On the Myths of McCarthyism and the Self-Delusion of Arthur Miller
Here's Roger Kimball in The New Criterion:
Some myths die hard. One of the most recalcitrant in recent times has been the myth of McCarthyism—the myth that America in the late 1940s and early 1950s was in the grip of a fearsome, paranoid “witch-hunt” against supposed Communists and other alleged traitors. According to this myth, the assault was fearsome because it blighted thousands of careers and lives, and it was paranoid because it was essentially groundless. Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee ranted on about Communist spies, but really, the myth of McCarthyism maintains, there were no spies to speak of, only liberals like … well, like Alger Hiss.
You might think that by now liberals would have given up on this one. After all, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the subsequent opening of many Soviet archives, there is indisputable evidence—a mountain of it—for what had long been alleged by cold warriors. The liberal line had always been that the American Communist Party was basically an expression of home-grown radical sentiment; in fact, it had from the beginning been a tool of Moscow; moreover, many of the radical “martyrs” of the period were hard-core Stalinists and KGB operatives. This is not speculation: it is hard and fast historical fact. As the historian John Gaddis put it in the title of his 1997 history of the Cold War: We Now Know.
Read the whole thing.
(Via RealClearPolitics.)
Some myths die hard. One of the most recalcitrant in recent times has been the myth of McCarthyism—the myth that America in the late 1940s and early 1950s was in the grip of a fearsome, paranoid “witch-hunt” against supposed Communists and other alleged traitors. According to this myth, the assault was fearsome because it blighted thousands of careers and lives, and it was paranoid because it was essentially groundless. Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee ranted on about Communist spies, but really, the myth of McCarthyism maintains, there were no spies to speak of, only liberals like … well, like Alger Hiss.
You might think that by now liberals would have given up on this one. After all, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the subsequent opening of many Soviet archives, there is indisputable evidence—a mountain of it—for what had long been alleged by cold warriors. The liberal line had always been that the American Communist Party was basically an expression of home-grown radical sentiment; in fact, it had from the beginning been a tool of Moscow; moreover, many of the radical “martyrs” of the period were hard-core Stalinists and KGB operatives. This is not speculation: it is hard and fast historical fact. As the historian John Gaddis put it in the title of his 1997 history of the Cold War: We Now Know.
Read the whole thing.
(Via RealClearPolitics.)
posted by Kate Marie | 5:14 PM | Permalink
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14 comments
14 Comments:
Yeah, and we rounded up every Japanese-American and threw them in concentration camps for no reason other than bigotry and hysteria. Except for the little problems that we didn't round up everyone, there's overwhelming evidence that Japan WAS using Japanese and Japanese-Americans to spy on the US, and that Japan did bomb California (anybody learn that in school?) and Hawaii and, well, you can get the rest of the story in Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment. Just make sure you put a bag over it (or over you) so you don't get beat up by some tolerant, 1st amendment loving liberal.
Whether or not the tactics of McCarthyism (or the internment policy applied to Japanese-Americans during WWII) were "groundless" seems moot- both were fundamentally un-American. In both cases citizens were punished for "offenses" that were not criminal. Being either Japanese or Communist was a citizen's constitutionally defended right, and to defend any policy that would indiscriminately victimize people on thoses bases alone makes little sense.
Moreover, Communism has never enjoyed the kind of strength in this country that movements such as the Ku Klux Klan or the Dixiecrats have. If you want to find the real cancer in the American body politic it lies in those realms. American Communism never posed a threat to the body politic worse than a case of the hiccoughs.
Madman, let's remember that every constitutional right has its limits. Try yelling "fire!" in a crowded movie theater if you think free speech is not susceptible to government censorship.
As for the constitutional right of being "Japanese" or "Communist", these rights also have their limitations. The government may limit these rights when it is deemed necessary to achieve a compelling state interest. Therefore, your assertion that "whether or not the tactics of McCarthyism or (policy regarding internment of Japanese) were groundless seems moot" couldn't be more wrong. The grounds for such limitations of constitutional rights is the polar opposite of being "moot" or "un-American"; rather , they're the standard by which our constitution is applied and couldn't be more American.
Whether the American Communist Party's oath of advocacy for the "violent overthrow of the U.S. government" or the potential threat to national security during WWII posed by Japanese nationals were sufficient "grounds" to impose limitations on those rights is fair game for debate. But it's anything but moot.
