August 12, 2017 • 42 mins
In this week's SYSK Select episode, if you're accusing someone of disloyalty or subversion without decent evidence, then you may be guilty of McCarthyism. In this episode, Josh and Chuck explore the origin of the term, starting with the infamous Communist-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hi. There, it's Josh and for the s Y
s K Selects this week, I've chosen how McCarthyism works. Unfortunately,
it seems like it's always a pertinent time to cover
McCarthy ism. There's always some jerk who's persecuting other people.
And I hope it opened some eyes might not otherwise
have been open. Uh. To our friends in the gay community.
(00:23):
Are apologies for using the word homosexual without making air quotes. Uh.
This was five or so years ago, and I like
to think we've evolved somewhat since then. But still sorry
about that. Uh. And just as a final note, you
should probably disregard the rules to the contest that's now
defunct that's come up at the end of the episode.
Contest has come and gone and it was fun. So
(00:46):
enjoy this Stuff you Should Know Selects. Welcome to Stuff
you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. The
dream Police, they get me out of my bed in
(01:10):
my head right, the dream Police, I live inside of
my head. Okay, Well come to me in my bed. Okay,
thank you. I'm so glad you're here. Mr fourty year
old guy. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
and that is Chuck Bryant. Is that how we're starting? Yeah?
All right, and uh, since we started, since we started
(01:32):
off with Dream Police, you know that this is stuff
you should know. And you actually now know more about
the Dream Police than you did before. I'll wager. Yeah,
that's one of my Halloween costume goals one day is
to dress up as a dream Policeman. How would you
do that? Just mimic what they did on the cover.
They were like these white police uniforms and it was
(01:54):
all white. Huh, it's cool. Okay. I saw a tour
T shirt and an original tour T shirt? Who is that?
Cheap trick? Oh? Is it? Yeah? No, I didn't know that.
That was my very first concert. Nice? Was it the
Dream Police Tour? I'm not that old. Okay, that's the
one on one tour. So I'm Josh. That's Chuck Charles
w Chuck Bryant. And this is the weirdest intro we've
(02:16):
ever done, hands down. But um, we're here, we've started,
Uh STU. Words can only afford so much tape, so
we can't go back and record over the nope. Um,
so we're just gonna plug ahead, all right, are you ready?
I'm ready, Chuck, Josh, we talked about cheap trick. But
have you ever heard of another band called the Dixie Chicks. Indeed, yeah,
(02:43):
so you may remember that back in two thousand three,
and I believe March or two three, apparently like ten
days before the US invaded a Rock But when everybody
knew that the US was about to invade a rock,
the Dixie Chicks had a concert in London and Um
on stage Age Uh, the lead singer whose name escapes
me at the moment, okay, Natalie Um, she Uh basically
(03:09):
came out and said that they opposed the war, Um,
and that they they opposed the violence. And then here
was the kicker that they're a shamed that the President
of the United States is from Texas. Dixie Chicks are
also from Texas, but they were saying they're a shamed
of the president right that this is in London, and
they still did not have an easy time of it.
(03:30):
Immediately the international press jumped on it made its way
back to the United States, and it was war on
the Dixie Chicks and their lack of patriotism and their disloyalty.
People held demonstrations where they burned their CDs, and T
shirts and stuff. Um, and uh, ultimately there was a
(03:51):
radio group called Clearwater I believe that refused to give
them any radio play, and uh, it was pretty rough
going for him. They couldn't get any work or anything
like that for several years. And I was looking for,
um something to intro this episode of McCarthyism with. There
you go, that is new McCarthyism. Yeah, they were blacklisted. Yeah,
(04:13):
they couldn't get work because they expressed an unpopular, unpatriotic
sentiment and basically everybody turned on him McCarthy ism almost hysterically.
One could say they were turned on very good. But
they're back, baby, The Dixie Chicks are back and better
than ever. Are they? I don't know. Didn't they do
(04:34):
like a whole lot of like USO touring and stuff
to like kind of shake it off? I don't know.
I think they did. Hooked up with Toby Keith. Yeah,
that'll do it. That jingoism rubs off on you like
stank getting near that guy, and you just like start
to turn red, white and blue. Uh, McCarthyism, Is that
(04:54):
where we are? Yeah? I think I got us there.
So where do we start with this man communism? I well,
let's define McCarthy ism. I mean, that's a pretty good,
uh modern touchstone, but there's an actual definition of it.
