Need source material that there were not really (m)any Communists

[Hissyspit]

infiltrating the U.S. government during the McCarthy era. I have heard perfectly good scholars and historians say that, no matter McCarthy's true motivations (power, self-aggrandizment, whatever), Soviet spies were few and far between. Need to counter arguments justifying McCarthy's behavior based on 'real Cold War threat/he was barking up the right tree' analysis. Internet sources quotes are fine. Would like to find as much as I can. Thanks.

[Psephos]

1. Good luck

There were lots of them.

Spying was a fact of life by the opposing powers in the Cold War. We did it to them, they did it to us.

Peace.

[bpilgrim]

2. there are ALWAYS spys, so there is somewhat a grain of truth to that SM

(straw-man)

the proportionality is what was the problem with the McCarthy witch hunt.

the best example you can give is how many high officials were actually proven to be actual spies.

guess what, no one remembers because there were hardly any... kinda reminds you of the recent CIA/FBI 'secret' report on actual sleeper cells here in the 'HOMELAND'

the only place all this fanatical-ism will lead is the same place imperial japans radical patriotism led.

America is the last place on earth to have learned this terminal lesson, apparently.

:scared:

peace

[Hissyspit]

4. That's more of what I'm talking about...

I know there are always spies. And I guess I should differiniate between communist-party members in the gov, past-communist party members, and Soviet spies, in particular.

I know the KGB opened up their files in the early 90s and I don't recall hearing "Oh my God, we were infested back in the early 50s!" I seem to recall one scholar saying by the early 50s, the problem had actually waned some or that by emphasizing/persecuting Americans who were communist party members back in the 1930s/the Great Depression, McCarthy was actually taking attention away from much more serious Cold War problems.

[bpilgrim]

9. they've always needed a boogie man to loot the treasury

remember the PEACE DIVIDEND they used to talk about, once we defeated the communist, to pacify us whenever someone brought up what a waste of money, time, and morality it was to continue building missiles that could destroy all life on earth many times over.

now they got us petrified over some guys in caves thousands of miles away :crazy:

peace

[the_spectator]

10. You're right, but --

Absolutely right there bpilgrim. However, I certainly don't remember many (or any) Democrats ready to celebrate after the 89 - 91 period when Eastern Europe, then Russia, abandoned communism. I don't think this was fear, so much, that Reagan would get the credit. Instead, it was simply the knee-jerk 20th century sensibility of crisis that the Left is wedded to - we can never admit that hey, things are getting better! If people had been willing to celebrate at that time, maybe we could have seen to it that the "peace dividend" wasn't pissed away. Maybe people could have had some perspective about 9/11 when it happened - yes, treat it as a crime to be minimized, or at the least, a setback in good times rather than another descent into world-threatening chaos. The problem is, when most Leftists think that the best way to sound intelligent is to be pessimistic, and always proclaim that these are the worst of times, it leaves us defenseless when the Right starts ginning up the fear engines again.

Relatedly, I love this week's Tom Tomorrow cartoon!-- The Penguin Perspective

[bpilgrim]

11. welcome to DU

but you are buying into the right-wing wacko spin...

"it was simply the knee-jerk 20th century sensibility of crisis that the Left is wedded to "

please... it is called PROGRESS and yes, we are 'married' to it.

now you want to blame the left for the continued massive military spending? sorry pal the military industrial complex in cooperation with their corporate partners and political leaders deserve all the credit for that.

this NEVER ENDING struggle against the greedy elite continues to this very day and it is up to us, the left and the right to DISSENT and FIGHT for a better world, ALWAYS.

peace

[the_spectator]

13. Thanks !

But no, no - I believe in Progress - that's what's best about the Left, of course. What I'm saying is that people on the Left have a hard time admitting it when progress is actually made - that's what I mean by "sensibility of crisis." Racism exists today, for example, but REAL PROGRESS was made in the civil rights era of the late 50s and 1960s. Similarly, REAL PROGRESS was made for the security and peace of humanity when communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and Russia. If people had been willing to say, at that moment 1989-1991, "hey, the world just became a better place, we are more at peace than ever before" then maybe people could have had some perspective on 9/11. Instead, everyone bought into the "War on Terror" theme propagated by the Administration without question -- as I see it, the Right is always more than ready to "protect" us against enemies, but when the Left is congenitally averse to optimistic outlooks, it makes it very difficult to withstand the Right's fearmongering.

