Customer Reviews

Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator

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This is an extremely interesting and well-written book. The premise is that, despite his faults-and there were many, Senator Joseph McCarthy was correct in his underlying premise: that the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations were riddled with active Communist spies, knowing Communist sympathizers and Russian dupes. Making perhaps the single greatest marshaling of facts to date on this subject, Herman demonstrates that these spies and fellow travelers damaged the foreign policy interests of the United States in a variety of ways. Worse still, he demonstrates conclusively that high ranking members of the two administrations knew or should have known about the Soviet infiltration and did nothing about it. Herman, whose fact-dense writing clearly shows his background as a professional historian assembles proof from many sources, but relies heavily on the more recently declassified information and the materials released after the fall of the Soviet Union. Not a fact is stated that is not supported by an original source, all of which are documented in the book's extensive end notes. If you've ever been in an argument with anyone over whether or not Alger Hiss was a Communist spy, you need this book to settle it once and for all.

Rather than trying to rehabilitate McCarthy, Herman is at pains to demonstrate McCarthy's mendacity, sloppiness in making allegations and his many other flaws on nearly every page. Nonetheless, Herman points out that since the liberal establishment could not disprove McCarthy's allegations and , in fact, was mortally embarrassed by them, it diverted attention from the charges by attacking McCarthy himself. The effect of this was to obscure the underlying truth of what McCarthy was saying and of what had really occurred. This "crust" around the issue has lasted for nearly fifty years so that as soon as anyone starts to discuss Communists in the government during the 40's and 50's, liberals deride them using McCarthy's name.

I highly recommend this excellent book to anyone with an interest in the era or in the liberal-conservative dialogue in the U.S. since World War II.

Feared and Smeared

"Joseph McCarthy: Re-Examining The Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator" is a truly outstanding biography of one of the most controversial men in American political history. Previous biographies on the controversial senator from Wisconsin have focused on the politics of the Cold War and Red Scare during the 1950's. Author Arthur Herman takes a look at the actual facts and circumstances surrounding the life and times of Joe McCarthy to explore his historical situation.

Herman properly synthesizes all of the earlier works from William F. Buckley's 1950's "McCarthy and His Enemies" through the tomes of Ellen Schrecker and Thomas Reeve. The result is an objective, unbiased look at what McCarthy accused others of doing and also what he himself did during those times. Herman looks at McCarthy's actions and statements and asks some basic questions: was there a basis for the claim? Where others saying the same thing? Could a reasonable person objectively come to the same conclusion, anti-communist predispositions aside?

Today, we know that many of the claims accusing people of communism, espionage, or of being a security risk have been borne out by the revelations following the collapse of global communism. We know much more today about CPUSA subversion of American democracy from the 1930's through the 1950's (see, "In Denial" and "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage In America" by Haynes/Klehr and "The Haunted Wood" by Weinstein/Vassiliev for the extent of communist penetration in America). Herman relies heavily on many post-1990's analyses which have buttressed the claims of anti-communists like McCarthy.

There are three key elements that Herman continually revisits throughout the book. First, Joe McCarthy was a Midwesterner and most of his opponents were East Coast elites. Second, he was a conservative Republican while most of them were liberal Democrats. Third, he was a Roman Catholic -- most of the people who despised him were aristocratic WASPs or liberal Jews. True, the substance of McCarthy's actions and words is what most animated his opponents and supporters (his early aides included a Catholic, Bobby Kennedy, and Jew, Roy Cohen). Herman's book is the first to note that McCarthy aroused tension along party, ideology, religion, class, and social status. Among most Americans -- even after the Army hearings -- McCarthy was still looked upon very favorably. Working class Americans generally supported McCarthy; elites in media, academic, and political circles despised him.