What does Webster say? Well, what is the American Heritage Dictionary?
Hey man, Webster is British. You turned to the American
Heritage Dictionary to look at McCarthy ism. That's right. The
(05:17):
political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with
insufficient regard to evidence. So that's kind of the key there. Yeah,
it's basically saying, like, I publicly accuse you of being
disloyal to this country and not caring about mom and
apple pie and baseball, and I'm going to tell everybody
about it, and I do, even though I don't really
have any real evidence. It's just suspicion. It's rail roading.
(05:40):
And this was all because of Jenny McCarthy, right, yeah,
Cormac McCarthy, sure, okay, no, of course, Joseph McCarthy. Yeah,
that was his name, and he was a senator. Should
we give a little background on this guy? Yeah, born
in eight If I'm not mistaken, that is right. He's
a Scannie. He went to Marquette Golden Eagles, Go Golden
(06:01):
Eagles really, Yeah, you know they're from basketball. No, I
looked it up. Okay, let's gonna say it's pretty impressive.
I do know them for basketball though. Uh. He became
an attorney in ninety five during the Great Depression, and
became the youngest circuit court judge in Wisconsin history in
nineteen thirty nine at thirty one. Very young. Yeah, that
(06:23):
is young for a judge even then, even when old
timey times, that's right. Uh. Joined the Marines in World
War Two, but because of a hazing uh incident or accident,
had a broken foot, so he was I guess discharged years.
But impressively, he made it to captain in those two years.
So he's a Marine captain. And he rode that for
(06:43):
all it was worth, as far as using it to
get elected to a senate, right he he. In nineteen
forty four he ran for Senate in Wisconsin and lost,
but that's where he cultivated his image of tail gunner
Joe that was his name. Yeah, uh and he uh
he he just kind of, like you said, wrote that
(07:04):
military service for all it was worth. Yes, But he
did win a couple of years later in the nineteen
forty six and became a junior senator and was sort
of floundering as a senator as far as making a
name for himself until he latched onto the idea of, um,
let's get some attention here and start calling out people
(07:27):
and in power as is secret communists. Yeah, so he
had like this two pronged attack. Chucky. It wasn't just
like calling out these secret communists, it was simultaneously calling
out the soft liberal establishment that was apparently fine with
letting communists game position of powers within the U. S. Government,
which was not true or was it? It's not well
(07:50):
In in nineteen fifty in West Virginia, he gave a
speech um on Lincoln's birthday, and he had this list
of like two hundred and eight names of people who
worked for the State Department that he said, we're like communists,
drug addicts, sexual deviance which was a k a for
being gay, um, and said that these people need to
(08:12):
be rooted out. And the list was accurate. It had
been published a few years before by the State Department.
But he was using it as an example of not
only are these is this real? Are these people really
in government power? But the State Department itself published this
list and these people still work there. So what's going on.
Let's go get the Communis out of government, okay? And
(08:32):
Um almost immediately this fervor, this anti communist fervor that
had just been kind of slumbering and was there and
taking shape. It was plenty there. People didn't like the
Communists in the US before McCarthy, but McCarthy came in
added a level of jingoism to it that just completely
(08:53):
created this anti communist hysteria in America. Yeah, there's a
little bit of I don't know about controversy, but back
and forth about how many people were on this list.
Uh initially was like he said two oh five, but
then when he submitted the speech formally to Truman the
next day or I think two days later, it was
fifty seven names. And so it's kind of gone back
(09:15):
and forth over the years on whether it was two
or five or fifty seven. So I think it was.
I think the original list that he got his hands
on and was unedited was two oh five, but possibly
there's just fifty seven communists on the list and the
rest were drug addicts or alcoholics or whatever. The irony is,
Chuck that Um had he been screened by that State
(09:36):
Department test. He probably would have been on the list
himself because he was a pronounced alcoholic. Joe McCarthy was.
