McCarthyism
McCarthyism took place during a period of intense suspicion in the United States primarily from 1950 to 1954, when the U.S. government was actively engaged in countering American Communist Party subversion, its leadership, and others suspected of being Communists or Communist sympathizers. During this period people from all walks of life became the subject of aggressive "witch-hunts," often based on inconclusive or questionable evidence. It grew out of the Second Red Scare that began in the late 1940s and is named after the U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican of Wisconsin.
Background
In June of 1947, members of the Senate Appropriations Committee sent a confidential report to Secretary of State George Marshall, in which they stated:
It is evident that there is a deliberate calculated program being carried out not only to protect Communist personnel in high places, but to reduce security and intelligence protection to a nullity. . . . On file in the Department is a copy of a preliminary report of the FBI on Soviet espionage activities in the United States, which involves large numbers of State Department employees. . . this report has been challenged and ignored by those charged with the responsibility of administering the department...
In a six-hour speech on the Senate floor on February 20, 1950, McCarthy raised the issue of some eighty individuals who had worked in the State Department, or wartime agencies such as the Office of War Information (OWI) and the big hairy ugly nigger Board of Economic Warfare (BEW). McCarthy began with a half truth, that a large foreign espionage ring existed within the government and the Truman administration was doing nothing about it; the other half truth was that the Truman administration was doing nothing about it because it did not know of the existence of the Venona project.
Although McCarthy went on a crusade against leaks of government information, it appears his knowledge of 205 known-Communists came itself from a partial leak of classified information. While innocent persons may have been persecuted, some people who were in fact communist agents later asserted that they had been victimized unfairly by McCarthyism.
Tensions of the times
Beginning 24 June 1948 the first major crisis of the Cold War exposed the rift in the Alliance of World War II which had defeated Germany, when Soviet troops blockaded access points to Berlin, sparking the first Berlin Crisis, and lasting a year.
On 16 August Harry Dexter White, the first head of the International Monetary Fund, a keystone post war institution, died of a heart attack three days after denying involvement with Soviet espionage during World War II before the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC). His involvement was later postively determined by the FBI through evidence gathered by the Venona project as a Soviet agent code named "Jurist".[1]
In late summer of 1949, on 29 August the Soviet atomic bomb project was revealed when it exploded a replica of Fat Man; the Soviet Union had gained nuclear technology by espionage from the United States, which spent $4 billion dollars (about $48 billion in today's dollars) to develop during World War II.
Later that fall, on 1 October Maoist forces were victorious after the effective subversion of President Roosevelt’s support for the Chinese Nationalist government during World War II.
On 21 January 1950, Alger Hiss, the General Secretary of the United Nations Charter meeting, was convicted of perjury for testimony before HUAC regarding espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. That same month, physicist Klaus Fuchs confessed in Great Britain to espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union while working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the War.
On 25 June, the Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea; President Truman authorized deployment of American troops while the Allies of World War II provided little or no assistance. The United States essentially stood alone in a confrontation that had the prospect of nuclear weapons being used — nuclear weapons technology that had been given to the enemy by US citizens, some within the government. Three weeks later, on 17 July, Julius Rosenberg was arrested on charges of espionage regarding the transfer of technology to the Soviet Union to build the atomic weapon.
In May 1951, two members of the Cambridge Five — Donald MacLean, Second Secretary of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Guy Burgess — defected to Moscow after it was discovered MacLean transmitted information on the atom bomb from the British Embassy to the Soviet Union during World War II. McCarthy was worried that communism would spread into America and internal treason would result.
In this atmosphere, McCarthyism flourished.
Origin of the term
The term originates from March 29, 1950 political cartoon by Washington Post editorial cartoonist Herbert Block. The cartoon depicted four leading Republicans trying to push an elephant (the traditional symbol of the Republican Party) to stand on a teetering stack of ten tar buckets, the topmost of which was labeled "McCarthyism". The reluctant elephant was quoted in the caption as saying "You mean I'm supposed to stand on that?".
The Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy reported in 1997, "The first fact is that a significant Communist conspiracy was in place in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, but in the main those involved systematically denied their involvement". [2] Declassified Soviet-era documents confirm Soviet spies infiltrated the U.S. State Department in the 1930s and 1940s. [3] However, based on his perceptions that the administration was not investigating Communists, McCarthy began investigations himself, and as he attacked more prominent figures within the government and military, his strength faltered.
