“Exhuming McCarthy” -- R.E.M.
In the 1946 midterm elections, the Republican Party seized control of the United States Senate for the first time in fourteen years by capturing twelve seats. Eleven of those lost seats had been occupied by Democrats. The remaining seat had been that of Wisconsin’s Robert M. La Follette, Jr., one time Progressive Party leader, but now an erratic and unstable caricature of the once great statesman he had been. The Progressive Party that sent La Follette to Washington had since ceased to exist, and now the incumbent senator sought the nomination of the Republican Party that had once been his home. Unfortunately for La Follette, the nation, and the world, the GOP instead selected the even more unpredictable Joseph McCarthy as its candidate. On 5 November 1956, McCarthy would win the general election with a whopping 61.3% of the popular vote and be seated on 3 January of the following year as the junior senator from Wisconsin.
Other than a well-honed talent for political shenanigans and chicanery, there was little in his early political career to suggest his becoming the malevolent self-promoting menace we now know him to be. In 1939, the 30-year-old McCarthy became the youngest circuit court judge in Wisconsin history. Using tactics he would come to perfect over the course of his thankful short career, McCarthy ensured the defeat incompetent incumbent Edgar V. Werner by lying outrageously about his opponent’s age and salary. By all accounts, McCarthy worked diligently as a judge -- to be fair, his predecessor had left behind a massive backlog of mishandled cases that required resolution -- and the future senator was known to be sensitive to the welfare of minors when hearing divorce suits and fair to litigants. Still, tell-tale signs of the man McCarthy was to become began to surface. He was chastised by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the lost or destruction of court documents. On another occasion, he was censored for violations of the legal ethics code.
Other than a well-honed talent for political shenanigans and chicanery, there was little in his early political career to suggest his becoming the malevolent self-promoting menace we now know him to be. In 1939, the 30-year-old McCarthy became the youngest circuit court judge in Wisconsin history. Using tactics he would come to perfect over the course of his thankful short career, McCarthy ensured the defeat incompetent incumbent Edgar V. Werner by lying outrageously about his opponent’s age and salary. By all accounts, McCarthy worked diligently as a judge -- to be fair, his predecessor had left behind a massive backlog of mishandled cases that required resolution -- and the future senator was known to be sensitive to the welfare of minors when hearing divorce suits and fair to litigants. Still, tell-tale signs of the man McCarthy was to become began to surface. He was chastised by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the lost or destruction of court documents. On another occasion, he was censored for violations of the legal ethics code.
Always, McCarthy kept a watchful eye for any chance to advance his political ambitions. On 7 December 1941, when the Empire of Japan rained destruction on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Returning from war a hero would certainly vouch for his fine political fettle. In June of 1942, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and was commissioned a second lieutenant by dint of his education.
From August 1942 to February 1945, McCarthy served an intelligence officer in the Solomon Islands, debriefing bomber crews returning from raids over Japan. He would some accompany the aviators on their dangerous missions as an observer, flying a total of twelve combat missions. After his return to the states, McCarthy would transfigure his modest war record into the heroic adventures of “Tailgunner Joe.” Few World War II military occupations were more dangerous than that of a bomber’s tailgunner. In fact, the Army Air Corps actually produced a film during the conflict to convince recruits that the position was not a “suicide mission.” Claiming for himself the mantle of this brave warrior role certainly increased his political capital.
From August 1942 to February 1945, McCarthy served an intelligence officer in the Solomon Islands, debriefing bomber crews returning from raids over Japan. He would some accompany the aviators on their dangerous missions as an observer, flying a total of twelve combat missions. After his return to the states, McCarthy would transfigure his modest war record into the heroic adventures of “Tailgunner Joe.” Few World War II military occupations were more dangerous than that of a bomber’s tailgunner. In fact, the Army Air Corps actually produced a film during the conflict to convince recruits that the position was not a “suicide mission.” Claiming for himself the mantle of this brave warrior role certainly increased his political capital.
