A sample of McCarthyism

You probably have heard about Joe McCarthy's flaws, real or imagined, as summarized in the pejorative McCarthyism.

A sample of McCarthyism:

McCarthy aide Roy Cohn is questioning Ruth Levine, who had a top secret clearance and was then working for the Federal Telecommunications Laboratory in Lodi, N.J., a defense contractor associated with the Army Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth, N.J.

Cohn: During that period of time [when employed by FTL] did you engage in conspiracy to commit espionage with a man named Harry Hyman [a union chief]?

Levine: I decline to answer on the grounds of the fourth and fifth amendments.

Cohn: Did you participate in underground meetings of the Communist Party with Harry Hyman in his home?

Levine: I decline to answer on the grounds of the fourth and fifth amendments.

Cohn: On the date you were granted top secret clearance, which was March 29, 1950, were you a member of the Communist Party?

Levine: I decline to answer on the grounds of the fourth and fifth amendments.

This transcript excerpt appears in a book by M. Stanton Evans:  Blacklisted by History: the untold story of Senator Joe McCarthy and his fight against America's enemies (Random House, 2007).

No doubt Levine had a right to avail herself of the fifth amendment right against self-incrimination, but she could hardly expect that the Pentagon would continue her security clearance after such an exchange or that the defense contractor she worked for would continue her employment. And, we may conjecture that, by citing the fourth amendment, she was implying that evidence had been gathered against her from a warrantless bug planted by feds. Yet her position was such that she should have been prepared to face  security investigations.

Evans notes that two Fort Monmouth security officers were reprimanded by the Pentagon on two different occasions for trying to crack down on probable espionage at Fort Monmouth during the Korean war. It is hard to assess how many American lives were lost by this nonchalance.

Evans has gone to great lengths to bring another perspective to the McCarthy controversy and, despite his advocacy style of investigative reporting, has done a very good job of showing what was at stake and what McCarthy was up against.

As a reporter who has looked at various records from that era and subsequently, I can attest that the American people have not, for quite a while now, been told how severe the problems have been concerning communist penetration of government and our social institutions.

Why, you may wonder, is McCarthy relevant today? Answer: because some group (guess who?) is still ensuring that he gets a bum rap. I am not talking about knee-jerk liberals who have never closely examined the record, or certain academics in denial because of their axiomatic assumptions, but of those who have in the past made it difficult for books like Evans's to see the light of day. In fact, it's something of a miracle that it was published by a major publisher and sold in chain book stores.

Note: Some may wonder how a journalist like me, who otherwise seems so liberal, or at least libertarian, could be such a troglodyte about the issue of communism in government. The answer is: truth. Truth is what we're after.