New Look at McCarthyism?

[daveleau]

In 1995, the U.S. government released its cache of Soviet cables that had been decoded during the Cold War in a top-secret undertaking known as the Venona Project. The cables proved the overwhelming truth of McCarthy's charges.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/a...20030626.shtml


Interesting!


:::This is not a report, but an editorial column.

[CERuppel]

Dave: Got any links to the decoded stuff? Or at least a decode vs McCarthy comparison chart?

I still think that the hollywood twelve was pure politics, not some communist plot.

[Harold7]

If you want info on the Venona decrypts go here: http://www.nsa.gov/docs/venona/

A really good book about how the communists attempted to take over the film industry and how they were stopped is : Reagan's War by Peter Schweizer.

You can also find a book called the Mitroikhin Archives , which is a compilation of KGB files from the 30's to the 90's that were secretly smuggled out of Russia after the end of the Cold War and show how extensive and intensive the KGB's intelligemce operations were against the West.... aided immeasurably by naive, leftist intellectuals and media types.

[M_Six]

Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now.

Well, that was enough for me. This woman needs to meet my brother.

No doubt the Soviets were recruiting spies here during the Cold War. The US was doing the same over there. That's how the game was played. But McCarthy was conducting a witch hunt where suspects were considered guilty simply because of the people they considered friends or because of the organizations to which they belonged. Guilt by association. No due process. Blacklists that could and did end the careers of innocent people. I'll grant that there may have been Soviet attempts to recruit and control Hollywood bigwigs, but the real damage of the era came from spies within the government. McCarthy was looking in the wrong place.

[Telexen]

Reading the first paragraph shows the author is a little too biased to be writing editorials.

[daveleau]

Editorials are biased, hence the "warning" in my first post. If this were a news report, I would agree. Editorials and commentaries are biased by nature. She is very biased, but not any moreso than Bob Woodward or many other writers.

[Theophylact]

daveleau, the Venona decrypts are very damaging to many liberals' long-held beliefs; they clearly establish that there was a Communist conspiracy, and that many Americans were involved. Even the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg now concedes that his father (though not his mother) was a spy.

But not a single one of those targeted and named by McCarthy has been confirmed.

Anticommunism has been vindicated; McCarthyism (the reckless smearing of people as Communists, without evidence, for political purposes) is as bankrupt as ever.

By the way: citing Ann Coulter in support of anything is poisoning the well. Her first book, Slander, was well named, though she had the wrong target...

[Chuckiechan]

Ann Coulter, without a doubt is a right wing muckraker! However, her book deserves to be read. Mc Carthy and Mc Carthyism was taught as somekind of dangerous movement against citizens. It was a dangerous movement against the small, but growing Communist party here in the USA. Remember during that time most people in this country were terrified of communism. We were actually at the beginning of the cold war, wondering when the shooting was going to start. The Rosenbergs were convicted of giving secrets of the H-bomb to the Russians. The Russians had spy's everywhere, it seemed!

His tactics were extreme and often with out proof, but at least he stood up and made his case. His case was made in the form of a Senate hearing. No burning tourches, no lyinchings! The schools and media created the Joe Mc Carthy we know today, but in his time he was seen as a hero by many respectable, responsible people.

My $.02

Note: there will be a quiz on Monday! Agree with me or get a "C"!

[M_Six]

The schools and media created the Joe Mc Carthy we know today...

That's right. It was those blasted, lying liberals again.

[daveleau]

Ann Coulter is about as far right in American politics as you can get, I agree. Her idea is to be so far out ont he right that it brings some closer to the middle or a little further right. She can be outrageous, but that is what she tries to do. While her name-calling and strong verbage is present, she does come out with a lot of interesting facts that the media truly will not report on.