Joseph McCarthy
Lieutenant, Unites States Marine Corps
But McCarthy was not content with merely claiming the role of a hero, he determined to give himself the recognition due one. His twelve combat missions magically became first seventeen and then thirty-two, thus qualifying him for the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Metal. An injury sustained in a shipboard initiation ceremony morphed into a frequently mentioned “war wound” inflicted by enemy action. Nor was he simply another return veteran, McCarthy now had "fired more bullets than any marine in history.” An impressive letter of commendation praising his military service often presented as evidence of military duty well rendered was actually authored by McCarthy himself. McCarthy would ride his inflated war record to fame and infamy.
McCarthy Campaign Poster
1946
McCarthy put his creative war record to effective use during his 1946 senatorial bid, campaigning on the slogan “America Needs a Tailgunner.” In his primary fight with La Follette, he accused his competitor of shirking military service during the war, conveniently ignoring that fact that La Follette, having been born in 1895, was too old for military duty. Despite his own profiting from market gains during the war, McCarthy hypocritically accused La Follette of war profiteering because of his successfully investing in a radio station. McCarthy’s falsehoods in conjunction with La Follette inept campaigning narrowly secured the nomination for Tailgunner Joe. McCarthy employed equally shameful tactics in the general election, falsely alleging his Democratic opponent, the cerebral and droll Howard McMurray, of Communist tendencies.
For three years, McCarthy was a relative nonentity in the Senate. Were it not for his later misconduct, the newly elected senator would be best known for his defence of the Malmedy Massacre Trial defendants.
In the closing days of the European War, Hitler gambled on one last offensive against the Western Allies, unexpectedly thrusting through the Ardennes to catch unwary and unprepared American troops by surprise. Thus began the Battle of the Bulge. The fighting was brutal and relentless, and made moreso by the viciousness five years of war without mercy had taught the Allies to expect of the Waffen-SS. Among the units spearheading the attack was the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, an armored division that had begun life as the Führer‘s personal bodyguard. Over the course of the war, members of this unit are thought to have coldly murdered over 5,000 prisoners-of-war. At the Battle of the Bulge, Americans would learn the division’s reputation for cruelty well-earned. Units under the command of the vicious Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper butcher at least 362 captured US soldiers and 111 Belgian civilians. The actual tally of victims is likely much higher. A small handful of American soldiers, among them future character actor Charles Durning, miraculously survived to carry word of the massacres.
In the closing days of the European War, Hitler gambled on one last offensive against the Western Allies, unexpectedly thrusting through the Ardennes to catch unwary and unprepared American troops by surprise. Thus began the Battle of the Bulge. The fighting was brutal and relentless, and made moreso by the viciousness five years of war without mercy had taught the Allies to expect of the Waffen-SS. Among the units spearheading the attack was the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, an armored division that had begun life as the Führer‘s personal bodyguard. Over the course of the war, members of this unit are thought to have coldly murdered over 5,000 prisoners-of-war. At the Battle of the Bulge, Americans would learn the division’s reputation for cruelty well-earned. Units under the command of the vicious Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper butcher at least 362 captured US soldiers and 111 Belgian civilians. The actual tally of victims is likely much higher. A small handful of American soldiers, among them future character actor Charles Durning, miraculously survived to carry word of the massacres.
Bodies of Slain American Soldiers
in a Snowy Field Near Malmedy, Belgium
Some Three Weeks After Their Murders
by Waffen-SS Troops
Now an American ally against the Soviet threat in the east, the fate of the Malmedy Massacre Trial defendants because a cause célèbre among some in West Germany. In those parts of the American Midwest heavily with huge German-American communities -- Wisconsin for example -- many US citizens accused the military courts of imposing a “victor’s justice” on accused war criminals. Seeing a chance to garner support from his state’s large German-American voting bloc, McCarthy became an advocate for the convicted Germans.