Another unique focus of Herman's biography is his focus on the interplay between McCarthy and segregationist Democrats. One might expect Southern Democrats who were conservative on matters of national security to side with McCarthy. However, McCarthy was opposed to segregation and favored civil rights for blacks. This helped turn Maryland Senator Millard Tydings strongly against McCarthy to the point where McCarthy helped bring about his defeat in 1950 with a handpicked candidate (McCarthy's wife worked on Tydings' opponent's campaign). Blacks and Catholics voted heavily for the Republican candidate that year. Tydings would continue to be a thorn in McCarthy's side until his death and Tydings' Southern Democrat allies, including Stennis and Eastland of Mississippi, would help censure McCarthy in late 1954. Herman focuses extensively on Tydings throughout the book and racial issues aside, the two Senators probably had more in common than they disagreed on. Their personality and party differences, however, turned what would be a normal political dispute into a vicious deathmatch.

Herman's book also focuses on the vote to censure McCarthy. All 44 Democrats voted for censure, corralled by newly anointed Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. But one senator was incapacitated: John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts. He was reportedly going to vote for censure. It would have taken guts for a Northeastern Democrat to vote against it. Or would he have? His brother Bobby had worked for McCarthy on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and Papa Joe was a big anti-communist supporter (McCarthy had even once dated the Kennedy girls). The final vote to censure was 67-22 but many of those supporting censure later regretted their votes (Southern Democrats among them) and the use of the Senate for McCarthy's memorial ceremony after his death indicates that many censure supporters probably did not believe in the substance of the charges against McCarthy.

Herman drills into the reader that much of what Joe McCarthy is alleged to have been involved in -- the Rosenberg trial, HUAC, blacklistings -- had nothing to do with McCarthy or his Senate committee. Many first-time students of McCarthy are surprised at these misstatements of fact. Herman also points out that while McCarthy made mistakes and was wrong at certain junctures, so were his opponents. Much of what he was accused of doing and ultimately censured for were in fact offenses which were also employed against him. To assert that McCarthy was guilty of something unique to his own personal madness while excusing his critics is not a fair and balanced account of the historical record.

Herman notes that McCarthy's excesses, his drinking, and his dependence on flawed subordinates (such as Roy Cohen) all contributed to McCarthy's biggest mistake: he alienated what should have been his strongest supporters with his flair for the dramatic and verbal hyperbole. Senate colleagues, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, President Eisenhower -- these are some of the people who distanced themselves from McCarthy when he began to choose his opponents poorly. Going after the State Department for communist subversion was one thing -- but the United States Army? Hoover could have helped McCarthy, but his recklessness threatened to compromise Hoover's espionage sources (notably, the Venona intercepts).

Arthur Herman's book sheds new light and proper perspective on a subject that is often debated with emotion and cliches, rather than facts and reason. M. Stanton Evans' forthcoming biography on Joe McCarthy will probably be the final word on that chapter, but Herman's book is a worthy predecessor.

An excellent book and invaluable for understanding this pivotal cold war episode - the rise and fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

McCarthy, on the heels of the Hiss Case in late 1949, started asking, loudly and publicly, what the administration knew about Communists in the State Department and other sensitive places, and what it was doing about it. For the next four years, and particularly after gaining the chair of a Senate investigation subcommittee, McCarthy bore down on this issue, attracting millions of followers who believed in his mission, but also making enemies among the intelligentsia, among elites threatened by McCarthy's populist style, among liberals who saw Communists as ideological allies. McCarthy's own missteps, and those of aide Roy Cohn, helped bring down his career and blacken his name. But only in recent decades has newly declassified intelligence information shown he was more or less on the right track.

It is important to remember the context of the times. The Soviets had ended any illusions about democracy in Eastern Europe. China had fallen to Mao. Manhattan Project spies had given the Russians the atomic bomb and in 1949 they detonated their first. The Korean War began in 1950. Communism was seeking to establish its influence in the developing world. The Cold War was heating up, the U.S. seemed to be losing, but meanwhile the Truman administration didn't seem to want to know about potential traitors in their midst.

