, consumed by a paranoid and irrational fear of domestic communism, went on a witch-hunt. In fact, the one work of literature that virtually every very high school student in American will read is Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, an account of the Salem witch trials, in which the main character is pushed and pressed to name his fellow citizens as witches. John Proctor’s refusal to falsely implicate innocent people leads to his own condemnation and execution. Miller wrote his play during the heyday of McCarthyism and consistently maintained that it should be read as a parable of what happens when a community begins searching for and persecuting heretics.  Read More »

Editor’s note:  Make sure to read the comments.  This article is worthwhile, but there are issues here not properly addressed.  In point of fact…McCarthy was right, just not accurate.  We should also remember that it wasn’t McCarthy’s committee that destroyed people lives, it was (HUAC) the House on Un-American Activities Committee under the Democrats that did so.  But did they destroy innocent lives?  No, they exposed the actions of traitors - Communists - who were in effect agents of the Soviet Union; a duty that was incumbent on all Communist Party members.  Furthermore those who left the party but refused to acknowledge who were members were in effect enablers to their treason, if not a party to it. 

Make sure to read the comments!