Madman,
I don't take Kimball to be defending demagoguery and "indiscriminate victimization;" rather, he's challenging the widespread notion that those who were "accused" during the McCarthy era were all innocent victims of a "witch-hunt." The thing about a witch hunt is that witches don't exist; the problem with that characterization of McCarthyism is that it suggests that espionage by American Communists simply didn't exist, and that people like Julius Rosenberg and Alger Hiss were being "punished" for their constitutionally protected beliefs (though Hiss, of course, never even admitted to being a Communist). That's simply wrong.
Those who were "punished" legally were guilty of a real crime -- not a thought crime. Those who were punished by being "blackballed" (in Hollywood, for instance) had no constitutionally protected right to work in Hollywood. Whether it was "unAmerican" of Hollywood to refuse employment to Communists is a matter for debate, but let's not forget that Communists in the late forties were defending mass murder and state terror. If Dalton Trumbo had been the Grand High Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, would you have wailed and gnashed your teeth if some Hollywood studio refused to give him a job?
You claim that "American Communism never posed a threat to the body politic worse than a case of the hiccoughs." That's almost tantamount, in my opinion, to saying that the Soviet Union never posed a threat to the body politic (let's not get into some semantic debate about whether national security threats are a threat to the body politic) "worse than a case of the hiccoughs." The espionage that Julius Rosenberg committed helped hasten the Soviet production of the atomic bomb by as much a a few years. There was a significant network of undercover agents (some in high government positions) working for the Soviet Union (either directly or through the ACP)during the years leading up to and during WW2. Many of them were willing to -- or did, in fact -- commit espionage.
Yes, McCarthy was a demagogue, who belatedly rode the wave of anti-Communism, that was created by HUAC and the Hiss Case,to political prominence. In a way, he damaged the anti-Communist cause by allowing the "progressives" of the era to claim that a concern for the threat to national security that was posed by American Communist agents was merely "hysteria." On the other hand, had Americans continued to believe that "American Communists never posed a threat to the body politic worse than a case of the hiccoughs," those who were working for the Soviet Union under the auspices of the ACP (which was funded by the Soviet Union) might have continued to do so for years.
The anti-Communist cause, and the actual Communist threat to American national security, doesn't justify McCarthy's demagoguery, but McCarthy's demagoguery shouldn't be used to justify the notions that there was never any threat in the first place or that the "victims" of McCarthyism were innocent liberal believers in the brotherhood of man.
When we are half a century removed from the events of that era and a significant number of educated people still believe that Alger Hiss and Julius Rosenberg were "victims" of McCarthyism, there's a problem.
Dear Kate Marie,
Your assertion that McCarthy's tactics can't be compared to a witch hunt falls through on the notion that witches weren't real. There have always been practitioners of what the Puritans would have called "witchcraft," and some of the people hung or burned for that offense were almost certainly guilty of it. I would argue that the analogy is made even more apt by the fact that the threat of American Communism was about the equivalent of the threat of black magic from those accused of witchcraft. Yes, the Soviet Union existed and threatened the U.S., and yes it employed spies in the U.S. But whether or not someone was a member of the American Communist Party was by no means the best indicator of whether or not s/he was spying on behalf of the Soviets. Most spies were recruited through bribery or blackmail- a card carrying Communist was a poor choice for a spy precisely because s/he was such an obvious choice. One of the facts that made the U.S. morally superior to the Soviet Union was the very fact that being a Communist, even up to the point of swearing to the violent overthrow of the U.S., was not and is not a crime. Throwing people in jail for committing espionage or sabotage is a completely legitimate exercise of state power. Leading a kangaroo court to stigmatize people for their political opinions is not. Would I blanche if I heard that the KKK Grand High Wizard was refused a job in Hollywood? No. Would I protest if a Congressional Committe was formed to find out whether individuals in key industries were members of the KKK? You bet I would. As much as I hate the KKK, that use of state power would subvert the principles of our system.
"Your assertion that McCarthy's tactics can't be compared to a witch hunt falls through on the notion that witches weren't real. There have always been practitioners of what the Puritans would have called "witchcraft," and some of the people hung or burned for that offense were almost certainly guilty of it."