And did you know this, he was apparently gay. Uh,
I've heard that, but there's been no proof of that. No,
it is conjecture, but there's conjecture that not only was
he gay, and there was a rumor back in the fifties,
(09:58):
but not only is there conjecture of he was gay,
but that his top aide, Roy Kane, and Roy Khne's
top aide, David Shine, we're gay as well. Well, I
don't think I think Cone was. Was he definitely gay? Yeah? Okay,
I mean he died of AIDS in the eighties, not
that that means you're gay, but I think he was
known to be gay, and that one was of course,
(10:21):
uh what's his name to uh j Edgar? Well, yeah,
so it was weird a weird time. Yeah, there's a
lot of homosexuals persecuting other homosexuals. Yeah, public office for
that allegedly. Well I'm curious then, I mean it was
McCarthy just gay by association because Roy Khne was. I
don't know, I think it was just never proven, Like
(10:44):
he dated two of the Kennedy Girls and was married
later on. Well he got yeah, he got married in
nine nifty two, right after the first public accusation that
he was gay was published in a column. So he
turned around and married a secretary and then they adopted
a five week old. That's kind of the formula, isn't it.
I guess so like, oh no, I'm in love with
(11:05):
my secretary. Look watch this. So whether he was or
whether he wasn't, it's kind of irrelevant. But it's fun
to talk about um or is it irrelevant? Well, no,
it's not, of course not. Okay, all right, Well let's
(11:48):
let's get back to it. So he uh, he starts
waiving this list. The list is out there. He's got
proof that the government's turning its back on known communists
who work in its own ranks, and um America starts
just going crazy. Well yeah, and it's it's important to
know what's going on here at the time. This is
the second Red Scare. The first one was during World
(12:11):
War One and after, and it was pretty brutal, like
jailing people, deporting people with not much evidence. This was
the second one, and at the time, a couple of
things had it happened that proceeded a speech. UM, China
had just been taken over a couple of months earlier
by communists chairman, very big deal. Uh. The Soviet had
(12:34):
just exploded their first atomic bomb thanks to the Rosenberg's
very well we'll get to that too, uh. And uh,
leaders of the Communist Party of the United States, which
I think they maxed out at about seventy five thousand
members at a certain point, which a lot of people
uh Uh, they had been convicted of conspiring to overthrow
(12:56):
the government, So people were ready for the speech, which
it was like just the icing on the cake for
this fervor. Right. And I think something that's often overlooked
because all of the blame for this hysteria, if you
can call it that, even these days, um is late
at the feet of Joe McCarthy. But he was definitely
building upon, like you say, something that was already there,
(13:17):
Like there was the Sedition Act, that's Bionage Act, the
Alien Registration Act. All these were acts that were passed
by the U. S Government in response to fear of communists,
and he figured out how to use them to his
advantage to root communists out of the country. Basically and
to make a name for himself. Well, that was part
of it, might have been a big part of it.
His big problem was, though, was that, um, it's not
(13:39):
illegal to be a communist in the United States. Sure
it is. It's not though, it is illegal thanks to
the Alien Registration Act to even a bet to basically
sit by and let somebody try to overthrow the government.
And that's what they used to arrest the leaders of
the Communist Party of the United States. Subversion. Yeah, that's
what he was trying to get everybody on. So basically
(14:01):
he would bring you in front of his Congressional committee
and just give you the business, basically say admitted. Yeah.
And the other thing too, though, is like he was
immediately almost attacked by both political parties for this speech.
He wasn't. It wasn't like people the president was rallying
(14:21):
around McCarthy. He didn't get along with Truman or Eisenhower. No,
Truman was one of his great detractors. Eisenhower was a
supporter at first, but as we'll see, changed changed sides.
But yeah, he he found Truman to be a little
too soft on communists, even though Truman was the one
who made sure the Alien Registration Act got passed. It's
(14:42):
a weird time. Yeah, it really was. So should we
talk about the Rosenberg since you've lobbed that out there?
I have Julius and Ethel Rosenberg very famously were executed.
Only Americans ever to be executed for espionage in the
Cold War period, right now? No, I think Civil War
had plenty of people executed. First, they hung people left
(15:03):
and right. Uh, and they were were in fact communists.
There were known communists and played the Fifth which a
lot of people did, which ended up biting them all
in their collective took uses because that was tantamount to
a lot of people. Is a guilty plea right? And
of course the Fifth Amendment gives you the right to
not testify on your own behalf um, to incriminate yourself, Yeah,
(15:28):
to protect against self incrimination. The problem is is, I
think even today a lot of people say, well, what
what do you have to incriminate yourself about? If you
don't want to say anything, doesn't I mean you have
something to hide, You're guilty. And that was huge, huge
during the McCarthy trials that if you played the Fifth
you're basically saying, like, I'm not admitting to being guilty,
(15:49):
and everybody said it's guilty. That's true. But however, the
Rosenberg's um it has been found through the the Venona
transcripts and those where they they were secret Russian taped
recordings that were decoded in the forties but held onto
until what the two thousands when they were released it
(16:11):
made public. So now that the Venona transcripts are out,
we know that Ethel McCarty, I'm sorry, Ethel Rosenberg was
at the most and an accessory to this and not
you know, a blatant seller of of American secrets her
husband was guilty of of. Well, here's what this says.