But it is not for his defense of murderous war criminals we best know McCarthy. It is for his assault on political liberty. What we know call McCarthyism might be said to have begun with a speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia on 9 February 1950. McCarthy’s exact words in the Wheeling Lincoln Day Speech remain open to question since no audio recording exists, but at some point during his address, the senator produced a sheet of paper containing, he alleged, the names of highly-placed known Communists working within the United States State Department. The exact number cited is uncertain: Most accounts recall McCarthy citing a figure of 205. Other observes remembered his saying 57. McCarthy would time and again speak of his unique knowledge of Communist agents finding safe haven in the State Department and elsewhere, but he could never decide on a definitive number. It would vary widely in the years to come.
McCarthy’s fearmongering found fertile soil. Communism was a dangerous threat to freedom and world peace in 1950. A murderous Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with cold-blooded ruthlessness, and the Iron Curtain insured the long-suffering populations of Eastern Europe, not yet recovered from the ravages of World War II, remained as distant from freedom as ever. Let than a year before McCarthy’s Wheeling Speech, Stalin’s scientists successfully tested its first atomic weapon, ending the US monopoly on nuclear weaponry. Communist-back insurgencies raged across Southeast Asia, and Mao Zedong’s communist forces declared victory in China. Closer to home, we learned domestic spies had passed some of America’s most closely guarded secrets to Communist agents. Americans had legitimate reasons to fear Communist misconduct.
But where more measured politicians realized a need for increased caution and sober policymaking, McCarthy found a vehicle he could ride recklessly across the rights and liberties of his fellow Americans in the pursuit of political advantage. We have all seen the appeal of demagogues. They have always been a baneful fixture in the American political system, exploiting, exacerbating, and exaggerating threats so as to rally panicked voters about their standard.
Cartoonist Herblock Coined the Word "McCarthyism"
with this Cartoon Appearing in the Washington Post
on 29 March 1950
McCarthy looked beneath every bed for a Communist, and he never failed to find one. The more prominent Communists, Fellow Travelers, and Red Dupes uncovered in McCarthy’s inflammatory and hysterical witch hunts included General George Marshall, feminist Dorothy Kenyon, newsman Edward R. Murrow, United Nations refugee worker Gustavo Durán, the entire Democratic Party, war correspondent Haldore Hanson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Protestant clergy collectively, jurist Philip Jessup, sinologist Owen Lattimore, diplomat John Service, astronomer Harlow Shapley, Voice of America radio, historian Frederick Schuman, Senator Millard Tydings, President Harry Truman, and the United States Army.
Actually, the entire list is much, much longer, but both time and space are lacking. Suffice it to say that McCarthy found the Senate Committee on Government Operations, which he chaired, to be a suburb truncheon for destroying the lives and careers of his victims.
McCarthy’s opportunistic vitriol was not reserved merely for those at whom he so casually hurled accusations of treason. The senator served in an era harboring a cruel fear and intolerance of homosexuality. Bigotry became another weapon in his fight for political power. McCarthy seemed to take a perverse pleasure in attacking gay Americans, often linking it to his war on Communism. In the crude language reflecting his coarse nature, he once revelled reporters: “If you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you've got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker.” McCarthy often “outed” those he perceived to be gay. He would also blackmail political opponents by threatening to release the names of closeted individuals to the public.
Democratic Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming
Take, for example, the sad story of popular Democratic Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming. Hunt made himself a target of McCarthy by condemning the firebrand’s baseless allegations and defending the innocent victims of mindless anti-Communist witch hunts. In June 1953, Hunt’s 24-year-old son was arrested in Washington, D.C. for soliciting an undercover police officer. McCarthy saw his chance for vengeance and pounced. In this instance, McCarthy was joined by other Republicans desirous of flipping his senate seat to the GOP. McCarthy and his allies threatened to blanket Wyoming with leaflets detailing his son’s sexual orientation unless he agreed to resign and decline to run for future office. Hunt resisted resigning, but did agree not to seek re-election. On 18 June 1945, apparently referring to Hunt, McCarthy accused an unnamed senate college of "just plain wrong doing." Already deeply depressed by the viciousness confronting him, Hunt shot himself in his senate office the following day. He died shortly after transport to a nearby hospital.
