The first two parts of this review discuss the early history of Joe McCarthy’s charges about extensive Soviet penetration of the U.S. government and the growing resistance by powerful forces to those charges. This part will discuss the later stages when attacks against Joe began be take hold. It is my opinion that his support base quickly eroded when he shifted his focus from people in the State Department to the U.S. Army in general and General Marshall in particular.

“McCarthy’s most controversial speech, deplored by friend and foe alike, was his marathon70,000 word indictment of Gen. George C. Marshall, presented to the Senate on June 14, 1951…” (The public gave Joe wide support before that speech.) McCarthy was seeking the source of policy blunders in and after World War II, and those drafting the speech for him decided Marshall was at the center of the problem. For example, Marshall disagreed with Churchill’s contention that an invasion of the French coast would result in disastrous casualties, and that the invasion should be up through Italy to the “soft underbelly of the Balkans.” Stalin was furious at that idea (because he wanted the Balkans left to him after the war), and Marshall and Eisenhower agreed with FDR’s desire to accede to Stalin’s wishes. Joe was also upset with FDR’s secret Yalta deal with Stalin that gave the Soviets control of Manchuria’s ports and railway systems (and conceded Poland to the Soviets) and the diligent efforts by the State Department to assure Communist control of China. The author offers the opinion that the “…criticism is deserved…a good deal of what he had to say about the policy blunders were not only true but urgently important…McCarthy was right that an immense conspiracy was afoot—especially with regard to China—though erring as to the role of Marshall.”

I found a memo originally classified “Top Secret” copied on page 423 to be quite startling. It turns out the State Department not only wanted Mao to have control of mainland China, they also wanted Chiang Kai-shek ousted from Formosa. The memo clearly states that “The U.S. should inform Sun Li-jen in the strictest confidence that the U.S. Government is prepared to furnish him the necessary military aid and advice in the event that he wishes to stage a coup d’état for the purpose of establishing his military control of the island.”

The book details Joe’s investigations and those conducted against him. The author observes that there were as many investigations of Joe as he conducted against others. He only had one Democrat Senator who was clearly on his side. Joseph P. Kennedy was an admirer of Joe, and McCarthy steered clear of Massachusetts as J.F.K. campaigned to become a Senator. Unfortunately for Joe, he made an enemy of Henry Cabot Lodge, who lost to J.F.K. That wouldn’t be as big a problem as the fact that President Dwight Eisenhower disliked Joe intensely. The anti-George Marshall speech had outraged Eisenhower. “Marshall and Ike were both products of the Roosevelt regime, avatars of the peculiar global vision FDR and Harry Hopkins had promoted during World War II. Both generals had been raised to power over the heads of others by the New Deal White House, and perforce were agents of Roosevelt’s often addled wartime notions and inertial carry-through by Truman. You couldn’t survey the Roosevelt-Truman record without running across the names of Ike and Marshall.”

There were two events involved in the eventual censuring and destruction of Joe that had a central role in the recent George Clooney movie “Good Night and Good Luck.” One was the interrogation of Anna Lee Moss, who wore a cute little hat with a flower on top and acted quite sweet and innocent under Joe’s interrogation. Senators Stuart Symington and Scoop Jackson asked Mrs. Moss whether there were other Annie Lee Mosses in Washington. She demurely answered, “Yes, sir, there are three Annie Lee Mosses.” The Senators and the media immediately decided that Joe had brought the wrong Annie Lee Moss to be interrogated. The facts later proved that there was only one Annie Lee Moss who had lived at the address where a Communist newspaper subscription had been delivered. The FBI had investigated the Annie Lee Moss who was being interrogated, found that she had joined the Communist Party on December 1, 1943, and had provided that information to Senator Scoop Jackson prior to the hearings. Senator Jackson had been told by the FBI they were convinced that she was a Communist.

There were also inferences that the position Mrs. Moss held did not warrant any concern regardless of whether she was a Communist or not. It turns out her job description was to, “Examine messages received in tape form in code and text from Receiving Banks…Process high precedence messages immediately by hand-carrying to overseas desk for quick routing…disposition of encrypted messages destined for or received from the Crypto Center…” As to Clooney’s portrayal of the Moss interrogation in his movie, Clooney made it clear after the fact that he had been informed that Mrs. Moss was a Communist and not a mistaken-identity victim.

The other event portrayed in Good Night and Good Luck was the one most remembered and written about in negative portrayals of Joe. Joe Welch was interrogating McCarthy’s assistant Roy Cohn about a variety of matters, and Welch was skilled at theatrics. Joe raised the issue of Fred Fisher who had belonged to a Communist front organization. Welch railed, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never fully grasped your cruelty or your recklessness…Little did I dream you could be so reckless or cruel as to do injury to that lad.” When Joe tried to respond, Welch interrupted him with, “Let us not assassinate this lad further Senator. You have done enough. Have you left no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” Welch then broke into tears and the chamber responded with sustained applause. It turns out that Joe Welch had provided information for a New York Times article that he had “relieved from duty his original second assistant, Frederick G. Fisher Jr. of his own Boston law office, because of admitted previous membership in the National Lawyers Guild…a Communist front organization.” This article appeared six weeks before Joe mentioned Fred Fisher in the hearing. Apparently that NY Times article, reprinted on page 568, was of no interest to those bent on destroying Joe. Joe Welch did not rail at himself, “Have you left no sense of decency?”

I’ve requested a book titled No Sense of Decency by Robert Shogan. I’m guessing from the title that book will take a different tact on Joe’s “guilt,” but we shall see. I’ll remember the warning “history is interpretive” before seeing that book.

I’m going to close this with a quick mention that Joe McCarthy was censured by the Senate on 33 counts, many of which had been extracted from media accusations. One friendly Senator had asked why he could be censured for things said about other Senators when those other Senators weren’t being censured for viscous things they had said about him. The answer was that because Joe was being tried and no one else. Half of the Republicans voted to censure Joe and half voted against it. All the Democrats voted in favor with the exception of J.F.K., who did not attend the session because of illness. Joe’s name has been consistently vilified since. He died about thirty months after the censure vote, and it is often said he drank himself to death. The author observes that, “It’s true that, ultimately, they got him’ but it’s equally true that, before this happened, he got them—or at least a sizable number of them.”