(16:35):
It says they did not give the Soviets the secret
of the bomb because they never possessed the secret of
the bomb, and that there was evidence that Julius was
passing on information to the KGB, but it was military
industrial rather than atomic well selling out Boeing, So it's
not like they were like, yeah, that's great, they were
(16:56):
just working with the KGB on other things. But the
fact that they were executed is largely looked on now
that this has come out as a miscarriage ad justice. Well,
plus also if they're blamed like in this very article.
They're blamed for passing along the information that gave the
Russians the bomb, which live which led to like one
of the tensest periods in world history. So I mean, yeah,
(17:20):
they I imagine just their reputation, aside from the fact
that they were executed, just their reputation being tarnished in
that way. That's kind of a big deal. It was.
But you mentioned the Venona cables. They were intercepted and
decoded in the forties. The problem was McCarthy apparently didn't
have clearance enough to get his hands on these things.
So this is all the evidence he ever needed, but
(17:41):
he could never produce it. So what he did instead
was used really awful bully tactics to intimidate people into
admitting they were communists. And every single interview, every single
session was started with the same question, as far as
I understand, right, yeah, are you hour? Have you ever been?
(18:01):
I don't even have in front of me what was
it it is? Are you now or have you ever
been a member of the Communist Party of the United States.
That's how I thought you're gonna open the show. By
the way, no, I was going to talk about the
dream Police how did you not see that kind of Uh,
he did all this, it should be known from the
seat as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations,
(18:24):
which um increases level of power. But I think initially
he was given that position to sort of say, here,
just go playing that sandbox. Yeah. I don't think they
realized what power it gave him at the time. He
was very smart. He knew what he was doing. But
this was not who Act. No, and let's talk about
who Act. The House and American Activities Committee, Yes, first
(18:45):
established in seven and it was established to investigate things
like espionage, subversion, that kind of thing, including stuff by communists,
but it also originally investigated subversion by the right and
the left. And it was a house and he was
a senator. Yeah, so that's why a lot of people,
I think I still think that he was the chairman
(19:08):
of who Act, but that's not the game. Well he
how did he use it? Then? I think they worked
in concert. That's the best I could figure out. And
I was looking at that, I was like, well, why
is it always talking about who because they were involved
in the blacklist of Hollywood. But he was heading up
that thing, so so I guess maybe it was just
kind of hand in hand, like you say, working in concert,
because the blacklist of Hollywood happened three years before he
(19:29):
even gave his speech in West Virginia. How was that
when it started? Yeah? Um, well WHO ACT, the House
and American Activities Committee I was started in the seven
by UM. Like I said, they investigated the right and
the left, but they never investigated the clan because apparently
the three guys who were in power of the WHO ACT,
we're all clan sympathizers, if not members. So the clan
(19:51):
never got investigated, but everybody else did, including the communists.
And it was already UM sniffed out as uh so
really um, insincere political tool, that's how it was being used.
And uh there was a guy who was the head
of the Progressives and he basically said, you guys are
(20:12):
using this committee as a way to wrap the flag
over your grease stained togas um and and you never
have to you never have to explain your vote because
all you can do you can oppose anything. You can
oppose labor unions, you can oppose the farmer, you can
oppose anything you want and never have to answer for
it because you just say that you're fighting the communists,
and well, the labor unions was a big part of
(20:34):
the first Red Scare was the rise of the labor
unions and all these strikes going on. And people are
like the labor parties, they're they're communists, right exactly, But
that's how it happens. Like basically they say the Labor
Party communism, same thing. The American public doesn't put too
installed into it, buys it. And now still to this
day people people compare the two. It's sad, it's left
(20:58):
an indelible mark. You could say it has um And
like you said, he was an intimidator, threatened prison, no
evidence or very little evidence, and he would attack people,
release names publicly, and ruin people's lives without any recourse.