Some of the best chapters here focus on historical context rather than McCarthy himself. Herman recreates the Popular Front days of the 1930s, when Communists successfully infiltrated many liberal organizations or duped liberals into joining Communist front groups. In the "Who Lost China?" debate, Communist-influenced diplomats tweaked U.S. policy to finish Chaing on Mao's behalf. And Herman renders a fine consideration of McCarthy's effect on politics between then and now, including the death and rebirth of conservatism, the death of the liberal establishment with the Vietnam War, and the Popular Front's rebirth as the New Left.

History reads quite differently from the liberal conventional wisdom when the then-secret Venona Decrypts or only-recently-availaible KGB files are factored in. Virtually no one McCarthy exposed was innocent. Today's conventional wisdom mistakenly regards Communist ties then as no more than an expression of dissent, a sympathy for the underdog. The CW fails to recognize that it was a lifelong commitment - more like being in the Mafia or a religious cult - where one swore fealty to a foreign and hostile power, created discord to destabilize one's own society, and sometimes aided spies and traitors.

Herman does not spare McCarthy's faults - his drinking, his judgment-impairing mania, his too-trusting reliance upon Cohn. He shows how McCarthy destroyed himself, such as his fit of pique during the televised Army vs. McCarthy hearings, where he reneged on a deal not to expose the Communist-front involvement of one of opposition counsel Joseph Welch's aides.

Those close to him knew the youngest senator was not the best person for this job. He was too raw, too impulsive and too unschooled in Washington's ways. But the way he saw it, no one else was doing it and the job needed to be done.

McCarthy became undeservedly vilified. No one went to jail because of him. He didn't kill anyone. Unlike dissidents in Communist states, those questioned by him were protected by due process of law and had legal counsel. McCarthy was performing quintessential Congressional oversight - shining the bright light of publicity on dark spots within the administration, to influence change through the bringing of social pressure. McCarthy often held closed hearings, when the publicity of open hearings would have helped him more, to protect witnesses or those they testified about from being smeared. His questioning style was tough but typical of a courtroom. And the government really did have Communists buried in its bowels, often with access to sensitive information, with an administration too often unwilling to act.

Herman highlights some amazing ironies of McCarthyism:

--The truest single victim of "McCarthyist attacks", someone railroaded and hounded to death in sham hearings, was McCarthy himself. Liberal journalists with little regard for the truth smeared him, and frequently.

--The executive privilege so loathed by liberals when Nixon claimed it during Watergate, was pioneered by Eisenhower expressly to stonewall McCarthy. That marked the beginning of "the imperial presidency" and decline of Congessional oversight which liberals particularly often decry - sentiments with which McCarthy himself actually agreed.

--Bobby Kennedy's well-received Congressional investigations of the Mafia and labor racketeering in the late 1950s used the identical tactics he had learned working for McCarthy, and for which McCarthy was condemned.

--The Kennedys were not only McCarthy allies, but refused to go along with the rest of Congress in abjuring him. John Kennedy scheduled surgery so that he would not be present for the vote to censure McCarthy, while Bobby discreetly attended McCarthy's funeral in Wisconsin.

--The New Left, born in 1962, was explicitly an attempt to revive Communist activity in the United States, minus the Soviet ties. The biggest purveyors of the "paranoid style" in American politics, a term often tied to McCarthy, has actually been the left, with its dark vision of a world dominated by a malign U.S. government and its all-powerful corporate allies.

This book is one of the major sources for Ann Coulter's bestselling "Treason". Coulter's polemics rouse her base but may alienate even the undecided. Herman's evenhanded tone and treatment of the subject matter, though, do credit to his work, which lends a measure of vindication to McCarthy's short but searing political career. He continues to be vilified today, through movies such as "Good Night and Good Luck". Hollywood wants to keep history's spotlight on McCarthyism, but you get the idea that's mostly to keep us from looking where our attention belongs - on what McCarthy sought to expose.

