September 26, 2012 • 42 mins
Senator McCarthy's celebrity skyrocketed after he made his name denouncing spies. Fear and intimidation kept many from speaking out against him, but public opinion soon turned. Join Sarah and Ben as they discuss McCarthyism and the Hollywood Blacklist.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from House
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I am back again with Ben Boland. Hey, Sarah,
thanks for having me back. Yeah, we have been talking
(00:21):
about McCarthyism. Ben is the host of Stuff they Don't
Want You to Know, and so that's all about conspiracy.
So we're focusing on a very famous conspiracy in American
politics today, the Red Scare Joseph McCarthy blacklisting in Hollywood.
And just to catch you guys up, if you if
(00:42):
you listen to the last episode a little while ago,
we talked about the post World War two fear of
communism abroad and at home in the US, and how
that in turn led to the creation of the House
on American Activities Committee, which Ben and I are abbreviating
as the h u a C. We in turn promoted
its investigations in part by focusing a lot on Hollywood
(01:05):
and a lot on celebrities. And we're finally going to
talk about that some more today. Um. But throughout the
government becoming kind of quote tough on Red's became really
important politically, and there was so much fear and paranoia
among people, it was easy for an enterprising politician to
capitalize on. And that's where we left off last time.
(01:29):
One such enterprising politician who had found the perfect way
to capitalize on that fear in paranoia. Yes, he was
Joseph McCarthy and Joe at this time, I'm going to
call him Joe. Joe at this time saw a tremendous opportunity,
uh in that he had the once in a lifetime
(01:51):
chance to take his senate career, which foundering, floundering, floundering
is a great word, was to take his floundering senatorial
career in to a new direction. And he delivered a
famous speech in February of nineteen fifty wherein he claimed
that not only were there real communist sympathizers and subversives
(02:13):
in the United States, but in fact there was a
conspiracy and there was a network of those. We've got
an excerpt from this speech, the mind if I read, okay,
I promise I won't do a weird voice with it.
And ladies and gentlemen, while I cannot take the time
to name all the men in the State Department who
(02:34):
have been named as active members of the Communist Party
and members of a spy ring. I have here in
my hand a list of two hundred and five a
list of names that were made known to the Secretary
of State as being members of the Communist Party and
who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in that
State department. So strong words. And we talked last time
(02:56):
about stagecraft. I mean that point where he says, I
don't have time to list everybody, so I just have
this piece of paper. Take my word for it. I'm
holding this piece of paper in my hand with this
list of two hundred and five names. It is so
compelling if you were if you were going to see that,
to get caught up in the idea of oh my god,
he has a list he doesn't even have. There are
(03:18):
so many names, he doesn't even have time to mention
them during this speech. And in his defense, he did
have a real piece of paper. He did. And one
fascinating thing about this, to me, this would never happen today.
People still don't know what was on the piece of
paper because, as we said in our cliffhanger last time,
(03:38):
it was not a list of names, clearly, but nobody
knows if it was his grocery list. If it was
gibberish what it could have been today, you would have
gotten it zoomed in photo of it. If you had
a list and you were waving around, somebody would get
a picture of it today. And in two oh, here's
the thing, his his I don't want to call it
employ his speech works and he starts to get some attention. Now,
(04:04):
this is similar to the way that Richard Nixon was
able to get some attention through his uh, through his
work in the his espionage and pertry cases. At this point, um,
the Senate starts looking into some of his claims because
McCarthy's naming some uh, some fairly high level positions, or
(04:27):
at least insinuating insinuating he's not really naming because it's
not really uh, not so much a physical or actual list.
And and one thing to mention too, you know, wondering
where this list, not the physical list he was holding,
since we've established that was nothing, but where the idea
of this list came from. And it puffibly came from
(04:48):
a nineteen forty six loyalty screening of the State Department employees,
but that didn't really it doesn't matter that much where
it came from because you know, you mentioned two oh
five when you were when you were voting his speech.
There we mentioned in the last episode that the number
of people varied a lot. It clearly didn't come from
a concrete source because it fluctuated so much. Yeah, that's uh,
(05:13):
that's one dead giveaway there, the way that these so
called facts would sort of change to fit McCarthy's purposes.
And this is a technique that we're going to see grow, Right,
He's gonna grow and become more sophisticated with this. Now
he contrary to one of the popular beliefs, McCarthy is not,
(05:38):
nor was he ever a member of the I'm kidding
a member of h U a C. The House on
American Activities Committee. He wasn't set on a different committee
called the Committee on Government Operations. These folks, uh, this,
this committee itself didn't mess with Hollywood so much as
they did with the State Department and the Armed Forces.
(06:01):
And you might think, from you know, we've discussed already
his lackluster senatorial career already, you might think that with
his sudden fame with the public he got he was
given this chair of this committee as sort of a
reward like this is a real up and coming guy.
That's not the case at all. You're hinting of this earlier.
But the Senate wasn't convinced by this speech and by
(06:23):
the list and everything, and even investigating McCarthy's claims but
found them baseless. That didn't really get much play with
the media because it was not as compelling as a list.
But still the Senate wasn't looking to promote this guy
too much. And uh so he was given the chair
of a committee that hadn't had that much of a
(06:44):
presence in the past. It used to be about mainly
uncovering fraud in the government waste um, not about hunting
out communists. But once McCarthy had a staff and had
a budget, he really went with it. Yeah, he took
this to the next level. Uh the committee's power to
(07:05):
scrutinize government activity at all levels really gave his group
free reign to gave them enormous latitude to start investigating
or I guess carrying out the pretense of an investigation
on on numerous people, numerous positions. Now he begins to
(07:27):
have hearings to root out communist subversives. Three, he starts
these hearings um in in a very interesting way. They
have a little bit of of an m O to them.
Some commonalities. One is the way in which a person
is defined as being guilty right of being a communist subversive.
(07:51):
If you have been associated with the Communist Party in
the past in any way, then you are still a
communist today in in the McCarthy eyes. And we often
throw around the phrase McCarthy is um or a witch hunt,
you know, calling back to the inquisitions, as a way
(08:11):
of using shorthand to refer to this. What we're concretely
saying is that this differs from a genuine legal investigation
because it's it's a crime of guilt by association. You're
presumed guilty before you even start, rather than as normal
(08:33):
when you're presumed innocent um. And the only way that
you can prove your loyalty you can't defend yourself because
defending yourself implicates you. The only way to really prove
your loyalty quote is to name names, name people who
might be associated with the Communist Party, name other people
(08:55):
who have some sort of connections. And that's really I
think the key of McCarthy is them. That's the only
way out is to make the list get bigger, sort
of this um pyramid scheme almost of naming other names.
What a great way to say it, because it's it's strange.
The only way that you can prove you're not a
part of McCarthy's conspiracy theory is by enlarging the scope
(09:21):
of his conspiracy theory. Yeah and um, this comes into
play even more when people begin to criticize his methods.
They criticize his lack of proof. Now keep in mind,
the entire time that this is occurring, the McCarthy star
power for lack of a better word, is building because
(09:44):
he is a righteous American preventing the spread of Soviet influence.
So it's becoming more and more dangerous to criticize this guy. Uh.
