Ordeal by Slander: The First Great Book of the McCarthy Era [Paperback]

Owen Lattimore (Author), David Lattimore (Preface), Blanche Wiesen Cook (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 2002

Joseph McCarthy was not yet a household name in 1950 when Owen Lattimore was labeled by the senator from Wisconsin as the “top Russian espionage agent in the country.” Lattimore, in Kabul, Afghanistan, learned about the accusation a week later. Having already lost valuable time to rebut the smear, he succinctly cabled back that the charge was “pure moonshine,” and returned to the United States to defend his good name. He soon dared McCarthy to utter his slander in a venue other than the Senate, where congressional immunity shielded him from lawsuits, but he refused to do so. Following a torturous Senate inquisition, Lattimore published this riveting book which he wrote in white-hot indignation. Judged at the time to be “a masterpiece of factual exposition [and] a social document of first-rate importance,”* this absorbing narrative chronicles how the ordeal threw Lattimore’s life into perilous straits, and how he defended himself, while undermining the credibility of his accusers. In a battle for his very liberty, Lattimore prepared for the equivalent of an alley fight with the brawling senator. His supremely competent wife, Eleanor, was his trusted aide; along with attorney Abe Fortas they drew out of Lattimore’s writings passages that would prove his loyalty. Yet, as a scholar who was accustomed to nuanced interpretations of current affairs, his accusers were able to conflate the same writings into a traitor’s hidden agenda. Ordeal by Slander was the first great book to come out of the McCarthy era, and it remains a supremely topical book for today. “A tremendously stirring, human drama.”—The Atlantic Monthly “A disturbing and illuminating book.”—The New Yorker

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (December 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786711337
• ISBN-13: 978-0786711338
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,857,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ACCUSATIONS from Wikipedia, March 22, 2008

By 

Susan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ordeal By Slander (Senator Joseph McCarthy Era) (Hardcover)

In March 1950, Joseph McCarthy accused Lattimore of being the "top Soviet agent" in executive session of the Tydings Committee. The committee, chaired by Senator Millard Tydings, was investigating McCarthy's claims of widespread Soviet infiltration of the State Department. When the accusation was leaked to the press, he backed off from the charge that Lattimore was a spy, but continued the attack in public session of the committee and in speeches. Lattimore, he said, "in view of his position of tremendous power at the State Department" was the "'architect' of our Far Eastern policy," and asked whether Lattimore's "aims are American aims or whether they coincide with the aims of Soviet Russia." At the time, Lattimore was in Kabul, Afghanistan, on a cultural mission for the United Nations. Lattimore dismissed the charges against him as "moonshine" and hurried back to the United States to testify before the Tydings Committee.[20]

Lattimore was a combative witness and waged verbal duels with McCarthy. In April 1950, the surprise witness, Louis F. Budenz, former editor of the Communist Party organ Daily Worker. testified Lattimore was a secret Communist, but not a Soviet agent, that is, he was a person of influence who often assisted Soviet foreign policy. Budenz said his Party superiors told him Lattimore's "great value lay in the fact that he could bring the emphasis in support of Soviet policy in non-Soviet language."[21] The majority report for the Tydings committee cleared Lattimore of all charges against him; the minority report accepted Budenz's charges.

In February 1952, Lattimore was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (S.I.S.S), headed by McCarthy's ally, Senator Pat McCarran. Before Lattimore was called as witness, investigators for the S.I.S.S. had seized all of the records of the Institute of Pacific Relations (I.P.R). The twelve days of testimony were marked by shouting matches which pitted McCarran and McCarthy on one hand against Lattimore on the other. Lattimore took three days to deliver his opening statement; the delays were caused by frequent interruptions as McCarran challenged Lattimore point by point. McCarran the used the records from the I.P.R. to ask questions that often taxed Lattimore's memory. Budenz again testified, but this time claimed that Lattimore was both a Communist and a Soviet agent. The Subcommittee also summoned scholars. Nicholas Poppe, a Russian émigré and a scholar of Mongolia and Tibet, resisted the committee's invitation to label Lattimore a communist, but found some of his writings superficial and uncritical. The most damaging testimony came from Karl August Wittfogel, supported by his colleague from University of Washington, George Taylor. Wittfogel, a former Communist, said that at the time Lattimore edited the journal Pacific Affairs, Lattimore knew of his Communist background; even though they had not exchanged words on the matter, Lattimore had given Wittfogel a "knowing smile." Lattimore acknowledged that Wittfogel's thought had been tremendously influential, but said that if there had been a smile, it was a "non-Communist smile." Wittfogel and Taylor charged that Lattimore did "great harm to the free world" in his disregard of the need to defeat world communism as a first priority. The influence of Marxism was shown by Lattimore's use of the word "feudal." Lattimore replied that he did not think that Marxists had a "patent" on the word feudal.[22]

In 1952, after 17 months of study and hearing, involving 66 witnesses and thousands of documents, the McCarran Committee issued its 226-page, unanimous final report. This report stated that "Owen Lattimore was, from some time beginning in the 1930s, a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy", and that on "at least five separate matters," Lattimore had not told the whole truth. One example: "The evidence . . . shows conclusively that Lattimore knew Frederick V. Field to be a Communist; that he collaborated with Field after he possessed this knowledge; and that he did not tell the truth before the subcommittee about this association with Field . . ."[23]

In 1952, Lattimore was indicted for perjury on seven counts. Six of the counts related to various discrepancies between Lattimore's testimony and the I.P.R. records; the seventh accused Lattimore of seeking to deliberately deceive the S.I.S.S. Lattimore's defenders, such as his lawyer Abe Fortas, claimed that the discrepancies were caused by McCarran deliberately asking questions about arcane and obscure matters that took place in the 1930s out of the hope that Lattimore would not be able to recall them properly, thereby giving grounds for a perjury indictment. Within three years, the charges against him were dismissed."[24] His book Ordeal by Slander is his own account of this episode.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The truth, August 3, 2010

By 

M. Schaer "reader" (United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ordeal by Slander (Paperback)

Owen Lattimore was my uncle. He was not a liar, nor a communist. Anyone in doubt should read more of his wide body of work, to understand that he was a scholar, not a subversive.

18 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Catastrophic Consequences Of Being Slandered, October 13, 2002

By 

JAMES H. LISTER (DENTON, MARYLAND USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ordeal by Slander (Hardcover)

This is one of the most important books ever written about the horrible social and psychological consequences of being a slander victim. "Tail Gunner" Senator Joe McCarthy radicalized his Communist paranoia hysteria to such an extreme in the 1950's that he attempted to destroy the lives of some very innocent people.