Category Archives: Reviews

Blacklisted by History, the Untold Story of Joe McCarthy

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I was given this book by a friend who thought I would find it interesting, and the Joe McCarthy story is certainly interesting. What most people know about him is that the term “McCarthyism,” is used anytime someone wants to accuse another of an unfair accusation. I’ve read a few of the numerous books written about McCarthy’s investigations of communists and communism in the federal government in the early 1950s. Few of the books have anything good to say about him. If you can think of a derogatory term, that term has probably been used to describe him. Joe McCarthy is often portrayed as one of the most evil men to set foot on the floor of the United States Senate.

“Blacklisted by History” by M. Stanton Evans paints a completely different picture, and it is filled with references. It also has copies of memos, letters, hearing records, etc. reproduced in the book that often debunk the common allegations against McCarthy.  Some of the debunking is quite straight-forward. He has been accused of being responsible for the House Un-American Activities Committee persecution of people in Hollywood. It would be quite unusual, perhaps even idiotic, to think a Senator would have anything to do with a House of Representatives committee.

I think it would be worthwhile to quote someone who didn’t like Joe McCarthy (and I think I’ll begin calling him “Joe”). Garrison Keillor wrote on December 17, 2005 in an article titled “McCarthy had a gift of graceful speech,” “It is exhilarating to discover the truth and to find out you were off the mark…There was a Soviet espionage network in our government and the fact that Joseph McCarthy was a drunk, a bully, and a cynical opportunist doesn’t change that. Along with a lot of other Democrats, I’ve wasted a lot of time on these issues that I was in fact wrong about. I’m glad to be set straight.” History has shown that Joe’s quest to expose the extent of communist penetration of the U.S. government and military in the 1940s was only incorrect in one important respect. He severely underestimated the extent of the problem. However, he stepped on many powerful political toes, and paid a huge price for the irritation he created.

Joe began his firestorm of political controversy February 9, 1950 with a speech to a Republican Women’s Club in Wheeling, West Virginia. He announced that there was a serious problem of Communist infiltration of the State department, that the problem hadn’t been dealt with, and that strong measures were needed to correct the problem. He said “I hold in my hand…” a list of Communists in the State Department. I find it fascinating that the McCarthy detractors then and now did not and do not dispute the underlying accusation. However, there were extensive investigations about the number of people he said were included on his list. He later said his list included 57 names, and there were Congressional investigations based on allegation he used a different number (usually 205) in the speech. The investigations weren’t focused on Communist infiltration of the government, but on the number McCarthy mentioned. I will write cynically that it wasn’t important whether there was Communist infiltration. It seems incredible that what was important was whether the infiltration involved 57 officials spying for the Soviets or 205. Joe would deny under oath that he had used the number 205, and would eventually be accused of perjury because of that denial.

The tape of the speech was erased, so there is no way of confirming what Joe said. However, the Wheeling newspaper had an editorial the day following the speech referring to “over fifty” suspects of Communist affiliation. The Denver Post had an article the same day with the headline, “57 Reds Help Shaping U.S. Policy: McCarthy.”

Samuel Klaus had drafted a confidential memo in August 1946 detailing the suspected Soviet agents in the State Department. A similar report was generated in 1947 by Robert E. Lee (no relation to the Confederate General). Several of the people named on those lists were on McCarthy’s list and were confirmed to be Soviet spies by the Venona project and by archives that were made public after the collapse of the Soviet Union,

All copies of the Klaus memo would disappear from public records. What has not disappeared from the public record is that the Soviets had a massive network of spies in the U.S. government and military during and after World War II. They obtained everything they needed to build their own atomic bomb from espionage operations inside the Manhattan Project. The U.S. State Department did everything possible to assure that a Communist government took over control of China. North Korea was positioned to invade South Korea and was later supported by the Chinese Communists. Joe might have come late to the party of figuring out why these things happened, but it is undisputed history that they did happen.  The author offers the opinion, “If McCarthy had killed someone during a spree of drunken driving, or been caught in adultery with a student intern, he would have been denounced and gone into history books as a scoundrel (or maybe not). But he wouldn’t have been rhetorically embalmed, placed on exhibit as an “ism,” or have his effigy dragged around the public square forever after. All too obviously, such nonstop derogation has occurred, not to blacken the memory of an individual, but to serve a broader purpose.” Perhaps the focus should be on why McCarthy was destroyed “…to serve a broader purpose,” instead of how many people were on his list.