Ironically, it would be a gay man who orchestrated McCarthy’s fall from grace, albeit unintentionally. McCarthy’s closest confidant and ally was a unethical and repugnant New York attorney by the name of Roy Cohn. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had been impressed with the young lawyer’s anti-Communist zeal, leading him to recommend Cohn to McCarthy. In McCarthy, Hoover sensed a soul sharing his anti-Communist extremism and hostility to homosexuals. While no certain evidence exists, both Hoover and McCarthy have both been the subject of numerous rumors involving gay conduct. They may or may not have been homosexual. Who knows? But Cohn certainly was gay. Even so, he threw himself wholeheartedly into furthering McCarthy’s hateful agenda.
Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn
G. David Schine, son of hotel magnate Junius Myer Schine, authored an anti-Communist treatise, a copy of which he had placed in every single of his family chain. This little essay captured the attention of similarly minded journalists, leading to the author meeting with Cohn. The two became fast friends, and for all his many ethical and moral failings, Cohn was loyal to his friends. Cohn brought his new friend into the McCarthy machine, and that poisonous engine of slander purred smoothly for smoothly for several months. Then, in late 1953, Schine was conscripted into the United States Army. The thought of his valued friend doing menial work as a lowly private infuriated Cohn, provoking him into initiating a fight with the US Army that would prove ruinous for both him and McCarthy.
Cohn and McCarthy began to apply all their not inconsequential political muscle to strong arming army officials on Schine. Cohn contacted, sometimes in person, everyone in Schine’s chain-of-command from his company commander to the Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens demanding his friend receive special treatment. Cohn insisted that the army give Schine an officer’s commission, light duties, no foreign deployments, and extended leaves or incur McCarthy’s vindictive rancor. Schine, a wealthy pampered playboy whose efforts, when not spreading scandalous rumors, were devoted to self-promotion and wooing beautiful starlets, was completely unqualified for the military service Cohn demanded he received, and the army balked. And so, on Cohn’s behalf, McCarthy thought to humble the US Army.
Now enter President Dwight Eisenhower.
McCarthy enjoyed some measure of popularity among American voters, especially among his fellow conservative Catholics. But most of his fellow senators, even other Republicans, thought the man odious, bullying, and boorish. Several Republicans had long ago joined with Democrats, attempting to halt McCarthy’s brutal rampage across American civil liberties. But to challenge McCarthy was to earn his ire, and that could be very politically impolitic, especially for politicians representing states having large numbers of Catholic voters. For example, Joseph, John, and Robert Kennedy always deferred respectfully to and even defended McCarthy for fear of alienating Massachusetts’s massive Catholic voting bloc.
Among those elected leaders disgusted by McCarthy’s tactics was the president himself. Even so, Eisenhower avoided publical criticism of the Wisconsin senator. First, direct confrontation was simply not Ike’s style. Second, the president thought to effect a compromise over time between McCarthy and his congressional opponents that would, at the least, reduce the more damaging fallout from the senator’s reckless behavior. And third, Eisenhower was ever cautious in risking political capital. But when McCarthy trained his sights on the army, Eisenhower was unable to contain his anger any longer. Eisenhower had spent his entire adult life in the United States Army. He had been its most successful general since Ulysses S. Grant. No president in American history understood the army so well as did Eisenhower, and no president had ever loved it more. The army was his second family. Eisenhower pushed back at last, ordering the army to hold fast and not cooperate with McCarthy.
Now enter President Dwight Eisenhower.
