I recommend this book because it presents a picture of history that is important. However, I would caution that I believe some of the information and accusations about Senator Joseph McCarthy follow “the standard media line.” The introduction to the book includes the quote from Joseph Welch in interrogating Senator Joe McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?” This is referred to as a response to “…an attack by Senator Joseph McCarthy” on June 9, 1954. Stay with me through this review, which discusses many historically important events, and I’ll present the opinion that this quotation, from which the title of the book is taken, makes me less eager to recommend the book.

The Prologue to the book describes that Joe McCarthy, “…ruthlessly, and many would said (sic) recklessly—exploiting the tensions of the cold war between the United States and public anxiety about Communist subversion at home.” I disagree with much of the condemnation of Joe McCarthy for reasons I will discuss in a blog posting on the subject, but the focus on the influence of television on American politics in this book is intriguing. As the author observes, “As it turned out, history would show that the decisive factor…was …a very recent entrant in the American political wars: television.”

The author correctly points out several world events that led the American public to support McCarthy’s allegations of the Soviet threat and influence that led to weakening of U.S. positions during and after World War II. J. Robert Oppenheimer admitted association with Communist organizations while the debate about development of the hydrogen bomb was being debated. Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg were convicted and sentenced to death for providing the Soviets information that led to their successful detonation of an atomic bomb that was designed from information stolen from the Manhattan project. (Roy Cohn, who would be the primary assistant to McCarthy, was a key player in the prosecution of the Rosenbergs.)

Chapter one gives a quick history of why Americans were suspicious of communism. The Progressive President Woodrow Wilson prodded Congress into passing a series of repressive measures based on his belief that any protest that “…impeded his crusade to make the world safe for democracy.” He was obsessed with any threat to the WWI war effort from sabotage and criticism. Some of his concerns were well placed. A conscientious postal clerk turned up over thirty bombs similar to one that exploded in the home of a U.S. senator. Then Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s home was wracked by a tremendous explosion that tore apart the man carrying the bomb in the front yard of the house. A copy of the radical publication Plain Words was found near the remains of the bomber. J. Edgar Hoover and Palmer arrested over 4,000 people, often without warrants, and deported hundreds of them in the First Red Scare.

The Second Red Scare began shortly after the end of WWII after Stalin gained agreement to begin establishing “spheres of influence” in Eastern Europe based on the Yalta Conference agreed to by a physically weakened Roosevelt. President Harry Truman did not trust Stalin, and his Truman Doctrine was designed to support Greece and Turkey against the threat of a communist takeover began the Cold War. Whitaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley made accusations of Soviet espionage networks (facing derision from the liberal press). The House Un-Americans Affairs (HUAC) began investigations of suspected communists to include Alger Hiss. Hiss was the senior State Department official advising FDR at Yalta, and the Venona project confirmed that he was a Soviet spy.

Chapter two begins to discuss what I think makes the book most worthwhile; the influence of television on American politics. “On April 7, 1927, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company sponsored a public demonstration of television…featuring a speech by then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.” RCA showed off commercial TV receivers at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. By 1947 there were four TV networks—NBC, CBS, ABC, and Dumont—connected by cable to nine Northeastern cities. Well known radio announcers avoided the new media, giving the chance to people such as Douglas Edwards and John Cameron Swayze to begin gaining fame as news anchors. TV began to shape the Cold War with reports of the airlifts to Berlin to try to break the Soviet blockade. HUAC spotlighted alleged Communists in Hollywood. The Soviets detonated an atomic bomb, and North Korea invaded the South, and the Second Red Scare was in full swing.

Senator Estes Kefauver launched his probe of organized crime in 1950, and he had to compete with Senator McCarthy to get approval of his crime inquiry. The Kefauver hearings were the fifth time in congressional hearings had been televised. Kefauver had himself televised making accused crime figures squirm in what was excellent theatre. Some questioned the fairness of subjecting witnesses to hostile questioning in front of live cameras, but the popularity of the hearings won out over fairness. An unintended consequent for Kefauver was that his hearings exposed crime and corruption involving fellow Democrats, and the New York Times wrote, “…he was about as popular as a skunk at a lawn party.” He took the majority of delegates to the Democratic convention in 1952, but resentful Democrats eventually nominated Adlai Stevenson.

The book begins its discussion of Joe McCarthy with his infamous speech at a Women’s Club meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia February 9, 1950 He said he held in his hand a list of Communist Party member who were in the State Department. I believe the book incorrectly says that he put the number at 205, but the important thing is that one of the central reasons for attacking McCarthy was that he was later accused of lying about what number he mentioned. There was no formal text of his speech, and the only recording was erased a day after it was made. I have always been fascinated that the focus of Joe’s critics was on the number he had mentioned while they were apparently not interested in the allegation that there were Communists in the State Department. Only 18 newspapers carried a story about the speech the day after it was made. The Tydings Committee eventually investigated Joe’s charges, declared that no Communists had been discovered, and issued a report accusing McCarthy of perpetuating “…a fraud and a hoax on the American people.” (The Venona project was declassified in the mid- 1990s, and confirmed Soviet espionage rings in the government and military contained hundreds of agents.)

The second half of this review will begin with the attacks Joe McCarthy made on powerful people that made him an inviting political target.