The FBI had investigated communist infiltration for decades before Joe made his speech. Chief Special Agent Guy Hottel wrote in a 1946 memo to Hoover, “It has become increasingly clear in the investigation of this case that there are a tremendous number of person employed in the United States government who are Communists and strive daily to advance the cause of Communism…” The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began investigating for both Nazis and Communists in 1938. However, it was Joe McCarthy that “…blew the lid off some major security cases, foremost among them the long-buried Amerasia scandal, in which hundreds of official documents had been funneled to this pro-Communist publication and the facts about the matter hidden from the public.” “Officials at the White House, State Department, and elsewhere in government weren’t eager to have the unvarnished facts about the level of Communist penetration on their watch, and their failure to do much about it, set forth clearly before the nations. Joe McCarthy…managed to focus the blazing spotlight of public notice on these issues in a way nobody had done before him. He and his charges were thus viewed in certain quarters as a serious menace to be dealt with quickly, and in most decisive fashion. And so in fact they would be.” This book does a well-documented job of telling the story of how Joe McCarthy was destroyed to protect the guilty. Newsweek reported that the objective was the “…total and eternal destruction of McCarthy.”

Many of the books about Joe include a challenge to “Name one Communist (or Soviet agent) ever by identified by him in his sensational speeches and investigations.” The authors of that challenge apparently haven’t done much research. It is true that none of those charged in Joe’s lists were definitely proven to be Communists or Soviet agents in his lifetime, perhaps because most of the effort expended by investigators was to discredit Joe instead of looking into what he was saying. However Venona and the opening of the Soviet archives confirmed several of the people on his lists to be Communists, Soviet agents, or both. There is a list of ten people named by McCarthy on page 39 of the book that were later identified by Venona decryptions of Soviet cables (see the review about Venona for details). Chapter 26 lists a few of the people that Joe investigated and provides incriminating details about their associations and activities.

The origin of the derogatory term, “McCarthyism,” is quite interesting. Joe had resisted announcing names on his list public, observing that he did not believe it would be fair to name suspects until further investigation confirmed the suspicions. He repeatedly said hearings should be in executive session and steadfastly refused demands to provide names to the Senate. He said, “The names are available. The senators may have them if they care for them. I think, however, it would be improper to make the names public until the appropriate Senate committee can meet in executive session and get them.” He continued to refuse to “…indict them before the country, without giving them a chance to be heard.” He and his Republican colleagues on the Senate subcommittee that was to hear his charges voted to have the hearings in executive (secret) sessions. The subcommittee chairman and the majority of the subcommittee voted to hold the hearings in public sessions and announced there would be no executive sessions. Joe, in my opinion, made a mistake by believing the hearings were more important than the secrecy of the names, and began to name names. Thus, he became guilty of “McCarthyism.”

Joe, who was often characterized as a bully, was often bullied by his opponents. He was called to testify to a Senate committee, and was interrupted repeatedly as he attempted to read a prepared statement. Henry Cabot Lodge finally interceded, asking, “Why cannot the senator from Wisconsin get the normal treatment and be allowed to make his own statement in his own way, and not be cross-questioned before he has had a chance to present what he has?”

I’ll close this part of the review with an incredible story of Senator Millard Tydings, who was instrumental in the interrogation and criticism of Joe McCarthy. Page 244 of the book has a picture of Tydings displaying a phonograph record and player that he displayed to the Senate saying that the record was a recording of Joe’s Wheeling speech that was proof that Joe had lied about the number of people on the list he held that day. There was no record of Joe’s speech, and the record and player were nothing more than theatrical props. Tydings was called to give testimony in a libel suit between McCarthy and William Benton. He danced around the question successfully for a while, but was eventually forced to admit under oath that he did not have a recording of the Wheeling speech. The speech on record turned out to be a radio interview in Salt Lake City that substantiated Joe’s claim that he had used the number 57. However, of course Joe’s detractors don’t mention this “inconvenient fact.”

There is more to follow in part two.

The Forsaken, an American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia—Part III

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Part one of the review of this book describes how thousands of Americans immigrated to Russia during the Great Depression to find jobs in the “Worker’s Paradise.” They were treated well in the early days, but the Soviets began to arrest and imprison them along with all other nationalities, including Russians, when the Terror began. Part two of the review describes the Gulags and the brutal treatment of millions of people. Few survived. The United States government seldom did anything to help any Americans who were desperate to escape. The official policy was to never do anything that would cause embarrassment to “Uncle Joe,” which is what Roosevelt called Stalin.