McCarthy enjoyed some measure of popularity among American voters, especially among his fellow conservative Catholics. But most of his fellow senators, even other Republicans, thought the man odious, bullying, and boorish. Several Republicans had long ago joined with Democrats, attempting to halt McCarthy’s brutal rampage across American civil liberties. But to challenge McCarthy was to earn his ire, and that could be very politically impolitic, especially for politicians representing states having large numbers of Catholic voters. For example, Joseph, John, and Robert Kennedy always deferred respectfully to and even defended McCarthy for fear of alienating Massachusetts’s massive Catholic voting bloc.
Among those elected leaders disgusted by McCarthy’s tactics was the president himself. Even so, Eisenhower avoided publical criticism of the Wisconsin senator. First, direct confrontation was simply not Ike’s style. Second, the president thought to effect a compromise over time between McCarthy and his congressional opponents that would, at the least, reduce the more damaging fallout from the senator’s reckless behavior. And third, Eisenhower was ever cautious in risking political capital. But when McCarthy trained his sights on the army, Eisenhower was unable to contain his anger any longer. Eisenhower had spent his entire adult life in the United States Army. He had been its most successful general since Ulysses S. Grant. No president in American history understood the army so well as did Eisenhower, and no president had ever loved it more. The army was his second family. Eisenhower pushed back at last, ordering the army to hold fast and not cooperate with McCarthy.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th President of the United States
20 January 1953 to 20 January 1961
McCarthy declared war on the United States Army by launching a Senate Committee on Government Operations investigation of an Army Signal Corps unit stationed at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy’s investigation failed to uncover the Communist infiltration he alleged, but he did discover something that hereunto he had not witnessed: For the first time, an intended victim of McCarthy’s hectoring possessed the means and will to fight back. Army officials accused the senator and his staff of trying to apply improper influence on behalf of Private Schine. The Senate sent the back-and-forth accusations back and forth between McCarthy and the Army to another committee normally chaired by the Wisconsin senator, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Now, since McCarthy would be appearing before his own committee, the chair was occupied by Karl Mundt of South Dakota, a Republican senator whose political views while similar to those of McCarthy, were usually somewhat less repugnant. Eisenhower, eager to give McCarthy whatever rope he might require to hang himself, urged Senate leaders to televise the proceedings. McCarthy Reign of Terror was set to be toppled.
From 22 April to 17 June 1954, ABC and the DuMont Television Network covered the hearings from as McCarthy, Cohn, and Schine confronted their army adversaries. It is thought that 80-million or so Americans watched some portion of the broadcasts. As Eisenhower expected, McCarthy imploded with self-destructive aplome. Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the US Army, possessed a special talent for plucking each loose thread the McCarthy team might leave exposed.
G. David Schine, Joseph McCarthy, and Roy Cohn
Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1954
For example, Cohn and Schine introduced a photo of the latter with Secretary of the Army Stevens into the proceedings. Welch suggested the photo might have been cropped, leading to both Cohn and Schine testifying under oath that it had not. Welch then produced the original unaltered photo.
And then there was the “Hoover Memo.” In the wake of Welch’s discrediting his photographic evidence, McCarthy produced an official warning apparently drafted by FBI Director Hoover and forwarded to Head of Army Intelligence Alexander R. Bolling warning of Communist infiltration, citing it as evidence that army officials being inexcusably lax in protecting the national security. Welch questioned the letter’s authenticity. Hoover himself, a survivor knowing when to leap, let it be known that he had neither drafted nor ordered to be drafted the memo. The supposed letter was later revealed to a portion of a 15-page FBI document.
But Welch would land his most damning blow on 9 June. During an impassioned exchange, Welch angrily questioned McCarthy’s claiming to possess a list naming 130 subversives employed in vital defense industries. Welch demanded that should such a list exist, Cohn should present the names to the FBI and Department of Defense before sundown. McCarthy sought to deflect the challenge by accusing Fred Fisher, a young lawyer working working at Welch’s firm of Hale and Dorr, of being a Communist, and insisted Welch fire him. Fisher had belonged to the left-leaning National Lawyers Guild, evidence sufficient to convict him by McCarthy standard of proof.
