Customer Reviews

The Redhunter: A Novel Based on the Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy

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I grew up in the 50's and went to college in the 60's. I had been led to believe that anything associated with Joe McCarthy was bad and evil. If one ever saw any merit of being frightened of communisim they would be classified as paranoid and having facist leanings. McCarthy had many faults and may have gone too far in his accusations without proof. However, the fact remains that there were communists in our government working against our concept of democracy. I never understood the snickers and laughs that would surface in denouncing communism. McCarthy is held up to be the enemy by most of the journalists. It seems to me that the real enemy were those who supported a concept of taking away peoples right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom to the right of assemble, etc. Our freedoms are not to be trifled with. I have been in China, East Germany and the old Soviet Union. I am not a big supporter of Joe McCarty, but the concerns of communists in our government working against us should never be taken lightly. The consequences could be costly. With all this in mind, I thought Buckley gave a sommewhat different presentation of who Joe McCarthy was and I have a feeling that his presentation is more accurate than that portrayed by McCarthy's critics.

If you're a conservative with a lot of liberal friends than you know all about the Great McCarthy Excuse, the leftist argument that essentially runs as follows: "Well, sure, Bill Clinton may have permanently corrupted the American political system and killed innocent civilians in pointless military campaigns designed to keep him from getting impeached, but hey, at least, he wasn't Joe McCarthy!" Nearly fifty years after his disgrace and death, Joe McCarthy remains an all-purpose boogeyman to be trotted out whenever it appears that the Republican Party might be on the verge of making a valid argument. Never mind that McCarthy was a former Democrat and, outside of his anti-communist crusade, was known as a bit of a tax-and-spend liberal. Never mind that conservaitve intellectuals were some of the first denounce him even while such liberal icons as the Kennedy Family continued to support him. Nope, McCarthy is the all-purpose right-wing demon of the leftist imagination and nothing's going to change that. And anything done wrong by a "liberal" will apparently always be justified by the memory of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin.
If you're like me, you got wise to the shallowness of that argument early on and soon became rather irritated at the way the name "McCarthy" was used an all-purpose justifyer for any amount of fuzzy-headed thinking. That's what makes William F. Buckley's novel, The Redhunter, such a joy to read. Telling the story of Joe McCarthy's rise and fall, the book never defends the man's excesses (and, indeed, no true conservative would ever defend the trampling of civil liberties seen during the McCarthy era) but at the same time, never makes the mistake of using McCarthy's mistakes to downplay the very real treat that Stalin's Soviet Union and its totalitarian brand of Marxism posed to the world. And, most signifigantly, it is perhaps the first and only book -- fiction and nonfiction -- to actually make an attempt to show Joe McCarthy as a deeply flawed human being as opposed to some mustache-twirling villian from a '30s melodrama.

The book tells two parallell and intersecting stories of two young men. The first concerns Joe McCarthy himself. Beginning with his own rise to power from a small-town Wisconsin pig farmer to a member of the U.S. Senate, the book paints a sympathetic but still very critical picture of the man. McCarthy comes across as neither a saint nor an ogre but instead a rather insecure if charismatic man who, paradoxically, dealt with his insecurity by entering politics and trying to get every voter to love him. Once in the Senate, McCarthy proves himself to be less than an intellectual giant and, desperate not to lose the love of the voters, latches onto the anticommunist movement as a way to save his own career. The book makes no secret that McCarthy was often exagerrating when he spoke of his evidence of "communists" in the State Department and it is also unflinching in showing that McCarthy didn't have the backbone to stand up to the more unscrupolous aides who attached themselves to his star (especially Roy Cohn, who appears only fleetingly in the book's final sections). McCarthy's crimes are portrayed not so much as crimes of malice but instead as crimes of stupidity and Buckley is very deft in showing how 1950s liberals cannily exploited that stupidity to obscure the truth about communism and further their own goals. Its a rather compelling and totally valid interpretation of the era that, in these politically correct times, is rarely allowed to be heard and Buckley is to be commended for finally allowing this view to see the light of day.

The other main character is Harry Bentecou, a young academic and anti-communist who is an obvious stand-in for Buckley himself. Harry becomes an aide to McCarthy and sadly watches as the Senator's excesses get out of control and lead to both his downfall and the temporary descrediting of the American anti-communist movement. If Harry's scenes occasionally reek a bit of melodrama, they still present one of the great untold facts of American political history and that is that the modern conservative movement was founded by often-ridiculed anti-communist intellectuals like Harry. This is the movement that would be presumed dead after the defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964 just to eventually make a triumphant come back with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Full of sharply drawn characters and perfectly realized scenes, the Redhunter is perhaps Buckley's finest novel to date. With humorous but devastating portraits of such historical figures as Eisenhower and especially Dean Acheson, The Redhunter is a valuable book that gives us a compelling view of history that, unfortunately, we aren't usually allowed to consider. All in all, a triumph that will be loved by conservatives and liberals willing to read with an open mind.