People who criticize his methods or say hey, maybe you
should have some proof occasionally um later coincidentally enough, UH
(10:09):
come under suspicion of being communists adversive. So if you
have a problem with way McCarthy conducts his investigations, then
clearly the only reason you would have that problem is
that you yourself are read. You had something to hide,
and he really did make sure to target a wide
(10:29):
class of people too, So it's not just if you
were in a particular industry you were under a threat.
We're talking about politicians and professors and journalists of course,
which all help with the control. And I mean you
even have some specific names. There are so many, but
you could give you out that are real, real important
for the history of this. Yes, so a professor like
(10:53):
Owen Lattimore would come under fire. Um. Now we know
historically that when this sort of panic has set in, Uh,
the academics are some of the first people to come
under suspicion. Journalists, of course, it makes sense that a
journalist like Drew Pearson would be implicated for criticizing McCarthy
(11:14):
because this was in some ways a media driven power play. Yeah.
Media had gotten him where he was by promoting this
this speech in front of the women's group and the
list and everything, and if the media started to doubt
his methods and whether there was any evidence, it seems
like his his whole kingdom could crumble pretty quickly. So
(11:37):
you want to certainly have the media concerned about their
their own jobs. And then he starts swinging a little
bit above his weight class too, because one of the
things he does is we we mentioned that he has
also called into question politicians no one would be William Benton.
But also he's made uh some let's say some in
(12:03):
your windows about the Eisenhower administration, members of that administration,
and he also starts to investigate higher level members of
the military. Now, of course we know Eisenhower served in
the military before he became president, so this is at
the very least ambitious his territory. It's Eisenhower's territory for sure.
(12:28):
And before we we that's hinting certainly yet and Marthy's
downfall getting in a little over his head. But we
should talk to more about how he runs the runs
a show almost and maybe even play a clip of that.
But um, just to to give an example of how
small a world this became. After the three Democrats on
(12:51):
his committee resign over some unilateral staff hiring issues, you know,
not consulting with the committee before hiring the staff, a
lot the Republican senators on the committee stopped showing up too,
because McCarthy will call these hearings suddenly, it'll be a
very short notice, it will be an inconvenient location, and
(13:11):
so people sort of stopped coming and it it really
does become McCarthy's show. McCarthy his his lead counsel, and um,
let's play a clip of one of these interrogations. I
will not give those names to them. When they said
that our function and coming back on the committee is
not to expose and prosecute Tomas. So he would you
(13:35):
like to hear this it's about you? But the effects
say our functions not to expose. I've always I want
when you asked me, and I'd say that that's what
I'm gonna face this and you don't have to have everyone.
I don't ask you all the time. They're talking now
(13:55):
from the clip we just played, there are a couple
of things that are parents. Um. There there's a very specific,
almost bullying style. I mean, let's take out the almost
there and there's there's a bullying style to this. Now,
anyone who has seen congressional hearings before knows that there's
certainly not the most merry and amiable places, you know,
(14:19):
our conversations. Uh. But as as McCarthy's power grows, the
public wants to see more of this and what more
access to this? Uh, this McCarthy investigation reality television what
you know what that is? Such an accurate thing to say.
In April of nineteen McCarthy's latest hearing has become broadcast
(14:43):
on national television, and the American public gets the chance
to observe firsthand the senators way of speaking, the method
to his madness. Right, what is this guy like in action?
What does he consider evidence? Uh? What does he listen for?
(15:04):
How does he react? What to him is, if anything,
proof of innocence? And the public does not like it. No,
it doesn't look very good. And unfortunately for McCarthy, he
had kind of already caused himself a little bit of
trouble shortly before this. One of his aids had used
(15:24):
the McCarthy connection to get himself a good position when
he was drafted into the army. Kind of an ironic
situation when you are taking on the army. And so
in April nineteen fifty four, when McCarthy and and his
his company started questioning members of the Armed services about
their alleged involvement with the Communist Party or the Soviet government,
(15:48):
his tactics really did start to look sort of unsavory.
They did look like bullying. It looked, uh, it didn't
look like what people were imagining. This sort of crusader
to to to be and um his his opposing side
of the Special Counsel for the Army, Joseph nigh Welch,
(16:09):
was really great at out maneuvering him too. He was
able to call out the lack of evidence and the
style of his delivery as being inappropriate and quite famously
says quote, have you no sense of decency? Sir? At
long last? Have you left no sense of decency? That's
(16:29):
really the point when the public turns on McCarthy. They're
all watching rapidly at home, these these hearings. But what's
so interesting to me. It's a little hard to imagine,
isn't it that people would all be watching something like
this now. But television plays such a huge role in
the downfall of McCarthy because we've we've just discussed his
(16:51):
taking on the army, getting in a little over his head.
But he also goes after the wrong newsman eventually, Yeah,
he goes after the worst possible newsman for him to target. Uh, McCarthy,
has you know a heart? I very rarely use the
word epic, Sarah, because I think that that word like awesomer, brilliant,
(17:15):
has kind of been watered down. So in the classical sense,
this is an epic confrontation that that evolves when McCarthy
and Edward Murrow start butting heads. Now, at this time,
Edward Murrow has a show called See It Now, And
we should say to this is slightly before the army
hearing this is, yeah, and the chronology is slightly before
(17:37):
the army units. So at this time Murrow and his
co workers, his team, they are like any other members
of the media establishment. They do not want to be blacklisted,
They do not want to be targeted as possible communists abversives.
So they do the whole nine the people of this time,
do they take the loyalty oath? They publicly, and I
(18:02):
won't say gratuitously, but they publicly and emphatically pronounced their
loyalties to the American way of life, uh, the you know,
the West, the western side of the Cold War, you know. Uh.
But Edward Murrow and his his group begin an investigation
of McCarthy. Now, when they first start doing this, they're
(18:25):
not confronting him with it. So the so so for
a very long time before McCarthy Murrow publicly butt heads,
Murrow is gathering evidence. He's he's picking up and this
is so clever. He's picking up contradictory statements that McCarthy
is making and and facts that have changed to suit, um,
(18:50):
McCarthy's purpose at the time, and he's just storing it.
He's biding his time and he's waiting, which I think
is a masterful, pretty genius well. And the other thing
that I consider really masterful is he doesn't debut it
in an attack on McCarthy. He he debuts the suggestion
(19:10):
that he might be up to something by covering a
case of an Air Force lieutenant who has been dismissed
over his mother and sisters communist ties. Just a good story,
you know. And uh, not too long after that program
aired on see it now, Uh, the lieutenant was reinstated.
So at that point, clearly Murrow is a target of McCarthy.
(19:35):
But because Murrow has been working so carefully all along, um,
you know, preparing for winter by gathering information, he's ready
to go already, he's got the information he needs and
he's ready to put out a show that's not just
about a lieutenant who's been affected by um this this
(19:57):
whole situation. Uh. Um. But McCarthy himself, yes, he's going after.
The biggest fish of McCarthy is um the man himself.