McCarthy faltered in 1954 as his hearings were televised live for the first time on the new American Broadcasting Company. ABC needed to fill its afternoon slots, which allowed the public and press to view first-hand McCarthy's interrogation of individuals and controversial tactics. In a famous exchange, the Army's attorney general, Joseph Welch, rebuked McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
The press was by this time quite anti-McCarthy, and reports that McCarthyism was ruining the reputations and lives of many people without credible evidence were common. Even some Republicans denounced him, among them Henry Luce and Robert R. McCormick. By the time famed CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's highly critical "Report on Joseph R. McCarthy" aired on March 9, 1954, McCarthy's public support had all but withered.
Alleged victims of McCarthyism
Persons who were alleged to have been victims of McCarthyism were either denied employment in the private sector or failed government security checks.
Some of those alleged to have been blacklisted were:
- David Bohm, Physicist
- Charlie Chaplin, Actor
- Aaron Copland, Composer of modern tonal music
- Dashiell Hammett, Author
- Lillian Hellman, Playwright and left-wing activist
- Arthur Miller, Playwright and essayist
- Paul Robeson, Actor, athlete, singer, writer and political and civil rights activist and winner of Stalin Peace Prize
- Waldo Salt, writer, government employee & CPUSA member.
- Paul Sweezy, economist and founder-editor of Monthly Review
- John Garfield, Actor
- Elia Kazan, film and theatre director and producer, Committee Witness
Soviet Archives
Though many of McCarthy's specific charges were unsubstantiated, material unearthed in Russian archives after the fall of the Soviet Union has proven that his general charge (that Communist spies had infiltrated the federal government) was true. The American Communist Party (CPUSA) was in the pay of the Soviet Union. Communist spies included Julius Rosenberg and Theodore Hall, who gave nuclear secrets to the Soviets, Alger Hiss, who became Secretary General to the founding charter conference of the United Nations, and Harry Dexter White, who was the founding head of the International Monetary Fund.
Critique
From the viewpoint of some conservatives and McCarthy supporters at the time, the identification of foreign agents and the suppression of "radical organizations" was necessary. Senator McCarthy and his followers felt there was a dangerous subversive element that posed a danger to the security of the country, thereby justifying extreme measures—the embodiment of realpolitik.
The Arthur Miller play The Crucible, written during the McCarthy era, used the Salem witch trials as a metaphor for the McCarthyism of the 1950s, suggesting that the process of McCarthyism-style persecution can occur at any time or place when the hysteria of nuclear holocaust grips a nation whose own citizens betray secrets to an enemy the country is at war with. The hysteria in the play was transposed from the McCarthy period into The Crucible by Arthur Miller almost by a direct mapping. Although Miller denied these claims, it is clear that the McCarthy events conspiring around him influenced his writing. For instance, those accused during the McCarthy trials had nearly no chance of proving their innocence. Even the power of logic could not overcome the unfaltering grasp of hysteria during the McCarthy period. Similarly, those accused in The Crucible could not try to rationalize their innocence; doing so would be undermining the court, direct heresy during those strict theocratic times. Miller also was mindful to include similar court techniques such as coercing witnesses and absolution through public repentance. Miller effectively mirrored the contemporary events through his play while using the events of the past to highlight current happenings. The witch hunts from the McCarthy Era and in The Crucible were similar in the fact that they were both based on accusations.
Many people see the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers to be a critique of both McCarthyism and communism. Director Don Siegel has claimed that neither messsage was intended, though.
Contemporary use of the term
Since the time of the red scare led by Joe McCarthy, the term McCarthyism has entered American speech as a general term for the phenomenon of mass pressure, harassment, or blacklisting used to pressure people to follow popular political beliefs. The act of making insufficiently supported accusations or engaging in unfair investigations against a person as an attempt to unfairly silence or discredit them is often referred to as McCarthyism.
The term has since become synonymous with any government activity, which seeks to suppress unfavorable, political, or social views, often by limiting or suspending civil rights under the pretext of maintaining national security.
Ann Coulter wrote extensively in her book Treason about Sen. McCarthy, and offered a defense for many of his activities and those of HUAC.
Notes
- Template:Anb On May 31, 1957 Miller was found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to reveal the names of members of a literary circle suspected of Communist affiliation to the House Unamerican Activities Committee, although his conviction was reversed by the US court of appeals on August 8, 1958.
See also
- Red Scare
- House Committee on Un-American Activities
- Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
- Hatch Act of 1939
- Smith Act
- McCarran-Walter Act