Professor Herman does a great job in clarifying the real story of the so-called McCarthy era. Most books and movies rehash the same tired line: innocent Americans were persecuted by witch-hunting Congressional investigators. Herman shows that was not the case. As he points out, no one was deprived of legal counsel or of their Fifth Amendment rights. The McCarthy era was far more benign than the administrations of Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, where Americans were jailed by the thousands for speaking out against the government.

Herman makes a vital point: McCarthy was concerned only with investigating Communist subversions among government employees. He had nothing to do with the Hollywood investigations. Herman makes an even more important point, one that is the heart of his book. There was a massive infestation of Communists in the government. The Truman state department did a horrible job doing background checks on government employees. McCarthyism was not, as most historians have said, a withchunt against innocent liberals. There was a legitimate problem with Communist subversion, and McCarthy was destroyed for trying to do something about it.

Herman freely admits McCarthy made errors of judgment. He also points out McCarthy was often right. I wish more Americans would read this book. What people think they know just isn't so.

A great book. Very well written and informative. I have read several books on this subject (Joseph McCarthy and the "red scare") and this the most balanced and clearly stated. Arthur Herman does a great job of summarizing a hugely complex subject in a relatively small book (337 pages not including notes and bibliography).

Most of us non specialists, I guess, have gleaned our knowledge of McCarthy from movies such as Citizen Cohn and from a succession of negative biographies. Although Herman is well aware of the senator's failings - naive trust in Roy Cohn and David Schine who brought him down, awesome tactlessness, alcoholism - the author has done an excellent job in giving us a more balanced portrait. The book is perhaps less a biography than an incisive analysis of McCarthy in the US political whirlwind of the 1940s and early 1950s. Chapter 17 on his legacy is quite brilliant. The senator emerges as a man who was rightly concerned with communist infiltration in government, but lacked the overall political skills to avoid being damned in the longer term. Herman's detailed grasp of recently released primary sources, on Alger Hiss for example, is convincingly used. And where there are still legal doubts - on the odd case of Annie Lee Moss for instance - Herman deftly shows us McCarthy was on the right track after all. This reviewer would have liked a spot more attention to players such as Judge Kaufman, Cardinal Spellman and even FBI director Hoover, but Herman has written a brilliant revisionist tract.