-- But it's the same difference, in my opinion. Were the practitioners of witchcraft persecuted because they posed a REAL threat to their friends and neighbors or because the Puritans -- in the grip of religious hysteria -- wrongly believed them to pose a threat to their friends and neighbors. The implication of your argument is that the Puritans had legitimate reasons for persecuting the actual practitioners of black magic, though their methods of finding potential witches were illegitimate. If, on the other hand, we accept that the practice of/belief in "witchcraft" in and of itself can pose no actual threat to others, then
the "victims" of both Puritan and anti-Communist witch hunts were ALWAYS wrongly accused. The Puritan witch hunts may have turned up some actual practitioners of "black magic," but unless I'm much mistaken it never turned up any REAL witches. The anti-Communist "witch hunts" turned up not only practitioners of "black magic" (Communist party members), but also real witches (spies/those guilty of espionage).
"I would argue that the analogy is made even more apt by the fact that the threat of American Communism was about the equivalent of the threat of black magic from those accused of witchcraft."
-- Since I'm not aware of ANY threat posed by the practice of black magic (independent of other practices which are already crimes), I can only infer from your statement that, once again, you are underestimating the threat that American Communism posed.
"Yes, the Soviet Union existed and threatened the U.S., and yes it employed spies in the U.S. But whether or not someone was a member of the American Communist Party was by no means the best indicator of whether or not s/he was spying on behalf of the Soviets. Most spies were recruited through bribery or blackmail- a card carrying Communist was a poor choice for a spy precisely because s/he was such an obvious choice."
-- Where do these statistics come from? The members of the apparatus, for instance, that Whittaker Chambers lead were not bribed or blackmailed; they were simply true believers. So were the Rosenbergs. The members of the Ware group were definitely members of the Communist Party, though they weren't openly "in the books" of the A.C.P. As far as I know, most of the known American communist spies of the thirties and forties were true believers.
"One of the facts that made the U.S. morally superior to the Soviet Union was the very fact that being a Communist, even up to the point of swearing to the violent overthrow of the U.S., was not and is not a crime."
-- And no one was ever convicted of such a crime. Besides, call me crazy, but the existence of HUAC and the Army-McCarthy hearings did little to erase the moral distinction between the Soviet Union and the United States.
You haven't addressed one of my main points, though. To persist in dismissing Kimball's arguments is, in my opinion, to persist in the promulgation of the liberal myth that the entire anti-Communist cause was comprised of and discredited by McCarthyism. As an historian, aren't you concerned about the idea that so many people (especially those who might be expected to know better) still believe that the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss were innocent victims of McCarthyism?
More here from Robert Conquest, one of the twentieth century's greatest historians of the Soviet Union:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n31/ai_13991698/pg_4
Dear Kate Marie,
I don't think I'm really dismissing Kimball's arguments. I'll grant Kimball that there were Communist spies in the U.S., but that simply doesn't make the tactics of the HUAC or Senator Joe any less un-American. I refer back to my counterfactual of a Congressionally convened "KKK-hunting" panel. I would be the first in the streets to protest against such a policy. The founding principles of our Republic insist that government does not exist to "open a window on men's (or women's) souls." No matter how you slice it, the HUAC and McCarthyism were a low point in the history of our democracy. Maybe not the lowest, maybe not as low as some quarters would cast them, but still pretty dang low.
As for my distress about people still believing that Alger Hiss or Julius Rosenberg was innocent, it distresses me more that a good slice of America is unaware that Strom Thurmond, a man who was repeatedly elected to the Senate until a few years ago, ran for the presidency as a segregation candidate (despite having an illegitimate daughter by one of his family's African-American maids). Or that the KKK once staged a full "hoods and cloaks" march through Washington D.C. with the blessing and even encouragement of many of our nation's top leaders. Or that at the outset of WWII those who had taken an early stand against Nazism were refused induction into the armed forces on the suspicion that they were too left-leaning. Those aspects of our history frighten me more because they represent much more powerful trends within our society than Communism ever was or ever will be, and because they are very much alive even today.
What is all this talk of "McCarthyism". Eugene McCarthy was a nice guy, but he never should have run for president. I don't understand all this talk about "Red Baiting" He never liked baseball and cared not about Cincinnati's team.
What? Oh! That McCarthy.
Nevermind!!!!!!!!!!