And now this may seem predictable. McCarthy's initial response to
Murrow's to Murrow's evisceration really on See It Now is
(20:22):
U two in a in a sort of I'm just
saying way. He kind of points out a few few
choice passages from something Murrow had written earlier, and ultimately
applies that perhaps Murrow himself as a communist, because otherwise,
you know, of course, why else would you have a
problem with it unless you're unless you yourself are a
red um. It doesn't work, no, And Murrow and his
(20:46):
network do, of course allow McCarthy to appear on the
show and offer some sort of rebuttal and uh, that
doesn't do McCarthy any favors either, because you were talking
about Morrow's See It Now program on McCarthy being an asseration.
But it's not as though Murrow we're editorializing on subject,
not at all. He very much allowed McCarthy's own words
(21:10):
to speak for themselves, using clips of McCarthy, pictures of them,
quotes from him, and then of course giving him the
second hour or I don't know, however, long the show
was Yeah, to to speak for himself again, Um, it
didn't put McCarthy in a favorable light. That happened in
March nineteen fifty four. He responded a month later, of course,
(21:33):
April nineteen fifty four. Also, when all of these televised
Army hearings are going on. It's just the perfect storm
of bad media coverage for McCarthy, live, national, whatever it
may be. He doesn't look good. No, he does not
look good. And his colleagues in the Senate are catching
(21:55):
wind of this as well. Now, remember he wasn't everybody's
favorite person in the big getting. And it's strange that
this is such a brief period of time. It's you know,
it's pretty four years. Yeah, and as his as his
star is fading or maybe plummeting um. In December of
(22:18):
nineteen fifty four, the Senate votes to censure him, or
they basically they vote to publicly rebuke him. And although
he will remain in the Senate for more than two
years after this, his reputation is ruined. And uh, he
is no longer um, no longer even commands a fraction
(22:41):
of the public attention he once held. No, he does,
of course continue to speak out against communism. But he
doesn't even live much longer than this. He died in
nineteen fifty seven at a fairly young age of complications
from alcoholism. UM. So yeah, you really can look at
this in nineteen fifty four and date to his work
(23:02):
related to well, certainly McCarthy ism since AMPARs his name.
But but the second wave of the Red scare. That's
not to say though, that it ended when he was censured,
when he was eventually voted out when he died. Of course,
numerous academics and entertainers, government officials, um. People found that
(23:23):
these accusations had permanently damaged their careers. It wasn't something
that you could just everybody agreed, well, McCarthy, what we
were we thinking there for a few years, do you
want to come back and get your old job again?
Of course it's not going to work like that and happened. No,
Unfortunately that was not the case. Association with those hearings
(23:43):
or was someone involved could still be enough to have
an impact on one's career, and as we know, the
h u a C continued its investigations. Uh then did
not need McCarthy's public image or help because again they
weren't really associated exactly the h v C hearings could
have exactly that same effect of permanently damaging your career.
(24:06):
And we talked a little bit in the last episode
about how the h a C initially focused on Hollywood
and especially on celebrities to really promote their their cause
and and get some media attention behind it. And while
some of the early hearings were with these friendly witnesses,
others were about making people name names. And after that
(24:30):
first round of big stars that they called in UM,
there came a batch of writers, directors, and a producer
who were called the Hollywood Ten, and UM, instead of
participating in these hearings, the Hollywood Ten didn't think that
the committee had the right to question them and challenge
(24:50):
the committee's authority to do so, and eventually spent a
year in federal prison for contempt of court. Um. The
h a C really kept going in Hollywood until nineteen
fifty two, but ultimately more than three people were blacklisted,
and those blacklists did last. They lasted. Some people consider
(25:13):
that they lasted until the early sixties when there was
finally a lawsuit, but it was of course made worse
too by the nineteen fifty publication of the pamphlet Red Channels,
and that had some really famous names in it, and
Red Channels. This, this pamphlet pretty much existed to tell
(25:36):
the readers that other people were communists. So this Red
Channels refers to the channels through which the Reds communicate
to secretly overthrow the US government via Hollywood. All right,
I mean it's not necessarily Hollywood. Uh, not necessarily only celebrities,
all kinds of the entertainer. I mean, we can list
a few of them here. Leonard Bernston, Orson Welles, we
(26:00):
to Horn, Alan Lomax, burl Ives Um Burl i'ves I
read a little bit more about him because I was thinking,
oh my gosh, he's the snowman on Rudolph Trendner's Ranger. Um.
He was able to maintain a career through the fifties
because he was willing to to talk to the talk
(26:20):
to people, you know, um name names. But I found
this story by an actress named Marcia Hunt really compelling.
She was at the height of her career in nineteen fifty.
She had been in movies throughout the forties, and she
was on the brink of television deal. She had offers
from three networks she was just waiting to hear in
(26:42):
nineteen fifty and then her name is published in Red
Channels and UM with six citations of of suspicious things
she had done and UM. She she talked about how
those were all things it wasn't it up. They were
all things she had done and things that she did
(27:03):
believe in, but things that she never would have considered
subversive in any way. Oh, that's exactly what she said.
She said, quote I was amazed to learn that they
were considered subversive in some way. And UM. She also
gave a great example of how hard it was to
clear your name with with cases like this and UM
(27:27):
or not even cases, just the suspense, just your name
is published and suddenly all your network deals disappear. She
talked about how there was just nothing she could do.
She tried writing letters to the networks, explaining that she
didn't know about communism, she didn't care for communism, she
had tried to serve her country in the best way
(27:48):
she could during World War Two. Never heard back from
any of them, because the possibly their response could have
been something suddenly you have a subversive connection then um.
But of course, a bunch of creative people unable to
to work look for other places. I think the theater
(28:10):
was apparently not as not affected, or at least Marcia
Hunt mentioned that she was able to continue working in
the theater um. But of course, to the theme of
witch hunts gets into entertainment too, into plays people right
into movies that people make. It's a it's a captivating theme. Yes,
(28:30):
it's a captivating theme, and it's one that resonates clearly
resonates with the creative community at the time, but it
also resonates with the national consciousness at this point. And uh,
you know, one of the most famous examples of that
would be Arthur Miller's The Crucible ostensibly about which trials
(28:52):
Yeah right, yeah, I should have said, sensibly about the
Salem witch trials um and also on level clearly about
the h U a C investigations that the need to
as we say, name names. Now Marcia Hunt serves as
(29:13):
a great example of how this actually happened. One thing
that this situation makes us do is is play a
little bit of a what if game. What if Marcia
Hunt had gotten a television show? You know, what would
have happened? What what would our opinion of her be today. Unfortunately,
(29:34):
we'll never know because her career was cut short, and
it was cut short because of this panic. And I
guess at this time I should put in a disclaimer
for everyone listening, because this is such a recent event
(29:55):
over the span of history. And it reminds me that
William Faulkner quote quotation where he notes that the past
hasn't really even passed yet, um, by which he means
and I am paraphrasing, Sorry, I don't know I sent
you bad mail about that, but send them to Ben.
Your podcast email is please, please do send them to me.