Uh except that in seven the Supreme Court ruled that
(21:20):
constitutional rights of witnesses were guaranteed during a congressional investigation,
even though it's not court. So they got along in
the books thankfully thanks to him. Yeah, um yeah. Apparently
McCarthy's big problem was he had good information, just no evidence.
Like he got all of his information from the FBI,
from Hoover's FBI, but it was basically just here staying
(21:42):
conjecture that was right. There's just no evidence to back
it up. So yeah, he just used to try to
beat people over the head and intimidate them into agreeing,
and it worked a lot of times. It had worked
before too, when Hollywood was blacklisted. UM, there was Do
you want to talk about Hollywood? Yeah, let's let's do it.
This is the most interesting part to me as a
movie guy. UM. So we were talking about how there
(22:07):
was this blacklist that was created. There's an official version,
as I understand, right, an official blacklist? Is there? Or
was it all unofficial? Um? No? I mean like three
people were on it, but there's some like Orson Welles
was supposedly on it and Charlie Chaplin, but I don't
think that was proven or maybe I'm wrong. I couldn't
(22:28):
find found a list of people, but I don't know
if there was an official list passed around. There probably was.
So basically there was. Um there was a pamphlet called
Red Channels and it was put together by um, some
FBI guys and a producer in Hollywood, a right leaning producer,
and it was a blacklist. It was basically the blacklist, UM,
and it was distributed to everybody in the entertainment industry,
(22:51):
and basically, if your name was on there, to get work,
you had to go appear before the House on American
Activities Committee or McCarthy and clear your name and then
you could get work again. Or name names. Name names,
and a lot of people did, like Lee J. Cobb,
great actor and twelve Angry Men. He named names. He
apparently put up a heck of a fight for a
(23:12):
while and then finally said, like, my family's starving, and
I thought about it. I'm not willing to die for this,
so here's some names. And then he named some names,
and some of those people would name some more names,
and people were naming names. Other people were going to Europe,
like Check Baker. He was on the list because he
was gay, as far as I understand, so he went
to Europe and never came back to the US. I believe. Yeah,
(23:32):
chaplain went overseas to get work too. Um. Elijah Elliot
Kazan very famously named names. Director Legendary Director on the
Waterfront named eight names of people that, uh, we're already
known to be communists. So that was his reasoning, was
I gotta save my career I'm not willing to go
(23:54):
down for this. They already know these people, so I'm
just gonna name those eight. And he was did you
watch the Officers in two thousand two when he got
his honorary award. It was divisive, to say the least.
They brought him out there. I think um Scorcese and
de Niro brought him out and um they showed reaction
shot to the crowd, some people standing and cheering, and
(24:15):
then like Ed Harris and Amy Madigan like sitting there scowling,
and like Nick Nulty sitting on his hands. Yeah, you
don't want to take off. She's mean. But so yeah,
that was really divisive. Um before the Blacklist though, or
I don't know if it was before the Blacklist, but
the Hollywood Ten we're very famous because they were ten screenwriters.
(24:37):
I think one was a I think nine of the
ten were screenwriters. One was a director. But they always
picked on the writers, it seems like. But they were
questioned by McCarthy and said, we're not cooperating. We're gonna
claim our First Amendment right to free speech. And eight
were sentenced to a year in prison, to who received
six month sentences and out of the black list, and
(25:00):
that was the Waldorf Statement, very famously was issued. Um,
the head of the m p a A met with
basically the member of every major Hollywood studio behind closed doors,
developed their blacklist, released the Waldorf statement because it was
at Waldorf Historia and said, uh, these people aren't gonna
work again, and hear their names, and I think only
(25:25):
at the end, out of the three hundred and something,
only about ten percent ever like worked again. It's so sad,
Burgess Meredith, he was on the list. He worked again.
He was great in the Rocky movies. Oh and Batman.
Yeah remember the point um so zero Mustel he was
on there. He was creating the Producers pizza here he
(25:45):
was folk singer. Uh so. Um. There were like real
(26:20):
repercussions of this, not just you know, basically a single
senator deciding that he was going to interpret the Constitution
anyway liked um, not just whipping up this fear among
the average American person. Um, but there were people whose
careers were ruined, whose lives were ruined, who who just
lost their livelihoods because they went to a Communist meeting
(26:42):
or something ten years before or maybe even we're communists.