"Received wisdom" places Senator Joseph R.McCarthy(1908-1957)only a few notches below the likes of Hitler and Stalin in the pantheon of great political villains of the twentieth century.The fabled "visiting Martian" might find this hard to understand.While Stalin,Hitler and co waded thru the blood of the millions of victims of their tyranny,Senator McCarthy never killed anyone,never started any wars,never even had anyone put in jail! He did once drunkenly assault columnist Drew Pearson in a tender spot though! The Martian would doubtless have his amazement compounded by the knowledge that McCarthy spent his career opposing communism,a despotic totalitarian political system,responsible for countless deaths and vicious oppression across the world,setting himself against those in his own country who sought to serve the interests of foreign communist regimes and who eagerly wished to overturn the US political system in favor of the communist one.
This biography by Arthur Herman,seeks to explain the "how and why" of Joe McCarthy,the man,his career,the political context in which he operated,and the Senator's legacy.This is a broadly sympathetic picture of the the Senator and his "crusade".The only similar pro-McCarthy biographies before Herman which I am aware of,are those by Joe's friends and colleagues-William F.Buckley and Brent Bozell(1954)and Roy Cohn(1968).Biographers who have tended to "have the floor" on McCarthy,are Richard Rovere(1959)and heavyweight writer Thomas C.Reeves(1982).The latters biography has probably been seen as the "standard" one up to now(admirers of the Reeves take on McCarthy might not be so pleased about his later demolition job biography of liberal icon Jack Kennedy!)
Herman has the advantage in having access to intelligence material de-classified in the US(especially the "Venona" documents),and the Soviet archives opened after the fall of communism.This allows a much fairer assessment of the period,and McCarthy's career,grounded in solid research.
Here we see that the so-called "Red scare" of the 40's and 50's,far from being based in unjustified hysterical paranoia,exploited by seedy political operators like McCarthy,Jenner,McCarran and co,was a response to a subversive threat which was all too real.Soviet spies and agents of influence-many directly in league with Russian intelligence, were working within the heart of the American political and cultural establishment,secretly promoting communism at home and overseas.It was indeed "a conspiracy so immense"(McCarthy's words),which had seen,for example,the widespread entry of communist agents into highly influential positions within Roosevelt's Democratic administration,often with access to classified material which they passed on to Moscow.Stalin was allowed to swallow up large chunks of "liberated" Europe,China fell to Mao and communist North Korea invaded the capitalist South-all this seemingly with US acquiescence.Those,such a Whittaker Chambers(a former communist agent),who had warned the authorities what was happening in their midst,were largely ignored or ridiculed by a complacent administration and a "liberal"leaning press.It was only when the revelations surfaced about Alger Hiss,that a reluctant establishment was forced to at least look seriously at the issue.However it was generally the "outsiders"-poiitical mavericks like Richard Nixon and J.Parnell Thomas of The Un-American Activities Committee(HUAC) and Senators like McCarthy and William E.Jenner-who forced the issue to the forefront of politics.Many of the political and media elite found men like McCarthy "vulgar"-rowdy and unsympathetic.Unlike(say)the Soviet agent from Harvard,Alger Hiss,who they initially championed,farm boy Joe McCarthy was not "one of them".
The idea of a reign of terror by "redhunters" is seen to be a misleading exaggeration-in fact it was often more "respectable" and acceptable in many circles to be opposed to the likes of McCarthy than be for him-there was massive hostility in much of the press,and among the political and legal elite(though Joe did,of course have his cheerleaders too-notably in the Hearst papers and among veterans groups).The CBS TV network could still run a breathtakingly unbalanced attack on McCarthy by Ed Murrow on "See it now"(mythologized by Hollywood at the moment in "Goodnight and good luck"),at the height of "McCarthyism"(this term itself-significantly-was coined by McCarthy's target,the academic Owen Lattimore-a State Department advisor on China,who did much to promote the cause of the murderous maniac Mao and his communists in the United States)
Herman does not shrink from identifying McCarthy's faults and failings-he was a heavy drinker(it killed him),had a volatile temper,often didn't do adequate research,exaggerated,lied(which politician has not?),was a publicity hound who loved to be in the headlines,and was prone to serious errors of judgement(the biggest being over his blind faith in the Chief Counsel to his Senate Committee,Roy M.Cohn-this directly led to his downfall).But we are given a portrait here far removed from the one dimensional ogre of legend-McCarthy was basically kindly,he didn't tend to hold grudges(Drew Pearson excepted!),even when it came to his biggest political enemies like Secretary of State Dean Acheson(meeting Acheson in an elevator,McCarthy shot out his hand saying "Hi Dean!"-Acheson,coldly furious,stiffly ignored Joe,a reaction which left the Senator genuinely puzzled).His methods could be clumsy and his manner harsh(though no more than other government investigators in other areas),yet he was often right about his targets.In this context,Herman looks carefully at some of McCarthy's best known "victims" like George C. Marshall(so insouciant in allowing pro-communist advisors to guide him into effectively handing millions of Chinese to Mao),Owen Lattimore,Irving Peress and Annie Lee Moss.Even the notorious 1954 Army case(known as the "Army-McCarthy hearings")-which would destroy him politically and eventually personally-shows McCarthy was quite justified in launching his probe into Army "leaks",and came to grief thanks to his unreliable subordinates(especially Roy Cohn),his unfortunate television image and style(in contrast to his slippery unctious adversary,Army counsel Joseph Welch)and because he had taken on the massed ranks of a jittery political establishment(Democrat and Republican-including President Eisenhower),which finally decided to unite against him.
McCarthy's last years were a miserable record of political oblivion,heroic boozing(he became a hopeless alcoholic)and poor health.Ignored by the press(which was especially hard to take)and fair weather friends-only a few stuck by him such as Bill Jenner,Roy Cohn and notably Bobby Kennedy(who briefly worked for Joe and liked him)-McCarthy died of liver disease,still in his 40's.Yet when he passed away,even his inveterate enemy and victim Drew Pearson expressed genuine regret.