Roosevelt was forced to deny Stalin’s request to return one defector who was stirring up negative publicity about what was happening in the Soviet Union. The defector, Victor Kravchenko had attracted international attention. Both  Ambassador Joseph Davies and Harry Hopkins advised Roosevelt to return Kravchenko. Hopkins argued that no one would know what happened to Kravchenko if he were returned, but Roosevelt sensed a political disaster in the making and refused the extradition. Kravchenko published “I Choose Freedom,” describing Stalin’s crimes, and was tried for libel in France after an onslaught of furious attacks from Soviet critics. Kravchenko won a token one franc award, but there continued to be a “…willingness to deny the truth of what was ongoing in the Soviet Union.” Kravcheenko repeatedly claimed Soviet agents were trying to kill him and was eventually found dead of what was declared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Manhattan apartment.

Stalin wasn’t finished with the Terror at the end of WWII. He obtained an agreement from both Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta that all Soviet prisoners of war would be repatriated to the Soviet Union “…without exception and by force if necessary…” Stalin publicly warned that “…in Hitler’s camps there are no Russian prisoners of war, only Russian traitors and we shall do away with them when the war is over.” The prisoners being prepared for return were given leaflets “…showing a beautiful Russian woman stretching out her arms and saying, ‘Come home, dearest son, your motherland calls you’.” The returned POWs were immediately stripped, given striped prison pajamas, and shipped to the Gulag. Some Russian being prepared to be shipped from Fort Dix New Jersey expected what would happen on their return and rioted to resist. Rifle fire, tear gas, and clubs had to be used to quell the riot. Some chose suicide over return to the Soviet Union. Continue reading →

The Forsaken, An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia—Part II

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This is the second part of the review of the book by Tim Tzouliadis. My objective to posting book reviews is to give readers sufficient information to decide whether to read the book. I recommend this book, and the new book cost at Amazon is discounted.

Part I was about the massive immigration of Americans to the Soviet Union during the Great Depression and the beginning of the Terror in which Americans and all other nationalities, including Russians, were arrested and either executed or sentenced to slave labor in the Gulags. This part is about the Gulags and how Roosevelt and Churchill ignored the evidence of massive crimes against humanity by Stalin to justify support of their new ally against the Germans.  Reading the many descriptions of individuals being tortured made me wonder how anyone could have done what was described to another person and how the person being tortured could have held up to such treatments. Victor Herman, an American Jew, was punched in his back over his kidneys day after day while being exhorted to confess. On the fifteenth day he “…began bleeding from his penis, his rectum, his nose, and his eyes.” On the fifty-third night he was told he would be released if he only signed a list of names. He refused and was beaten by a gang with clubs. He was shocked into consciousness by the smell of his leg being burned. Believing he was about to die, Victor Herman spat in his torturers face. He woke up in the prison hospital and was sentenced to work in the Kolyma gold fields in Siberia where few prisoners survived for more than a few weeks. He served out his sentence, was released, built a house out of permafrost, married, and fathered a daughter who begged to be told stories about America.

Not all arrested were tortured. Millions were transported in NKVD prison trains with 70 packed into each car. Those who survived the trip would usually be quickly worked and starved to death in the Gulag. Walter Duranty wrote in the New York Times about “…thirty or forty thousand killed” in the Terror, which understated the number of deaths by about a factor of about a hundred. The Soviet Union’s own statisticians unwittingly revealed the truth about the Terror. One Soviet census was reported at 159 million instead of the expected 176 million. Stalin had the statisticians that had compiled the census executed. Continue reading →

Forsaken, An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia—Part I

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This book by Tim Tzouliadis gave me at least a partial answer to my puzzlement over the years why some Americans were taken in by Soviet propaganda and some were even willing to serve as Soviet spies. I hadn’t known before reading the book that thousands of Americans immigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s to escape the oppression of the Great Depression and to take part in the “Worker’s Paradise.” They are described as being mostly ordinary citizens in search of what they had been told was a better life. Many entire families immigrated. The early years seem to have gone more or less well for most of them. By the late 1930s most of them had been arrested and shot or died in the Gulags. Very few managed to escape back to America.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been elected President in a landslide and began to launch the New Deal. He said in his inaugural address that “The moneychangers have fled from their high seats in the temple…,” and “The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.” The author observed Americans couldn’t be blamed for being drawn to Russia if the President could make such a speech without being called a “Red.” Moscow-based New York Times reporter Walter Duranty wrote in early 1931 of “…the greatest wave of immigration in modern history…” One writer observed that “broke Americans” unable to afford transportation to Russia could wait for winter and “…walk from Alaska to Siberia over the ice of the Bering Straits…” George Bernard Shaw broadcast a lecture after visiting the USSR saying Americans should want to go to Russia to escape “…our bankrupt Capitalism…” There were as many as 150 Americans arriving in Moscow a day by the end of 1931. Anna Louise Strong, a progressive friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and frequent visitor to Moscow, was giving glowing reports about Soviet progress to FDR. Continue reading →