Probably The big problem with this is um McCarthy took
a really iron rand esque approach to this, where he
kind of interpreted allowing Hollywood to bows any kind of
um communist ideas as a moral crime, just like um
(27:05):
you know, recently, Congress tried to go after um MPR
for having liberal bias. They were going to cut off
its funding. It's very randy in where it's a moral
crime to support something that's trying to destroy you, and
McCarthy definitely had that that viewpoint, and I think that's
why he was going after Hollywood himself or at least
(27:26):
supporting it well, because yeah, they were supposedly making movies
that subversively, you know, supported communism. But the problem is
is that's going after the intellectuals. He's not going after
the spies any longer. He's going after communist thinkers, like
people who aren't trying to overthrow the government. They just
think communism is a better idea, and that's when that's
(27:47):
it's going after spies. I don't think anybody really has
a problem with that, but he went well beyond that.
So that, combined with his tactics, have basically smeared his
name through the mud. For the rest of history. It's true. Uh,
if you're interested in some good movies on on the
Blacklist era Guilty by Suspicion as one DeNiro really good movie,
(28:08):
and good Night and good Luck of course, which was awesome,
or just read The Crucible that was great. Arthur Miller
famously in nineteen fifty three wrote a play that was
a very thinly veiled attack on McCarthy is m by
way of the Uh. The portal was the the witch Hunts,
the Salem witch Trials switch. It's basically like, here's what's
(28:29):
going on now, Goodie McCarthy right, Surprisingly didn't just outright
say it. Um. Also he went after Um books too.
He apparently had people scan the libraries for books that
contain anti American sentiments. They identified thirty thousand titles and
(28:50):
purged libraries of these books. What a jerk, so Um said,
you said it, so chuck this guy. At one point
in for it his peak, there was a poll taken
that found it was a gallop pole. So you know
that's quality. Uh. Fifty percent of the American people had
a favorable opinion of McCarthy, Like I don't think Ronald
(29:14):
Reagan even ever had. Yeah, and everybody loved Uncle Ronnie. Well,
that was in January, that same pole taken in June.
I saw that number of fall tot for very good reason.
What happened, What happened. What happened was he made the well,
he didn't make the mistake. Uh President Eisenhower. For the
(29:36):
very first time in broadcast history, he said, let's broadcast
these hearings and this at this time, it wasn't the
Hollywood Blacklist hearings. That was the his war on the Army. Yeah,
which is a bad move to do when your president
is a decorated general from the last war, like five
years before. Yeah. It was called the Army McCarthy hearings,
broadcast in nineteen fifty four on live television, and after
(30:01):
some one of a mundane start to the hearings, he
started accusing very heavily decorated and respected Army officers of
not being fit to wear the uniform. He told Brigadier
General Ralph Wicker, he compared him mentally to a five
year old, said he was a disgrace to the uniform.
(30:23):
And then everyone watching this on TV, it's like, wait
a minute, wait, this is what he's been doing. This
guy is a total jerk. Yeah, because before they were UM,
there were transcripts and there were minutes, but they were classified. Yeah,
well they weren't out. The media was also very sympathetic,
so they're portraying everything in a real light. So basically
Eisenhower was like, I'm gonna give you a little rope
(30:44):
and I think you'll go hang yourself with it, and
he did, UM, and the American public turned on him
like crazy Truman or I'm sorry, not Truman, but Eisenhower.
UM also instructed as Vice President Richard Nixon to go
speak vaguely but publicly against McCarthy, which he did, which
gave the media tested approval to go after McCarthy. Gave
(31:06):
who the media, but who did he get to? Nixon?
Nixon was Eisenhower's VP, and Nix him out there was like,
oh okay, I love the UM and he uh yeah.
After that, the floodgates open and all of a sudden,
everybody was all against McCarthy because basically Nixon had been
like a government against McCarthy too, and the Army started
(31:29):
feeding the media. Army intelligence had dirt McCarthy. He used
his office or tried to unsuccessfully UM to influence the
army to keep from drafting um David Shine, Roy Cohn's
lover or aid um. And it didn't work. And then
once he was drafted, they he used he tried to
(31:51):
use his influence again to get the army to take
it easy on the guy so that he wouldn't go
into battle. Um. So they released that to the media.
So this guy who's like, you know, smearing decorated army
generals on TV right, has has tried to use his
power to keep somebody else from having to serve. That
didn't play very well either. So basically they centure him, right, Yeah,
(32:15):
they said, you know what, uh, we don't like you anymore.