[bpilgrim]

17. "people on the Left have a hard time admitting it when progress is actual

"people on the Left have a hard time admitting it when progress is actually made"

thats nonsense, thats the same line the M$MW put out there DAILY to keep us fighting amongst ourselves.

shoot, we all celebrate MLK birthday now but blacks in this country are not only discriminated against DAILY they are PERSECUTED by our criminal justice system and our political system.

when the walls came down there were parties all over the planet, r u kidding me?

the ignorance fostered by the M$MW and regurgitated by you and many others is why we are in this mess.

look at the top... that is where our problems lie.

stick around here and you will learn a thing or two about the catalyst for all our woes.

don't drink the kool-aide it's bad for all our health :hi:
peace

[Hissyspit]

23. Another Welcome to DU from Me! n/t

[acmejack]

3. The best I could do quickly...

Should give you some ammo. There were lots of right wing sites swearing they were everywhere then and still are in the Democratic party!

http://wmass.indymedia.org/newswire/display/734/index.php

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhuac.htm

http://www.dss.mil/seclib/govsec/appa7.htm

http://www.publiceye.org/apocalyptic/Dances_with_Devils_2.html

[Hissyspit]

5. Thanks! Belated welcome to DU!

[punpirate]

6. Part of this should certainly include...

... references to McCarthy's famous lists. He used blank sheets of paper as a rhetorical device, and the number of communists in government changed with every speech.

There were some spies, no question about it. Probably more than a few sympathizers who felt that providing information would maintain the balance of power and, therefore, the peace.

But, as a start, go here:

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/60.htm

From other reading, McCarthy's background is curious. He worked in the FDR administration, as a lower-level assistant on New Deal matters. It was not until he decided to run for office that he became profoundly anti-New Deal, and probably would never had attained office had it not been for the editorial and financial help of Robert McCormack, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. McCormack thought McCarthy would be an excellent voice for McCormack's hard-line right-wing ideas.

You also need to Google "Army-McCarthy hearings" and from that you'll find information on just how little actual information McCarthy had, how he used his committee to sensationalize the issue of communists in government, etc.

I don't think any of McCarthy's charges led to the exposure and arrest of any communist spies, although he often alluded to other investigations (particularly the Alger Hiss case).

Here's another curiosity. Robert F. Kennedy got his start in government working as a committee staffer to McCarthy. Kennedy eventually left, but not because of McCarthy's excesses. He was famously at odds with another of McCarthy's aides--Roy Cohn--with whom he is said to have had a fistfight in the Senate office building.

I suspect that most of this recent right-wing attempt to resuscitate and rehabilitate McCarthy's quite dead reputation has been prompted by Anne Coulter's adulation of him. Nevertheless, think about how egregious McCarthy's behavior was to have been censured by the full Senate... a body which usually goes to great lengths to shield its own from public scrutiny.

Cheers.

Cheers.

[Hissyspit]

7. Good points. Yes, this does relate to Ann Coulter. n/t

[whistle]

8. You mean Ann Coulter is a communist spy?

...That would be rich, a "Mata Hairy" in the midst of the BushCos.

[Psephos]

20. The point about Senate censure is important n/t

[K-W]

12. Remember where the burden of proof lies.

They need to prove there were spies, you dont need to disprove anything.

[Longhorn79]

14. That'll be tough considering...

there were boatloads. And we had boatloads spying on them. Google 'Venona'. McCarhthy was posthumously vindicated for the most part, although we made out in the long run politically.