While many historians and college professors would like to characterize the McCarthy era as one of the darkest times in American History, Herman's biography tends to deliver more historical insight than the typical diatribe against the former U.S. senator. You will be surprised to learn facts about the man and the Cold War period that your high school history books and educators never discussed.

Many people fall victim to the idea that McCarthy was responsible for the HUAC. He was a senator, and had nothing to do with this organization which was a committe in the House of Representatives. Herman admits that McCarthy almost certainly supported the HUAC (as did many other senators), but the fact that he is blamed for the actions of this committee are unfair. He had no direct influence in any of their decisions, including going after the infamous Hollywood Ten.

Joe McCarthy, far from being a saint, was a flawed man who happended to be right more often than wrong about the problem of communist infiltration in high levels of government during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. While McCarthy did himself few favors in the tactics he used, the intentions were noble and the facts are largely on his side. In fact, the Venona cables, which are Soviet recordings released in the mid 1990's, document that all the names that McCarthy named in the Senate hearings were in fact communist spies or sympathizers who had positions of influence within the U.S. government.

While modern academia will be quick to point out McCarthy's excesses (namely his ego, drinking, and temper), they will never admit he was convincingly successful in confronting this national security issue by dissuading countless officials from hiring known communists to important positions within the U.S government.

I would encourage any current college student to ask your history professors to explain the Venona cables. Ask them why McCarthy still has such a tarnished reputation even though these recordings of top KGB officials confirm that many of McCarthy's "victims" were proven to have been on the Soviet pay rolls. It would not surprise me that any professor confronted with this question would respond, "What's Venona?" That is because historians and major media outlets (whom relentlessly attacked McCarthy's alleged witchhunt at the time) now refuse to acknowledge the Venona recordings to prevent further embarrasment.

Herman also shows that McCarthy fell victim to both sides of the political establishment. Those on the left attacked the man in order to discredit his claims, because in communism they saw an ideal that they supported, and for this they were willing to forgive the means. However, once McCarthy was at the height of his popularity, Eisenhower and his backers saw McCarthy as a threat to his election campaign. He convinced others on the right to join him in descrediting McCarthy to seal his bid for the convention nomination. With people from both politcal aisles attacking his credibility, it was ineveitable that McCarthy would soon meet his demise. It is very telling however, that Bobby Kennedy (known to be very strong on national defense and security issues during his shortened poltical career) was the only high profile politician to attend McCarthy's funeral.

The irony that Herman describes in the life of McCarthy is very interesting. He explains that McCarthy, who was probably the last person who should have taken up the banner of fighting communism, was the only person who had the guts to put himself on the line and do what he thought was best for the country.

This book is fair evaluation of Joe McCarthy as a person and the turbulent life he lived. I would make this book required reading for any college class that discusses the early Cold War period.

I recently finished reading this biography of Joseph McCarthy by Arthur Herman and was impressed by his skill at handling the controversial senator.

Herman is one of the few biographers who explain that McCarthy was trying to uncover security risks working for the United States government, not going after individual communists. McCarthy didn't care about them. Mr. Herman also takes great care in handling sensitive issues surrounding McCarthy, including his demeanor (admittedly, not exactly the best), his upbringing, and that pesky list of 57 (or was it 205? or 81?) communists.