I think that's the official statement, because we don't like
you anymore. Um cruel and reckless. And he was centered
by a vote of sixty to twenty two. Originally in
nineteen there were forty six charges of abuse of legislative power,
but they reduced that to two. Or they only centured
(32:38):
him onto because they didn't want to appear like there
were big softies on communism. They were trying to strike
the right balance of getting him out of there without
looking like there you know, commues themselves. Um. So He
remained uh in office at least for a little while
longer um, but at age forty eight in nineteen fifty seven,
(32:59):
he died of acute hepatitis from alcohol abuse. If you're
forty eight and you die from alcohol abuse, then you've
been drinking since you were one and a half. Yeah,
he said. Apparently read some biography a bit that said
that he when he was on the wagon, that meant
he just drank beer and didn't drink whiskey. So when
he quit drinking, that meant he only drank beer. He
(33:19):
was like Dennis Hopper and Hoosiers, except in the Senate.
Very powerful. Wait, so he was like Ted Kennedy. Well,
he was actually a friend of the Kennedy's, which is
weird because Kennedy's were very liberal obviously, but he was Catholic.
He identified with the Kennedy's because they were Catholic. Joseph
Kennedy was big anti communist, and he thought, Hey, if
(33:44):
I can help this guy get into office, then that
will be a good road paved for other Catholics. Like
my son's Johnny, like my Johnny, my Bobby, and like
I said earlier, he dated two of the daughters supposedly
and um, well not supposedly he did. I just don't
know what went on on those dates. And um uh
(34:06):
John Kennedy was very quiet about this whole thing. He
never came out and attacked him because Uh McCarthy was
very uh had a lot of sway in campaigning against
Democrats and elections, and he never did that too to
John F. Kennedy. So Kennedy kind of laid off when
it came time to attack McCarthy. And I think Bobby
(34:27):
Kennedy actually worked with him. Well, that was another abuse,
Like basically he used this whole hysteria and the power
given to him by by targeting New Deal Democrats and
basically helping further Republican policies rather than going after the communists. Yeah.
He he was quoted at one time saying that Democrats
uh had been operating on quote twenty years of treason.
(34:50):
He accused them of being treasonist Democrats and Truman um
once referred to him as the best asset the Kremlin
has and said he was out the set abotage with
the foreign policy of the United States. So man, they
were not. They did. He did not get along with anyone,
so chuck outside of his group. Of course, here's the kicker,
(35:12):
as shamed and publicly humiliated and just kicked to the curb.
Joseph McCarthy. The big jerk was he was writing a
lot of instances. He was in a way. Um, I
have a historian on my on my speed dial named
John Earl Haynes. He went over the Venona transcripts and
(35:37):
his conclusion was that out of a hundred and fifty
nine people identified by McCarthy, nine of them were aiding
Soviet espionage efforts. And he said a majority of those
could legitimately have been considered risks, but a substantial minority
could not. So he said he has nine people, which
(35:57):
included a captain in the navy, Uh, Davy, he was
still in the Navy, And imagine he would be for
life to two atomic spies, someone who held meetings with
Churchill and Roosevelt. Yeah, who who is that? I don't know.
I couldn't find out. I'm very curious. Um, and somebody
(36:18):
who held the top office in today's equivalent of the
c I A, oh yeah, it also says ten senior
level officials. Uh. We're also later shown to have had
Communist ties. Even though they weren't necessarily a security risk, right,
so there were a Um, you can also make the
(36:38):
case that if you cast a wide enough net, you're
gonna catch some some tuna along with the sea spiders.
As the old saying goes, Yeah, it's it's still divided
like some people and culture loves the guy now and said,
you know, history has shown that he was right about it.
All is. She's still around. Yeah, she's alive. Okay, well
what do you what do you think having to her?
I just thought she fell off the radar. Oh, I
(37:00):
don't know. Okay, she's not on my radar, but I'm
sure she's on somebody's radar. She's on Bill Mar's radar.
She's on um oh man, Ted Nugent's radar. Really yeah, man,
he used to uh he he would guest host for
Neil Boort's years back. And I heard her on his
show once and um, He's like, I'm look, I'm just
(37:22):
a guitar player. And she stopped him. She's like, I
love it when you say that. It was like really wow.