[K-W]

15. McCarthy was never vindicated.

that is a fantasy, he had no interest in spies, he hunted communists and anyone who thinks communists were spies is an idiot. Yah im sure the soviets were getting lots of valuable information from known leftists. Im sure they let radicals and former communists near all the great secret material. No doubt they existed to some extent, but if so, lets setup a sting operation and catch them in the act, lets feed them false information. The investigation was a show, the methods were dispicable, and the entire thing was an obvious farce.

It was a witchunt, an attempt to find something that didnt exist, the evil communist menace. McCarthy was a political animal and chose his targets based on politics. It was only after he made moves on his republican rivals that he was taken down, until then he was serving up a buffet of propaganda for the American right.

Can someone even prove to me that the Soviet Union had any hostile intentions toward the US in the first place?

[Itsthetruth]

16. Communist Party Members Were Not "Spies"

There were Soviet intelligence agents in the United States but none of them were members of the Communist Party. While the Communist Party gave uncritical support to the various Soviet regimes, they did not get involved in the spy business and engaged in perfectly legal political activity.

[K-W]

18. And Im sure the CIA had plenty of eyes on them.

Violating thier rights because of thier alleged political beliefs and forcing confessions and accusations with threats has nothing to do with finding spies.

[Hissyspit]

21. That's part of what I need documentation or scholarhsip to support... n/t

[K-W]

24. No, they need to support thier claims.

You cant document people not doing something.

[bpilgrim]

19. "McCarhthy was posthumously vindicated" - lol

that kind of myth is very dangerous and why the DU exists.

stick around, please... the more examples we have to expose the better :toast:

peace

[Longhorn79]

25. So are the entire records in Venona made up?

[Hissyspit]

22. I don't know that there were boatlods IN THE GOV'T, and I don't know...

that McCarthy was vindicated (???). He was a self-serving asshole - that much has long been known, and his methodology was horrendous and immoral. As I said in an earlier post, it IS important to differentiate between SPIES and American communists working in the government.

[Longhorn79]

26. I agree about his methods and the need

to differentiate between communists and communist spies. However in 1995 the CIA released all the Venona files detailing intercepts between the USSR and the US. What McCarthy was really known for were the two people who killed themselves saying he ruined their lives. The Venona files revealed that both of them were in fact Soviet spies. Not communists, but spies.

[bpilgrim]

27. yawn...

thats 2...

and what powerful position did they occupy?

:scared:

peace

[American Tragedy]

28. Of course there were some spies and traitors. There always are.

Julius Rosenberg was one. Alger Hiss may have been one - the evidence is ambiguous, but it's possible.

I certainly have no problem with removing people from the State Department who clearly and deliberately worked against the United States for a totalitarian regime.

Unfortunately, it turned into a wild ideological witchhunt, and the few proven cases do not even begin to justify the untold numbers of innocent people whose careers and reputations were destroyed by that brutal drunken bastard, and whose families were ostracized and discriminated against for years after.

[adwon]

29. McCarthy was a late-comer

Ironically, David Horowitz debunked the claims of McCarthy's vindication in a review of Ann Coulter's book Treason. He pointed out that McCarthy seized on a dead issue in February of 1950 because the Truman Administration had begun taking positive action, beginning in 1947, to correct the problem.

I'm sure it's been said before, but the highpoint of Soviet penetration of the US government was in the 1930s and declined greatly as time progressed, partly due to the revelations of Stalin's USSR.

P.S. If you want the link to Horowitz's review, look up Coulter on wikipedia and scroll to the bottom of the page.

[Hissyspit]

31. Adwon, that's some of the stuff I had heard before and was trying...

to remember.

[kodi]

30. McCarthy made up his numbers.

In early 1950, in Wheeling, West Virginia "Tail Gunner Joe" held up a bunch of papers and shouted that he held in his hands a list of 205 communists in the US State Dept.

The next day, in Salt Lake City, he changed the numbers to 57.

In each case, he made up the number and was lying.