(30:19):
And the point that Faulkner makes in there is that
it's it's difficult for us to see the long term
consequences or ripple effects of some events. Now, the second
Red Scare, if we look at this from our very
(30:39):
recent retrospective stance, then we can see that the Red
Scare was what people call a moral panic. Now, a
moral panic is different from something like a panic over
microbes in the water, for instance. You know that's a
discernible thing and can take concrete steps to prevent public
(31:03):
health problem. But a moral panic is a widespread public
anxiety or an alarm because there's a threat that seems
to to uh endanger our moral fabric are values, uh,
the American way, the apple pie, the mom with the
april in the whole nine, and these things are not
(31:26):
You are neither unique to our culture nor unique to
this period in time. Um. Of course, the national atmosphere
of the time is uh sort of ripe for the
conspiracies of the international atmosphere. Absolutely absolutely, because this is
a global this is a global battle, a global ideological battle.
(31:49):
So McCarthy of course was able to take advantage of
that situation. Though by presenting a very intimidating front, he
had this influence. He had had a real ability to
ruin somebody's career, really disrupt their life, because a lot
of the sources that would normally fact check or criticize
(32:10):
his investigations and allegations were too intimidated to speak up.
We talked about how he was going after journalists too.
We talked about how Murrow's coverage was such a huge deal.
It's kind of amazing nobody does anything like that before
nine if this has gone on for four years, UM.
(32:30):
But protesting the McCarthy methods, protesting against McCarthy himself too
loud lately could be interpreted as communist sympathies, which is
why Edward Murrow had to be so very meticulous and
principled in his analysis. Now, of course this was criticism,
(32:54):
but to have pursued this any other way would have
very likely put his career in danger. Today, Joseph McCarthy
m most people remember him as an opportunistic, perhaps power
hungry individual who clung to this conspiracy theory, maybe for
(33:16):
the attention, maybe because he really believed it. And now
McCarthy ism has become synonymous with inquisitions, which Hunt's bullying,
even though it was not initially a negative term. No,
it was it was something about being principled and determined
to root out something that you strongly did not believe in. Right, Yeah,
(33:39):
that's such a great point. This wasn't always a pejorative.
So there's a continuing debate today about Joseph McCarthy and
his role. You'll hear some people who support McCarthy saying
that perhaps he had access to documents that were classified
that the American public wouldn't know about out and maybe
(34:00):
that's why it seemed as though there were no proof Um,
there is storians who will also say that some of
not all by any means, but some of the people
investigated did have relationship with the Soviet government. There are
some people who say that he is a flawed hero
(34:21):
and that he's been swindled by history. Those arguments, those
last arguments especially, are largely considered revisionist arguments. Although it
is true, um, that we did learn more about this
situation in recent years, it only makes it more complicated.
And I really think we're interesting. But um, before we
(34:41):
we wrap up on McCarthy, I want to get into
the conspiracy theory again and and get your analysis on
what did what did he do wrong? Okay? Yes, okay?
What makes him a What makes him a conspiracy theorist? Okay, yes?
What makes him a conspira is se theorists. What makes
(35:03):
makes me throw him in with some of the other crazy,
crazier folks is that he practiced a sort of confirmation bias. Primarily,
he looked for things that conformed to his pre existing idea,
ignoring the rest, Yes, and ignoring the rest today we'll
(35:24):
call it cherry pickings. So in in the investigations, you
can see that he takes quotes out of context, or
even an event out of context, you can see that
he believes in guilt by association. Uh. The Air Force
member that we mentioned earlier was guilty by association only
because of his wife, right, his mother, and his mother
(35:46):
and his sister, And that didn't have really much to
do with him except that he knew them. UM. And then,
perhaps most importantly, he did not substantiate his claims. Now again,
people who fend Joseph McCarthy will say that some of
his claims have been substantiated in later declassified documents like
(36:08):
the Venona papers. However, UM, as far as taking quotes
out of context, confirmation bias, believing in guilt, guilt by association,
in those terms, this is a conspiracy theory, and he
was not going to let a couple of things like
facts interfere with that. UM. Interestingly enough, we can see
(36:33):
some of we can see some of those practices in
some world governments today. In North Korea, for example, Guilt
by association is is practiced UM on a generational level.
And McCarthy, over all of those points you just named,
there's the gloss of his his bullying, or that's how
most people describe it his his presentation of all of this. Um.
(36:57):
I one of the first things when you suggest at
this topic I thought of was, Uh, Julia Child's husband,
Paul Child and um our producer Lizzie and I have
been talking recently about Julia Child's great memoir, My Life
in France, and I remember that there is a part
where her husband is is implicated, UM because he's a
(37:19):
he works in the Foreign Service, and he's called back
to Washington for questioning and everything. UM. But Julia Child
refers to to McCarthy and to um his disciples sort
of and and describes them as bully boys, these these younger,
younger McCarthy guys who come to Paris and are investigating
(37:42):
the Foreign Service. There really just such a straightforward description.
I think it gets everything across. Everybody knows what a
bully is and how a bully acts, and I think
that that's really what makes all of this possible, because
if you just take quotes out of context or believe
in guilt by association and that don't have the personality,
the bullying personality, that right, you're not going to get
(38:05):
any any airtime. Yes, that's such a good point, the bullying,
especially because who would listen to this if they did
not feel compelled to. Now, as as we said, this
event did happen so recently in history that it is
it is possible, if not plausible, it is possible that
(38:27):
perhaps later some sort of declassified document from the KGB
era will show up that completely vindicates Okay, and and
and I'm not saying it's probable or even plausible, but
it is is just not quite impossible that maybe some
(38:47):
document will come out and it will turn out that
his conspiracy theory was true. However, based on the way
he handled it, it seems as though, uh, this clearly
was not the case. In regardless of whether the conspiracy
theory proved to be true, so many people who clearly
had nothing to do with any of this foster livelihoods
(39:08):
and had their lives shaken up absolutely. Which is why,
especially if you're going to be conducting an investigation like this,
it's it's probably better to not be quite as bombastic.
But power is a crazy thing, and access to power,
the opportunity to garner more power, will make some people
(39:29):
do some very very odd stuff. Thank you so much
for leamy be on your show, Thank you for joining
me and I certainly want to recommend that folks check
out other weird Cold War conspiracies on your show, then
stuff they don't want you to know. I'm sure you
guys have covered lots of bizarre things. Oh gosh, yeah,
(39:49):
we have. We we have lots of bizarre stuff. We
have a couple of we have a couple of episodes
that will touch on Cold War things. UM, and the
KGB we're always is interested to hear more so, if
you have any suggestions for topics which should cover, please
let us know. This was a lot of fun, the
McCarthy uh stuff, by the way it was. And if
(40:09):
you have suggestions for the History podcast, you can email
us at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're on
Twitter at Myston History, and we are on Facebook. And
I just thought it would be fun to wrap up
with more upbeat fact um. Not too long ago, the
Writers Guild eventually corrected the credits on many films that
(40:32):
they were re released or that were being re released
UM that had had blacklisted professionals listed under pseudonyms. Because
some of these people they needed to work, they couldn't
leave the country or something, UM, so they continued to work.
But they wrote under different names, and some of these
are finally being corrected and restored to the uh you know,
(40:54):
it can be on their IMDb page now. Um. I
think that's a nice esture for something like this. It
certainly can't make up for a career that's dramatically affected.