It is a well known fact for those that know me that I am a tireless devotee of William F. Buckley. That's why it has come as a total shock to most that I am of a mixed opinion about THE REDHUNTER: A NOVEL BASED ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SENATOR JOE MCCARTHY. Buckley, it seems, has fallen into the same sort of traps that those who have attempted to write "real political fiction" have fallen into before him. The difficulty is, naturally, how does one write an exciting narrative and remain true to the historical fact? Too often Buckley seems to forget that he's writing a novel and proceeds to regail the poor reader with awfully constructed dialogue and atmosphere that attempts to give the story rather than tell the story (if you catch my meaning). Readers of the book will find themselves frequently saying, "nobody talks like this!" or "nobody thinks like that!" simply because Buckley has attempted to fit as much information about the late senator as is possible while neglecting to compensate with adequate character realism. There are however, many redeeming qualities that should be noted. First, just as Buckley promised during his interview with Charlie Rose on PBS, there is much in here that has been previously unreported about McCarthy. Supporters and detractors will find ample heretofor unknown tales. Second, is Buckley's uncanny attention to historical detail. And third, is the moving and sometimes shocking way Buckley writes about McCarthy the man and those around him (for those interested in the life of the late Roy Cohn this book is a must read). Do I recommend it? Insofar as I recommend Buckley in general, though with some caution. For those looking for a history about McCarthy I prefer Buckley's excellent MCCARTHY AND HIS ENEMIES (which he wrote with L. Brent Bozell) and for those looking for an example of Buckley's usually fine fiction I recommend any of his Blackford Oakes novels (of which SAVING THE QUEEN is probably the best). Happy reading!

I missed the McCarthy era.At the time, I was in the Navy in the Pacific, and while acutely aware of what was happening in Korea and the Taiwan Strait, without newspapers and TV McCarthy was a blank page for me.This book helped me understand McCarthy and more important his detractors and their motivations and their opposing points of view.I learned why liberals/democrats fought McCarthy and why someone like Anthony Lake, Clinton's National Security Advisor, as recently as two years ago, maintained that the information that Alger Hiss was a Russian spy was "inconclusive".Thank You Mr. Buckley

I've heard Buckley on TV; read him in National Review, and so with some trepedation I picked up this book, expecting to find lots of 50c words. To my pleasant surprise, this was very readable Buckley, and a fast read, which didn't require a companion dictionary. This book doesn't exonerate McCarthy, but does reveal the Wisconsin Senator as a multi-faceted man who perhaps let a justified crusade go on a little too intensely, a little too long. It is an informative book for those who know only what a couple of paragraphs in a textbook say about McCarthy and want to know more. I found it enlightening and its content worthy of consideration in one's judgments about McCarthy.

Fiction can sometimes be more revealing than a bare recital of fact. (One need only think of Dickens' novels and how he described 19th century England to see how this can be so.) Buckley's book accomplishes this with his portrait of Senator Joe McCarthy. The novel's subplot, involving the fictional Harry Boncteau (sp?), is compelling, and is woven nicely into the overall story. The McCarthy Buckley describes is ambitious, blind to some aspects of human nature, and prone to excess, but basically good, and, as we now know, right in his basic thesis: Communists had systematically penetrated American institutions, with subvursive intent. Art imitates life in Buckley's portrayal of the seething class hatred for McCarthy on the part of the Left/Establishment. It was/is part and parcel of their animus toward anyone who dared to expose the truth: Nixon, Chambers, and sepecially McCarthy. This novel, which I read in one sitting, finishing in the wee hours, is both compelling literature and thought-provoking in terms of it's ideas. Hopefully, with Soviet archives open and their records validating much of what he said, this book will become the basis for a reexamination of a controversial American life. -Lloyd A. Conway

Once upon a time there was an American conservative movement which fought hard to prevent, what James Burnham described as, the "Suicide of the West." One of the great heroes of that crusade was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. In later years William F. Buckley became an intellectual leader of that ill fated movement. Indeed after the Senator had been savaged by his enemies with the complicity of many of his "allies" Buckley remained loyal to Senator Joe. But as the years and defeats began to weigh on WFB he tempered his tone, muted his message and became absorbed in the neoconservative betrayal of our civilization, its faiths and races.

Great day in the morning! In his seventh decade upon this Earth the prodigal son has returned, somewhat. In Redhunter we have a sweet and sympathetic treatment of his and our old hero.

Who would have thought it possible? Anyway Bill, welcome home and when the Commentary boys administer their public spanking keep in mind that lots of your old friends were your friends before it became fashionable -- just like you and Brent were to Joe.

You have the title wrong. It 's Redhunter, a novel based on the life of Senator Joe McCarthy.

--NOT ...a novel baweed on the life and times of Senator Joe McCarthy. Cordially, William F. Buckley Jr.

Buckley's account of the most turbulent era of the 1950s may not be the most unbiased available, but it facilitates introduction to the McCarthyism. The Redhunter is a thoroughly readable novel in that it deals intelligently with an immensely complex topic and manages to successfully convey McCarthy's human traits and idiosycracies at the same time. According to Buckley, McCarthy incessantly muttered, "How'm doing?" to his aides in search of affirmation. Buckley does not purport to provide a traditional historical novel. In this case, though, the embellishment was appeciated. I desired an introduction to McCarthyism, and I was not disappointed.

As someone intensely interested in the postwar cold-war history, I found this book to be essential reading. I grew up on the "other side" because the only information I had (having been born in 1940) was what my parents told me (liberal democrats who hated McCarthy and Nixon, and believed Hiss to have been innocent) and what the mainstream media has been pumping out since the 40s (30s?). What an eye-opener that book was and how many pre-conceived notions have been swept away! My eternal thanks to WFB for opening my eyes that much wider. It was a delight, from start to finish and I'm so grateful that I read it immediately after reading WITNESS by Chambers. A must read for anyone interested in this subject.