But Welch would land his most damning blow on 9 June. During an impassioned exchange, Welch angrily questioned McCarthy’s claiming to possess a list naming 130 subversives employed in vital defense industries. Welch demanded that should such a list exist, Cohn should present the names to the FBI and Department of Defense before sundown. McCarthy sought to deflect the challenge by accusing Fred Fisher, a young lawyer working working at Welch’s firm of Hale and Dorr, of being a Communist, and insisted Welch fire him. Fisher had belonged to the left-leaning National Lawyers Guild, evidence sufficient to convict him by McCarthy standard of proof.
Joseph McCarthy Accuses Fred Fisher
of Communist Activists and
Joseph Welch Responds
Welch was stunned to hear his young collogue slandered by name on live television lashed back at the accuser.
Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. ... Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.
Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. ... Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.
McCarthy continued his attack on Fisher, but Welch would have none of it.
Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
The confrontation left McCarthy bleeding metaphorically and the visitors’ gallery in applause literally. While the Senate cleared him of wrongdoing, millions of Americans had witnessed his bullying and unethical behavior, and they found it repulsive. His unpopularity numbers soars and he became politically toxic. Formal allies in the Senate now avoided him, and once friendly newspapers ran editorials condemning his conduct.
On 2 December 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy for, among other things, transforming the Senate committee he headed into an "unwitting handmaiden” of the Communist Party. The vote was 67 to 22, not even close, as if to fully illustrate the height from which he had fallen. Republican members split evenly on the vote, eleven for and eleven against. Every Democrat present voted in favor of censure. John F. Kennedy was conveniently hospitalized for back surgery, thus becoming the only senator not voting on the censure motion. (Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted had he been present.)
McCarthy continued his anti-Communist tirades, but now he spoke mostly to an empty chamber. He was a spent force, ignored except when ridiculed or pitied. He would expire on 2 May 1957 at Bethesda Naval Hospital, felled by inflammation of the liver caused by his uncontrolled descent into alcoholism. He was only 48 years old.
In 1987, the popular Georgia band R.E.M. thought to remind the nation that the spirit of McCarthyism survives still. Now that warming seems to have been frightfully prescient.
McCarthy continued his anti-Communist tirades, but now he spoke mostly to an empty chamber. He was a spent force, ignored except when ridiculed or pitied. He would expire on 2 May 1957 at Bethesda Naval Hospital, felled by inflammation of the liver caused by his uncontrolled descent into alcoholism. He was only 48 years old.
In 1987, the popular Georgia band R.E.M. thought to remind the nation that the spirit of McCarthyism survives still. Now that warming seems to have been frightfully prescient.
“Exhuming McCarthy” -- REM
You're beautiful more beautiful than me
You're honorable more honorable than me
Loyal to the Bank of America
It's a sign of the times
It's a sign of the times
You're sharpening stones walking on coals
To improve your business acumen.
Sharpening stones walking on coals
To improve your business acumen.
Vested interest united ties landed gentry rationalize
Look who bought the myth by jingo buy America
It's a sign of the times
It's a sign of the times
You're sharpening stones, walking on coals
To improve your business acumen.
Sharpening stones, walking on coals,
To improve your business acumen.
Enemy sighted, enemy met, I'm addressing the realpolitik
Look who bought the myth, by jingo, buy America
"Let us not assassinate this man further Senator,
You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir?
At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
We're sharpening stones, walking on coals
To improve your business acumen.
Sharpening stones, walking on coals,
To improve your business acumen.
Enemy sighted, enemy met, I'm addressing the realpolitik
You've seen start and you've seen quit
(I'm addressing the table of content)
I always thought of you as quick
Exhuming McCarthy
(Meet me at the book burning)
Exhuming McCarthy
(Meet me at the book burning)
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