But to get your credit, or to have the families
be able to see their family member if they've already
passed on, see their name restored to something they have
(41:15):
worked on, I think is really cool. What a wonderful
thing that is, a little bit of sunlight through the
clouds it is. If you don't want sunlight, though, you
can go read the article on how McCarthy isum works
get right back into it how You can find that
on our home page at that www. Dot how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(41:41):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from House
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I am back again with Ben Boland. Hey, Sarah,
thanks for having me back. Yeah, we have been talking
(00:21):
about McCarthyism. Ben is the host of Stuff they Don't
Want You to Know, and so that's all about conspiracy.
So we're focusing on a very famous conspiracy in American
politics today, the Red Scare Joseph McCarthy blacklisting in Hollywood.
And just to catch you guys up, if you if
(00:42):
you listen to the last episode a little while ago,
we talked about the post World War two fear of
communism abroad and at home in the US, and how
that in turn led to the creation of the House
on American Activities Committee, which Ben and I are abbreviating
as the h u a C. We in turn promoted
its investigations in part by focusing a lot on Hollywood
(01:05):
and a lot on celebrities. And we're finally going to
talk about that some more today. Um. But throughout the
government becoming kind of quote tough on Red's became really
important politically, and there was so much fear and paranoia
among people, it was easy for an enterprising politician to
capitalize on. And that's where we left off last time.
(01:29):
One such enterprising politician who had found the perfect way
to capitalize on that fear in paranoia. Yes, he was
Joseph McCarthy and Joe at this time, I'm going to
call him Joe. Joe at this time saw a tremendous opportunity,
uh in that he had the once in a lifetime
(01:51):
chance to take his senate career, which foundering, floundering, floundering
is a great word, was to take his floundering senatorial
career in to a new direction. And he delivered a
famous speech in February of nineteen fifty wherein he claimed
that not only were there real communist sympathizers and subversives
(02:13):
in the United States, but in fact there was a
conspiracy and there was a network of those. We've got
an excerpt from this speech, the mind if I read, okay,
I promise I won't do a weird voice with it.
And ladies and gentlemen, while I cannot take the time
to name all the men in the State Department who
(02:34):
have been named as active members of the Communist Party
and members of a spy ring. I have here in
my hand a list of two hundred and five a
list of names that were made known to the Secretary
of State as being members of the Communist Party and
who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in that
State department. So strong words. And we talked last time
(02:56):
about stagecraft. I mean that point where he says, I
don't have time to list everybody, so I just have
this piece of paper. Take my word for it. I'm
holding this piece of paper in my hand with this
list of two hundred and five names. It is so
compelling if you were if you were going to see that,
to get caught up in the idea of oh my god,
he has a list he doesn't even have. There are
(03:18):
so many names, he doesn't even have time to mention
them during this speech. And in his defense, he did
have a real piece of paper. He did. And one
fascinating thing about this, to me, this would never happen today.
People still don't know what was on the piece of
paper because, as we said in our cliffhanger last time,
(03:38):
it was not a list of names, clearly, but nobody
knows if it was his grocery list. If it was
gibberish what it could have been today, you would have
gotten it zoomed in photo of it. If you had
a list and you were waving around, somebody would get
a picture of it today. And in two oh, here's
the thing, his his I don't want to call it
employ his speech works and he starts to get some attention. Now,
(04:04):
this is similar to the way that Richard Nixon was
able to get some attention through his uh, through his
work in the his espionage and pertry cases. At this point, um,
the Senate starts looking into some of his claims because
McCarthy's naming some uh, some fairly high level positions, or
(04:27):
at least insinuating insinuating he's not really naming because it's
not really uh, not so much a physical or actual list.
And and one thing to mention too, you know, wondering
where this list, not the physical list he was holding,
since we've established that was nothing, but where the idea
of this list came from. And it puffibly came from
(04:48):
a nineteen forty six loyalty screening of the State Department employees,
but that didn't really it doesn't matter that much where
it came from because you know, you mentioned two oh
five when you were when you were voting his speech.
There we mentioned in the last episode that the number
of people varied a lot. It clearly didn't come from
a concrete source because it fluctuated so much. Yeah, that's uh,
(05:13):
that's one dead giveaway there, the way that these so
called facts would sort of change to fit McCarthy's purposes.
And this is a technique that we're going to see grow, Right,
He's gonna grow and become more sophisticated with this. Now
he contrary to one of the popular beliefs, McCarthy is not,
(05:38):
nor was he ever a member of the I'm kidding
a member of h U a C. The House on
American Activities Committee. He wasn't set on a different committee
called the Committee on Government Operations. These folks, uh, this,
this committee itself didn't mess with Hollywood so much as
they did with the State Department and the Armed Forces.
(06:01):
And you might think, from you know, we've discussed already
his lackluster senatorial career already, you might think that with
his sudden fame with the public he got he was
given this chair of this committee as sort of a
reward like this is a real up and coming guy.
That's not the case at all. You're hinting of this earlier.
But the Senate wasn't convinced by this speech and by
(06:23):
the list and everything, and even investigating McCarthy's claims but
found them baseless. That didn't really get much play with
the media because it was not as compelling as a list.
But still the Senate wasn't looking to promote this guy
too much. And uh so he was given the chair
of a committee that hadn't had that much of a
(06:44):
presence in the past. It used to be about mainly
uncovering fraud in the government waste um, not about hunting
out communists. But once McCarthy had a staff and had
a budget, he really went with it. Yeah, he took
this to the next level. Uh the committee's power to
(07:05):
scrutinize government activity at all levels really gave his group
free reign to gave them enormous latitude to start investigating
or I guess carrying out the pretense of an investigation
on on numerous people, numerous positions. Now he begins to
(07:27):
have hearings to root out communist subversives. Three, he starts
these hearings um in in a very interesting way. They
have a little bit of of an m O to them.
Some commonalities. One is the way in which a person
is defined as being guilty right of being a communist subversive.
(07:51):
If you have been associated with the Communist Party in
the past in any way, then you are still a
communist today in in the McCarthy eyes. And we often
throw around the phrase McCarthy is um or a witch hunt,
you know, calling back to the inquisitions, as a way
(08:11):
of using shorthand to refer to this. What we're concretely
saying is that this differs from a genuine legal investigation
because it's it's a crime of guilt by association. You're
presumed guilty before you even start, rather than as normal
(08:33):
when you're presumed innocent um. And the only way that
you can prove your loyalty you can't defend yourself because
defending yourself implicates you. The only way to really prove
your loyalty quote is to name names, name people who
might be associated with the Communist Party, name other people
(08:55):
who have some sort of connections. And that's really I
think the key of McCarthy is them. That's the only
way out is to make the list get bigger, sort
of this um pyramid scheme almost of naming other names.
What a great way to say it, because it's it's strange.
The only way that you can prove you're not a
part of McCarthy's conspiracy theory is by enlarging the scope
(09:21):
of his conspiracy theory. Yeah and um, this comes into
play even more when people begin to criticize his methods.
They criticize his lack of proof. Now keep in mind,
the entire time that this is occurring, the McCarthy star
power for lack of a better word, is building because
(09:44):
he is a righteous American preventing the spread of Soviet influence.
So it's becoming more and more dangerous to criticize this guy. Uh.