Making a Real Killing—Operations, Legal Actions, and Controversies

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This is the second half of my review about the book by Len Ackland. The first half was about the history of homesteading and development of the area that included Rocky Flats by the Church family beginning in 1861 and the selection of part of their land for the construction of a new nuclear weapons production plant. This part of the review will briefly summarize what was written about early years of operation when the plant was more or less considered “invisible” to neighbors and the later years when accidents and incidents led to a precipitous decline in the reputation of the place.  I wrote that I would restrict myself to doing a non-editorializing review, and I succeeded at that in the first half of my review of the book. I disagree with some of what is mentioned in this half, and I intend to post a blog discussing those items. An asterisk indicates that you can read a differing view on the blog site. I suggest reading that blog and my book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked to get another perspective about Rocky Flats.

The first building constructed on the Rocky Flats site, was named “Building D”, and would eventually be called Building 991. The book calls it “…the atomic bomb assembly building.”* In those early days everyone working at the plant had to have a “Q clearance” issued after background investigations by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Building 771 was constructed later to allow a multitude of operations including the ability to process solutions containing plutonium, and it would be the location of the first major accident in 1957 resulting in an uncontrolled release of plutonium. A fire breached the filter plenums in the exhaust system until fire fighters brought it under control with water. The workers (there were about 2000 at the time) were concerned that the facility would not be brought back on line, and that their jobs would be lost. However, resources were dedicated to decontamination and repair, and the building was brought back into production. Not surprisingly, the fire created an increase in focus on safety. However, there was little outside attention given to the accident, in part because the official accident report issued by the AEC called it a “serious accident,” but didn’t name Rocky Flats. The accident had occurred within the memory of the harsh Soviet suppression of the 1956 uprising in Hungary, which “…confirmed the regime’s brutality…” “Most Americans, including the managers and employees at Rocky Flats, accepted the notion that the United States had to win the nuclear arms race in order to defeat communism.” Continue reading →

Making a Real Killing, Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West—Early History

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This book by Len Ackland is researched well, and I recommend it as one book to read about the Rocky Flats plant that produced components for nuclear weapons in Colorado. The title gives away the fact that Mr. Ackland’s point of view differs from the views I presented in my book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths debunked.” However, in several instances of where common subjects are discussed, factual information in the two books is often virtually identical. I give Mr. Ackland credit for his extensive discussion of the history of the area and the Church family, which is not included in my book. I intend to restrict myself to doing a non-editorializing review in this first part of the review. The part of the review is about homesteading in the Rocky Flats area by the Church family in 1861, development of the area, and the “taking” of some of the Church land for the construction of a new nuclear weapons production plant. The second half will be about the operation of Rocky Flats, accidents, legal actions, and controversies. I will post a blog after that review discussing some points of disagreement I have with what is in the book.

The history of the Church family is nicely woven into the book, and the first chapter gives a well-written description of when George Henry Church and Sarah (Miller) Church beginning with when they arrived in Colorado in 1861 “…seeking adventure and gold.” Striking it rich with gold didn’t work out, and the couple eventually settled down to farm and raise cattle. Henry built a system of ditches and reservoirs to provide water to the enterprises, and that was a significant contribution to the settlement and development of the entire area. Homesteaders were subsidized by the federal government, “But that reality wouldn’t make the government’s later taking of Rocky Flats land go down any easier for the Churches.” The government offered $18 an acre but paid several times that figure after Marcus Church rejected the first offer and took legal action.

The second chapter details the influence of U.S. Senator Edwin Johnson , or “Big Ed,” of Colorado in the selection of a Colorado location for “Project Apple,” which was the name given to the effort to select a location for the new nuclear weapons plant that would eventually adopted the name “Rocky Flats.” He formed a bipartisan team with Eugene Milliken, and the two of them together were able to influence the location of several military facilities in Colorado. The first was the Rocky Mountain Arsenal followed by the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) and the Air Force Academy. Both senators were on the Congressional Atomic Energy Committee and were strong supporters of anything that would be advantageous to U.S. uranium mining. Johnson was chairman of the Senate’s Military Affairs Committee by the end of World War II. Milliken helped draft the Atomic Energy Act that formed the cornerstone of U.S. nuclear policy. The Atomic Energy Commission was busy in the late 1940s demanding increasing numbers of nuclear weapons. They identified seventy Soviet targets requiring 133 atomic bombs. The military contended that “…scheduled bomb production should be substantially increased and extended,” and that they needed more than 133 nuclear weapons. The military had identified 5,000 to 6,000 “…prospective Soviet nuclear targets…” by the time construction had begun at Rocky Flats. Continue reading →