Also included in this work is evidence that McCarthy was respected by his colleagues and the public at large. Majorities of Americans supported McCarthy's work. Most people were not afraid of McCarthy -- they were afraid of communists leaking sensitive government information to the Soviets.

This is the best work written about McCarthy that doesn't malign him as a madman out to destroy the lives and infringe upon the liberties of individual Americans. This is a fair assessment and criticism of America's most controversial politician.

Reading bits and pieces over the years (check into the released soviet archives sometime), I was shocked at the revealing of truths from what was once thought of as myths ... conclusion - McCarthy was right (key word here - Venona)!

From the facts I have read (separately), this book is the best I have seen that has tied-in and covered the story well. In retrospect, I could not believe the BS and the intensity of the anti-McCarthy foes; they knew better AND (more than anything else) WERE HORRIFIED OF THE EXPOSURE that J. McCarthy brought upon them. Close examination of the 30's, 40's, and 50's reveals a profound establishment of patterned and proactive approaches to meet the goals of soviet as well as internationalist communists (some aspects of these are still imbedded in our country today, but with no direction). But, Joseph McCarthy broke them and desecrated their HIGHEST revered commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Be Exposed" (reference The 3rd Communist International document); this Was a great set-back for communists and, in all honesty, J. McCarthy WON.

Marxist/Leninists cut back in a lot of areas after this event, because one thing was for certain ... they could not afford any more incidences like this. Successfully damning J. McCarthy but understanding that THEY MAY NOT SURVIVE ANOTHER TYPE OF EXPOSURE OF THIS MAGNITUDE. Their next try was the disastrous (late 60's) New Left incident (lesson learned - unstable and acid dropping hippies do not make good commies) and then in the 80's the more ingenious, subversive domino trick (but of the external nature, with the USA being dessert) - only to be curbed (and then ultimately defeated) by Ronald Reagan and (martyr) Larry McDonald - AND DONE IN TRUE MCCARTHY SPIRIT!

The McCarthy era was the communist's biggest set-back period in the USA. Under the wraps, the repercussions of the exposure were most devastating. A lot of hard work had been done in this country by the communists, with the ingenious networking and coordination of dedicated and duty-orientated adherents - in the true light of Lenin's idealistic revolutionary character.

McCarthy stopped the highly organized, intellectual and productive Marxist movement and diverted its PATH from taking over in the USA internally; it never truly gained momentum afterwards. What Joseph McCarthy failed to realize was the breath and depth of the communist character and soul. The harshness and brutality of the attacks on McCarthy and co. were (in essence) a disclosure of an evil and misguided (but determined) will. Welded on an abnormal dogma of vicious misconceptions, SIMILAR IN CONCEPT ONLY TO NATIONAL SOCIALISM (...) IDEOLOGY, these attackers knew the game plan (all to well) of bombarding and destroying the enemy at all costs (another Lenin inclusion). Turning the tables as though J. McCarthy and co. were the "bad guys". If Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn and co. had been more well-read on material in the philosophical/political/psychological areas of communism, they would have been better prepared for the fight. Sizing up the situation as dealing with human beings - rational, reasonable, and of good-willed nature - was a big mistake. Because at the heart and core of the communist breeds the demon of illusion. As with the late actualized communistic State, the Soviet Union, they came out (in history) smelling like roses, when in reality, they had killed more innocent people than Nazi Germany. Only with the present day material, do we now have the truth of many misconceptions.

McCarthy vindicated AND HE DID DETER COMMUNISM IN THE USA ! J. McCarthy and Roy Cohn both died some time ago (J.M. - 3 years after his disgrace). Seeing the old clips, I realized that they never fully understood the situation. Ultimately, they never saw their resultant impact on the subversive organization or the immense success of their mission. On the surface it looked EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. And in the clips, J. McCarthy looks only depressed and distraught. Hand on forehead and eyes, that was his epitaph.