People who criticize his methods or say hey, maybe you
should have some proof occasionally um later coincidentally enough, UH
(10:09):
come under suspicion of being communists adversive. So if you
have a problem with way McCarthy conducts his investigations, then
clearly the only reason you would have that problem is
that you yourself are read. You had something to hide,
and he really did make sure to target a wide
(10:29):
class of people too, So it's not just if you
were in a particular industry you were under a threat.
We're talking about politicians and professors and journalists of course,
which all help with the control. And I mean you
even have some specific names. There are so many, but
you could give you out that are real, real important
for the history of this. Yes, so a professor like
(10:53):
Owen Lattimore would come under fire. Um. Now we know
historically that when this sort of panic has set in, Uh,
the academics are some of the first people to come
under suspicion. Journalists, of course, it makes sense that a
journalist like Drew Pearson would be implicated for criticizing McCarthy
(11:14):
because this was in some ways a media driven power play. Yeah.
Media had gotten him where he was by promoting this
this speech in front of the women's group and the
list and everything, and if the media started to doubt
his methods and whether there was any evidence, it seems
like his his whole kingdom could crumble pretty quickly. So
(11:37):
you want to certainly have the media concerned about their
their own jobs. And then he starts swinging a little
bit above his weight class too, because one of the
things he does is we we mentioned that he has
also called into question politicians no one would be William Benton.
But also he's made uh some let's say some in
(12:03):
your windows about the Eisenhower administration, members of that administration,
and he also starts to investigate higher level members of
the military. Now, of course we know Eisenhower served in
the military before he became president, so this is at
the very least ambitious his territory. It's Eisenhower's territory for sure.
(12:28):
And before we we that's hinting certainly yet and Marthy's
downfall getting in a little over his head. But we
should talk to more about how he runs the runs
a show almost and maybe even play a clip of that.
But um, just to to give an example of how
small a world this became. After the three Democrats on
(12:51):
his committee resign over some unilateral staff hiring issues, you know,
not consulting with the committee before hiring the staff, a
lot the Republican senators on the committee stopped showing up too,
because McCarthy will call these hearings suddenly, it'll be a
very short notice, it will be an inconvenient location, and
(13:11):
so people sort of stopped coming and it it really
does become McCarthy's show. McCarthy his his lead counsel, and um,
let's play a clip of one of these interrogations. I
will not give those names to them. When they said
that our function and coming back on the committee is
not to expose and prosecute Tomas. So he would you
(13:35):
like to hear this it's about you? But the effects
say our functions not to expose. I've always I want
when you asked me, and I'd say that that's what
I'm gonna face this and you don't have to have everyone.
I don't ask you all the time. They're talking now
(13:55):
from the clip we just played, there are a couple
of things that are parents. Um. There there's a very specific,
almost bullying style. I mean, let's take out the almost
there and there's there's a bullying style to this. Now,
anyone who has seen congressional hearings before knows that there's
certainly not the most merry and amiable places, you know,
(14:19):
our conversations. Uh. But as as McCarthy's power grows, the
public wants to see more of this and what more
access to this? Uh, this McCarthy investigation reality television what
you know what that is? Such an accurate thing to say.
In April of nineteen McCarthy's latest hearing has become broadcast
(14:43):
on national television, and the American public gets the chance
to observe firsthand the senators way of speaking, the method
to his madness. Right, what is this guy like in action?
What does he consider evidence? Uh? What does he listen for?
(15:04):
How does he react? What to him is, if anything,
proof of innocence? And the public does not like it. No,
it doesn't look very good. And unfortunately for McCarthy, he
had kind of already caused himself a little bit of
trouble shortly before this. One of his aids had used
(15:24):
the McCarthy connection to get himself a good position when
he was drafted into the army. Kind of an ironic
situation when you are taking on the army. And so
in April nineteen fifty four, when McCarthy and and his
his company started questioning members of the Armed services about
their alleged involvement with the Communist Party or the Soviet government,
(15:48):
his tactics really did start to look sort of unsavory.
They did look like bullying. It looked, uh, it didn't
look like what people were imagining. This sort of crusader
to to to be and um his his opposing side
of the Special Counsel for the Army, Joseph nigh Welch,
(16:09):
was really great at out maneuvering him too. He was
able to call out the lack of evidence and the
style of his delivery as being inappropriate and quite famously
says quote, have you no sense of decency? Sir? At
long last? Have you left no sense of decency? That's
(16:29):
really the point when the public turns on McCarthy. They're
all watching rapidly at home, these these hearings. But what's
so interesting to me. It's a little hard to imagine,
isn't it that people would all be watching something like
this now. But television plays such a huge role in
the downfall of McCarthy because we've we've just discussed his
(16:51):
taking on the army, getting in a little over his head.
But he also goes after the wrong newsman eventually, Yeah,
he goes after the worst possible newsman for him to target. Uh, McCarthy,
has you know a heart? I very rarely use the
word epic, Sarah, because I think that that word like awesomer, brilliant,
(17:15):
has kind of been watered down. So in the classical sense,
this is an epic confrontation that that evolves when McCarthy
and Edward Murrow start butting heads. Now, at this time,
Edward Murrow has a show called See It Now, And
we should say to this is slightly before the army
hearing this is, yeah, and the chronology is slightly before
(17:37):
the army units. So at this time Murrow and his
co workers, his team, they are like any other members
of the media establishment. They do not want to be blacklisted,
They do not want to be targeted as possible communists abversives.
So they do the whole nine the people of this time,
do they take the loyalty oath? They publicly, and I
(18:02):
won't say gratuitously, but they publicly and emphatically pronounced their
loyalties to the American way of life, uh, the you know,
the West, the western side of the Cold War, you know. Uh.
But Edward Murrow and his his group begin an investigation
of McCarthy. Now, when they first start doing this, they're
(18:25):
not confronting him with it. So the so so for
a very long time before McCarthy Murrow publicly butt heads,
Murrow is gathering evidence. He's he's picking up and this
is so clever. He's picking up contradictory statements that McCarthy
is making and and facts that have changed to suit, um,
(18:50):
McCarthy's purpose at the time, and he's just storing it.
He's biding his time and he's waiting, which I think
is a masterful, pretty genius well. And the other thing
that I consider really masterful is he doesn't debut it
in an attack on McCarthy. He he debuts the suggestion
(19:10):
that he might be up to something by covering a
case of an Air Force lieutenant who has been dismissed
over his mother and sisters communist ties. Just a good story,
you know. And uh, not too long after that program
aired on see it now, Uh, the lieutenant was reinstated.
So at that point, clearly Murrow is a target of McCarthy.
(19:35):
But because Murrow has been working so carefully all along, um,
you know, preparing for winter by gathering information, he's ready
to go already, he's got the information he needs and
he's ready to put out a show that's not just
about a lieutenant who's been affected by um this this
(19:57):
whole situation. Uh. Um. But McCarthy himself, yes, he's going after.
The biggest fish of McCarthy is um the man himself.
And now this may seem predictable. McCarthy's initial response to
Murrow's to Murrow's evisceration really on See It Now is
(20:22):
U two in a in a sort of I'm just
saying way. He kind of points out a few few
choice passages from something Murrow had written earlier, and ultimately
applies that perhaps Murrow himself as a communist, because otherwise,
you know, of course, why else would you have a
problem with it unless you're unless you yourself are a
red um. It doesn't work, no, And Murrow and his
(20:46):
network do, of course allow McCarthy to appear on the
show and offer some sort of rebuttal and uh, that
doesn't do McCarthy any favors either, because you were talking
about Morrow's See It Now program on McCarthy being an asseration.
