Joe McCarthy and the Press

1. When It All Started

1. When It All Started NEWSPAPER HEADLINES in February 1950 depicted a nation on the verge of hysteria. A banner headline on the front page of the New York Journal-American on February 12 said "Plan Wartime Roundup of 4,000 Reds," and another story quoted a Catholic priest telling an American Legion group that "Communists and their dupes" had taken over our foreign policy, that Secretary of State Dean Acheson was "befuddled and weak," and that United States radio networks had been infiltrated by Communists. Another Journal-American story that week charged that "some mysterious political power" was shielding 100 American scientists who were Russian spies, and the front page of the paper on February 19 was given over to a five-column doctored photograph, an imaginary air view of New York City after it had been hit by a Russian atomic bomb. The New York Post reported on February 10 that Lt. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, wartime head of the U.S. atom bomb project, had said that the late President Roosevelt was responsible for Klaus Fuchs's access to America's atomic secrets. Another Post story said that six New York public school teachers were suspected of being Communists, and another told of a reporter's infiltration of a Communist-front school: "Ten Long Nights at a Communist University." A Post headline later that week said, "Einstein Red Faker, Should Be Deported, Rep. Rankin Screams." The Atlanta Constitution reported on February 13 that George M. Craig, the national commander of the American Legion. speaking at Springfield, Missouri. on the same platform as Gov. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. had stated, "There are those in our highest offices today who are enemies of our way of life." The Constitution 3 4 JOE McCARTHY AND THE PRESS reported a few days later that the Grand Exalted Ruler of the Elks had warned Elks in Atlanta that Communism was "hanging over the world like an evil shadow." Fear of this "evil shadow" was nearing its peak in 1950 when Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, began his career as the scourge of "Communists in government." The Soviet Union loomed as a powerful and implacable aggressor as it consolidated its hold on the nations of Eastern Europe, and the news in September of 1949 that it had successfully detonated an atomic bomb made nuclear war seem almost inevitable. The administration of President Harry S Truman, taking an increasingly hard line against Communist aggression, had succeeded in holding back the advance of Communism in Western Europe and in Greece and Turkey through the foreign aid program, but this somehow seemed less significant than the triumph of the Chinese Communists over the demoralized forces of Chiang Kai-Shek. "Spies" were being arrested on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and in England, scientist Klaus Fuchs, who had worked on the joint Anglo-American nuclear projects during World War II, confessed that he had passed atomic information to the Russians. In the United States, Alger Hiss, a diplomat, was found guilty of lying when he denied passing secret government documents to Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist agent, a conviction that further weakened confidence in the little-respected State Department. To the Republicans, denied executive power since 1932, the disarray seemed to present a political opportunity. Since the Democrats were in office when all these unfortunate things occurred, they could be blamed for them, a contention which might have contained some merit, although it would have been possible for a neutral viewer to observe that there was no way short of war that the United States could have controlled or even influenced the actions of the Russians or the Chinese. But the Republicans, led by the party's dominant isolationist wing, sought not only to place blame but to convince the American people that the motivation of the Democrats was treasonous. Since 1936, Republicans had been saying that liberals were Socialists and Socialists were Communists, and since the liberals dominated the Democratic party, Democrats were Communists. The Republicans persisted in this line of attack until the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, and it had the effect of limiting Democratic options in the conduct of foreign policy. No Democratic administration, for example, would have dared to establish friendly relations with Communist China, no matter how logical such a step might have seemed; only a Republican could do that. When It All Started 5...