-----Rosanna Rosannadanna
"As for my distress about people still believing that Alger Hiss or Julius Rosenberg was innocent, it distresses me more that a good slice of America is unaware that Strom Thurmond, a man who was repeatedly elected to the Senate until a few years ago, ran for the presidency as a segregation candidate (despite having an illegitimate daughter by one of his family's African-American maids). Or that the KKK once staged a full "hoods and cloaks" march through Washington D.C. with the blessing and even encouragement of many of our nation's top leaders. Or that at the outset of WWII those who had taken an early stand against Nazism were refused induction into the armed forces on the suspicion that they were too left-leaning. Those aspects of our history frighten me more because they represent much more powerful trends within our society than Communism ever was or ever will be, and because they are very much alive even today."
-- Who is unaware of those facts about Strom Thurmond? And who, when MADE aware of those facts, REFUSES to believe them? {I assume, by the way, that you know about current Senator Robert Byrd, as well). As for those who took an "early" stand against Communism, are you referring to American Communists? Exactly how "early" was their stand? The ACP was all about pacifism until Hitler (surprise, surprise) broke his pact with Stalin; then the communists became rabid anti-fascists. I suppose they took an earlier stand against fascism than Charles Lindbergh and his cronies, but I don't think there's anything tremendously admirable about their "stand."
But I still don't quite understand your point, which seems to depend on the notion that there is a significant number of people in the U.S. who are unaware of the history of the K.K.K. and who deny its former pernicious influence in the South or who claim that Strom Thurmond is a victim of "McCarthyite" anti-Dixiecrat persecution.
The KKK currently poses just as little threat to the body politic as Communism now does, and it is certainly reviled by a much larger swath of the American public than Communism is. Certainly you will concede that those who write the history books don't ignore or soft-pedal the true history of the Ku Klux Klan. The same cannot be said of all of the historians of the Cold War. Your point seems to boil down to the argument that you care less about the history that gets elided in the case of Cold War and pre-Cold War espionage, etc., because Communism is not really a threat and that we should be more concerned about those vicious Southern red necks because, . . . why again? Is the true history of the KKK not being written? Is the true history of the KKK being DENIED by the very people who write the history books?
Okay, I've calmed down now. I wanted to make one more point, though. You seem to take Kimball's comments as a defense of McCarthyism when I think they are really more of an attack on the continued historical revisionism of "liberals" like Arthur Miller.
I think that's clearly the import of these passages, for instance:
"The most devastating anatomy that we have seen of Mr. Miller’s latest paean to 'ideals of socialism' is Ronald Radosh’s on-line column in Frontpage Magazine ( www.frontpagemag.com). Mr. Radosh begins by noting that, contrary to Mr. Miller’s assertions,
'scores of anti-Communist liberals and defenders of civil liberties rallied around the right of Communists and Socialists to be heard, although they despised their propaganda.
Without "McCarthyism," the left-wing would actually have had less of a shield to hide behind: the attacks on their links to the Soviet Union allowed them to claim that anyone accused—such as Alger Hiss—was completely innocent, even when in fact they were guilty.'
Quoting from an article by the espionage expert Thomas Powers that appeared in The New York Review of Books last May, Mr. Radosh proceeds to shred Mr. Miller’s entire account of the relation between the Soviet-controlled Communist threat and the anti-Communist crusade. Soviet spies, Powers wrote in his article,
'were of the left generally, they supported liberal causes, they defended the Soviet Union in all circumstances, they were often secret members of the Communist Party, they were uniformly suspicious of American initiatives throughout the world, they could be contemptuous of American democracy, society and culture, and above all, their offenses were often minimized or explained away by apologists who felt that no man should be called traitor who did what he did for the cause of humanity.'
If even The New York Review has faced up to the historical evidence about the threat of Communist propaganda and espionage in the late 1940s and 1950s, where does that leave Mr. Miller? As Mr. Radosh observes, 'The importance of Powers’ essay is that it reveals the truths which generations of liberals have refused to acknowledge; that the crisis which propelled Miller to write The Crucible was caused ‘not only by the discovery of spies but by the denial of spies.’ The Soviet Union was in fact running major spy networks, infiltrating the United States government, and the implications of this operation were not faced squarely by the United States until late in the game.” To deal with the era as a 'witch-hunt,' as Mr. Miller does, is to ignore a crucial fact. 'One cannot,' Mr. Radosh concludes, 'write about McCarthyism without first admitting that there were spies; the spies claimed idealism as a defense.'"
Where are all these "vicious Southern red necks"? Do they live in the Old Dominion?
Dear C.I.V.,
I meant that phrase ironically, of course.
I know, Kate Marie.
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