But it's not as though Murrow we're editorializing on subject,
not at all. He very much allowed McCarthy's own words
(21:10):
to speak for themselves, using clips of McCarthy, pictures of them,
quotes from him, and then of course giving him the
second hour or I don't know, however, long the show
was Yeah, to to speak for himself again, Um, it
didn't put McCarthy in a favorable light. That happened in
March nineteen fifty four. He responded a month later, of course,
(21:33):
April nineteen fifty four. Also, when all of these televised
Army hearings are going on. It's just the perfect storm
of bad media coverage for McCarthy, live, national, whatever it
may be. He doesn't look good. No, he does not
look good. And his colleagues in the Senate are catching
(21:55):
wind of this as well. Now, remember he wasn't everybody's
favorite person in the big getting. And it's strange that
this is such a brief period of time. It's you know,
it's pretty four years. Yeah, and as his as his
star is fading or maybe plummeting um. In December of
(22:18):
nineteen fifty four, the Senate votes to censure him, or
they basically they vote to publicly rebuke him. And although
he will remain in the Senate for more than two
years after this, his reputation is ruined. And uh, he
is no longer um, no longer even commands a fraction
(22:41):
of the public attention he once held. No, he does,
of course continue to speak out against communism. But he
doesn't even live much longer than this. He died in
nineteen fifty seven at a fairly young age of complications
from alcoholism. UM. So yeah, you really can look at
this in nineteen fifty four and date to his work
(23:02):
related to well, certainly McCarthy ism since AMPARs his name.
But but the second wave of the Red scare. That's
not to say though, that it ended when he was censured,
when he was eventually voted out when he died. Of course,
numerous academics and entertainers, government officials, um. People found that
(23:23):
these accusations had permanently damaged their careers. It wasn't something
that you could just everybody agreed, well, McCarthy, what we
were we thinking there for a few years, do you
want to come back and get your old job again?
Of course it's not going to work like that and happened. No,
Unfortunately that was not the case. Association with those hearings
(23:43):
or was someone involved could still be enough to have
an impact on one's career, and as we know, the
h u a C continued its investigations. Uh then did
not need McCarthy's public image or help because again they
weren't really associated exactly the h v C hearings could
have exactly that same effect of permanently damaging your career.
(24:06):
And we talked a little bit in the last episode
about how the h a C initially focused on Hollywood
and especially on celebrities to really promote their their cause
and and get some media attention behind it. And while
some of the early hearings were with these friendly witnesses,
others were about making people name names. And after that
(24:30):
first round of big stars that they called in UM,
there came a batch of writers, directors, and a producer
who were called the Hollywood Ten, and UM, instead of
participating in these hearings, the Hollywood Ten didn't think that
the committee had the right to question them and challenge
(24:50):
the committee's authority to do so, and eventually spent a
year in federal prison for contempt of court. Um. The
h a C really kept going in Hollywood until nineteen
fifty two, but ultimately more than three people were blacklisted,
and those blacklists did last. They lasted. Some people consider
(25:13):
that they lasted until the early sixties when there was
finally a lawsuit, but it was of course made worse
too by the nineteen fifty publication of the pamphlet Red Channels,
and that had some really famous names in it, and
Red Channels. This, this pamphlet pretty much existed to tell
(25:36):
the readers that other people were communists. So this Red
Channels refers to the channels through which the Reds communicate
to secretly overthrow the US government via Hollywood. All right,
I mean it's not necessarily Hollywood. Uh, not necessarily only celebrities,
all kinds of the entertainer. I mean, we can list
a few of them here. Leonard Bernston, Orson Welles, we
(26:00):
to Horn, Alan Lomax, burl Ives Um Burl i'ves I
read a little bit more about him because I was thinking,
oh my gosh, he's the snowman on Rudolph Trendner's Ranger. Um.
He was able to maintain a career through the fifties
because he was willing to to talk to the talk
(26:20):
to people, you know, um name names. But I found
this story by an actress named Marcia Hunt really compelling.
She was at the height of her career in nineteen fifty.
She had been in movies throughout the forties, and she
was on the brink of television deal. She had offers
from three networks she was just waiting to hear in
(26:42):
nineteen fifty and then her name is published in Red
Channels and UM with six citations of of suspicious things
she had done and UM. She she talked about how
those were all things it wasn't it up. They were
all things she had done and things that she did
(27:03):
believe in, but things that she never would have considered
subversive in any way. Oh, that's exactly what she said.
She said, quote I was amazed to learn that they
were considered subversive in some way. And UM. She also
gave a great example of how hard it was to
clear your name with with cases like this and UM
(27:27):
or not even cases, just the suspense, just your name
is published and suddenly all your network deals disappear. She
talked about how there was just nothing she could do.
She tried writing letters to the networks, explaining that she
didn't know about communism, she didn't care for communism, she
had tried to serve her country in the best way
(27:48):
she could during World War Two. Never heard back from
any of them, because the possibly their response could have
been something suddenly you have a subversive connection then um.
But of course, a bunch of creative people unable to
to work look for other places. I think the theater
(28:10):
was apparently not as not affected, or at least Marcia
Hunt mentioned that she was able to continue working in
the theater um. But of course, to the theme of
witch hunts gets into entertainment too, into plays people right
into movies that people make. It's a it's a captivating theme. Yes,
(28:30):
it's a captivating theme, and it's one that resonates clearly
resonates with the creative community at the time, but it
also resonates with the national consciousness at this point. And uh,
you know, one of the most famous examples of that
would be Arthur Miller's The Crucible ostensibly about which trials
(28:52):
Yeah right, yeah, I should have said, sensibly about the
Salem witch trials um and also on level clearly about
the h U a C investigations that the need to
as we say, name names. Now Marcia Hunt serves as
(29:13):
a great example of how this actually happened. One thing
that this situation makes us do is is play a
little bit of a what if game. What if Marcia
Hunt had gotten a television show? You know, what would
have happened? What what would our opinion of her be today. Unfortunately,
(29:34):
we'll never know because her career was cut short, and
it was cut short because of this panic. And I
guess at this time I should put in a disclaimer
for everyone listening, because this is such a recent event
(29:55):
over the span of history. And it reminds me that
William Faulkner quote quotation where he notes that the past
hasn't really even passed yet, um, by which he means
and I am paraphrasing, Sorry, I don't know I sent
you bad mail about that, but send them to Ben.
Your podcast email is please, please do send them to me.
(30:19):
And the point that Faulkner makes in there is that
it's it's difficult for us to see the long term
consequences or ripple effects of some events. Now, the second
Red Scare, if we look at this from our very
(30:39):
recent retrospective stance, then we can see that the Red
Scare was what people call a moral panic. Now, a
moral panic is different from something like a panic over
microbes in the water, for instance. You know that's a
discernible thing and can take concrete steps to prevent public
(31:03):
health problem. But a moral panic is a widespread public
anxiety or an alarm because there's a threat that seems
to to uh endanger our moral fabric are values, uh,
the American way, the apple pie, the mom with the
april in the whole nine, and these things are not
(31:26):
You are neither unique to our culture nor unique to
this period in time. Um. Of course, the national atmosphere
of the time is uh sort of ripe for the
conspiracies of the international atmosphere. Absolutely absolutely, because this is
a global this is a global battle, a global ideological battle.
(31:49):
So McCarthy of course was able to take advantage of
that situation. Though by presenting a very intimidating front, he
had this influence. He had had a real ability to
ruin somebody's career, really disrupt their life, because a lot
of the sources that would normally fact check or criticize
(32:10):
his investigations and allegations were too intimidated to speak up.
We talked about how he was going after journalists too.
We talked about how Murrow's coverage was such a huge deal.
It's kind of amazing nobody does anything like that before
nine if this has gone on for four years, UM.
(32:30):
But protesting the McCarthy methods, protesting against McCarthy himself too
loud lately could be interpreted as communist sympathies, which is
why Edward Murrow had to be so very meticulous and
principled in his analysis. Now, of course this was criticism,
(32:54):
but to have pursued this any other way would have
very likely put his career in danger. Today, Joseph McCarthy
m most people remember him as an opportunistic, perhaps power
hungry individual who clung to this conspiracy theory, maybe for
(33:16):
the attention, maybe because he really believed it. And now
McCarthy ism has become synonymous with inquisitions, which Hunt's bullying,
even though it was not initially a negative term. No,
it was it was something about being principled and determined
to root out something that you strongly did not believe in. Right, Yeah,
(33:39):
that's such a great point. This wasn't always a pejorative.
So there's a continuing debate today about Joseph McCarthy and
his role. You'll hear some people who support McCarthy saying
that perhaps he had access to documents that were classified
that the American public wouldn't know about out and maybe
(34:00):
that's why it seemed as though there were no proof Um,
there is storians who will also say that some of
not all by any means, but some of the people
investigated did have relationship with the Soviet government. There are
some people who say that he is a flawed hero
(34:21):
and that he's been swindled by history. Those arguments, those
last arguments especially, are largely considered revisionist arguments. Although it
is true, um, that we did learn more about this
situation in recent years, it only makes it more complicated.
And I really think we're interesting. But um, before we
(34:41):
we wrap up on McCarthy, I want to get into
the conspiracy theory again and and get your analysis on
what did what did he do wrong? Okay? Yes, okay?
What makes him a What makes him a conspiracy theorist? Okay, yes?
What makes him a conspira is se theorists. What makes
(35:03):
makes me throw him in with some of the other crazy,
crazier folks is that he practiced a sort of confirmation bias. Primarily,
he looked for things that conformed to his pre existing idea,
ignoring the rest, Yes, and ignoring the rest today we'll
(35:24):
call it cherry pickings. So in in the investigations, you
can see that he takes quotes out of context, or
even an event out of context, you can see that
he believes in guilt by association. Uh. The Air Force
member that we mentioned earlier was guilty by association only
because of his wife, right, his mother, and his mother
(35:46):
and his sister, And that didn't have really much to
do with him except that he knew them. UM. And then,
perhaps most importantly, he did not substantiate his claims. Now again,
people who fend Joseph McCarthy will say that some of
his claims have been substantiated in later declassified documents like
(36:08):
the Venona papers. However, UM, as far as taking quotes
out of context, confirmation bias, believing in guilt, guilt by association,
in those terms, this is a conspiracy theory, and he
was not going to let a couple of things like
facts interfere with that. UM. Interestingly enough, we can see
(36:33):
some of we can see some of those practices in
some world governments today. In North Korea, for example, Guilt
by association is is practiced UM on a generational level.
And McCarthy, over all of those points you just named,
there's the gloss of his his bullying, or that's how
most people describe it his his presentation of all of this. Um.
(36:57):
I one of the first things when you suggest at
this topic I thought of was, Uh, Julia Child's husband,
Paul Child and um our producer Lizzie and I have
been talking recently about Julia Child's great memoir, My Life
in France, and I remember that there is a part
where her husband is is implicated, UM because he's a
(37:19):
he works in the Foreign Service, and he's called back
to Washington for questioning and everything. UM. But Julia Child
refers to to McCarthy and to um his disciples sort
of and and describes them as bully boys, these these younger,
younger McCarthy guys who come to Paris and are investigating
(37:42):
the Foreign Service. There really just such a straightforward description.
I think it gets everything across. Everybody knows what a
bully is and how a bully acts, and I think
that that's really what makes all of this possible, because
if you just take quotes out of context or believe
in guilt by association and that don't have the personality,
the bullying personality, that right, you're not going to get
(38:05):
any any airtime. Yes, that's such a good point, the bullying,
especially because who would listen to this if they did
not feel compelled to. Now, as as we said, this
event did happen so recently in history that it is
it is possible, if not plausible, it is possible that
(38:27):
perhaps later some sort of declassified document from the KGB
era will show up that completely vindicates Okay, and and
and I'm not saying it's probable or even plausible, but
it is is just not quite impossible that maybe some
(38:47):
document will come out and it will turn out that
his conspiracy theory was true. However, based on the way
he handled it, it seems as though, uh, this clearly
was not the case. In regardless of whether the conspiracy
theory proved to be true, so many people who clearly
had nothing to do with any of this foster livelihoods
(39:08):
and had their lives shaken up absolutely. Which is why,
especially if you're going to be conducting an investigation like this,
it's it's probably better to not be quite as bombastic.
But power is a crazy thing, and access to power,
the opportunity to garner more power, will make some people
(39:29):
do some very very odd stuff. Thank you so much
for leamy be on your show, Thank you for joining
me and I certainly want to recommend that folks check
out other weird Cold War conspiracies on your show, then
stuff they don't want you to know. I'm sure you
guys have covered lots of bizarre things. Oh gosh, yeah,
(39:49):
we have. We we have lots of bizarre stuff. We
have a couple of we have a couple of episodes
that will touch on Cold War things. UM, and the
KGB we're always is interested to hear more so, if
you have any suggestions for topics which should cover, please
let us know. This was a lot of fun, the
McCarthy uh stuff, by the way it was. And if
(40:09):
you have suggestions for the History podcast, you can email
us at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're on
Twitter at Myston History, and we are on Facebook. And
I just thought it would be fun to wrap up
with more upbeat fact um. Not too long ago, the
Writers Guild eventually corrected the credits on many films that
(40:32):
they were re released or that were being re released
UM that had had blacklisted professionals listed under pseudonyms. Because
some of these people they needed to work, they couldn't
leave the country or something, UM, so they continued to work.
But they wrote under different names, and some of these
are finally being corrected and restored to the uh you know,
(40:54):
it can be on their IMDb page now. Um. I
think that's a nice esture for something like this. It
certainly can't make up for a career that's dramatically affected.
But to get your credit, or to have the families
be able to see their family member if they've already
passed on, see their name restored to something they have
(41:15):
worked on, I think is really cool. What a wonderful
thing that is, a little bit of sunlight through the
clouds it is. If you don't want sunlight, though, you
can go read the article on how McCarthy isum works
get right back into it how You can find that
on our home page at that www. Dot how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(41:41):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
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