Like I was like, if I were Ted Nugent's wife,
I'd be mad. Right now. That's a little creepy. You
got anything else? No, So in this episode, if you
come across the stuff, you should know quiz that mentions
the McCarthy ism episode. The four bands that made an
(37:45):
appearance were Cheap Trick Yep, the Dixie Chicks, Billy Joel,
and Ted Nugent. You knew, I don't know. The Billy
Joel that was a cheap one. It was good. It
was good man. Um. So that's about it for McCarthy ism.
It's still alive today. Instead of communists, we know, target
(38:06):
Muslims what a lot of people say, um, and the
Dixie Chicks Muslims in the Dixie Chicks. Basically anybody who
opposes America invading other countries. That's the new McCarthy ism.
All right. Um, I could throw an r M reference
in there already I already said it. We're not gonna
(38:26):
exum him what exuming McCarthy's r M? Oh is it? Well?
How did you wait this long to throw that in?
I don't know. I just think it would be a
little cheerry on top. All right, So the five bands
are Cheap Trick, Billy Joel, Dixie Chicks, Uh, Ted Nugent
in r E M. But Ted nugent was in r
A M so oh Man. Anyway, just go type in
(38:48):
McCarthy ism and c C A R T H y
I s M into the search part hows to first
dot com and that will bring up new stuff that
we didn't even touch on, um, including factual errors about
such groups as the Rosenberg family. Uh and I said
search part how stuff works dot com, which means it's
time finally for that's y s K contests rules. That's right, Josh.
(39:21):
We are running a contest our our parent company, Discovery
Channel is where you can come to Atlanta and come
see the studio, have lunch with me and you and
hang out a little bit. Yeah. And if you're interested
in such a thing, I don't know why anyone would be,
you can enter this contest. It runs through December thirty one.
(39:44):
Winners are announced the week of one one. Yeah, right
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(40:06):
which is nice, Yeah, Tony doll AMEX gift card for
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(40:29):
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(40:49):
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(41:10):
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(42:04):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff Works dot com. H
M Hi. There, it's Josh and for the s Y
s K Selects this week, I've chosen how McCarthyism works. Unfortunately,
it seems like it's always a pertinent time to cover
McCarthy ism. There's always some jerk who's persecuting other people.
And I hope it opened some eyes might not otherwise
have been open. Uh. To our friends in the gay community.
(00:23):
Are apologies for using the word homosexual without making air quotes. Uh.
This was five or so years ago, and I like
to think we've evolved somewhat since then. But still sorry
about that. Uh. And just as a final note, you
should probably disregard the rules to the contest that's now
defunct that's come up at the end of the episode.
Contest has come and gone and it was fun. So
(00:46):
enjoy this Stuff you Should Know Selects. Welcome to Stuff
you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. The
dream Police, they get me out of my bed in
(01:10):
my head right, the dream Police, I live inside of
my head. Okay, Well come to me in my bed. Okay,
thank you. I'm so glad you're here. Mr fourty year
old guy. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
and that is Chuck Bryant. Is that how we're starting? Yeah?
All right, and uh, since we started, since we started
(01:32):
off with Dream Police, you know that this is stuff
you should know. And you actually now know more about
the Dream Police than you did before. I'll wager. Yeah,
that's one of my Halloween costume goals one day is
to dress up as a dream Policeman. How would you
do that? Just mimic what they did on the cover.
They were like these white police uniforms and it was
(01:54):
all white. Huh, it's cool. Okay. I saw a tour
T shirt and an original tour T shirt? Who is that?
Cheap trick? Oh? Is it? Yeah? No, I didn't know that.
That was my very first concert. Nice? Was it the
Dream Police Tour? I'm not that old. Okay, that's the
one on one tour. So I'm Josh. That's Chuck Charles
w Chuck Bryant. And this is the weirdest intro we've
(02:16):
ever done, hands down. But um, we're here, we've started,
Uh STU. Words can only afford so much tape, so
we can't go back and record over the nope. Um,
so we're just gonna plug ahead, all right, are you ready?
I'm ready, Chuck, Josh, we talked about cheap trick. But
have you ever heard of another band called the Dixie Chicks. Indeed, yeah,
(02:43):
so you may remember that back in two thousand three,
and I believe March or two three, apparently like ten
days before the US invaded a Rock But when everybody
knew that the US was about to invade a rock,
the Dixie Chicks had a concert in London and Um
on stage Age Uh, the lead singer whose name escapes
me at the moment, okay, Natalie Um, she Uh basically
(03:09):
came out and said that they opposed the war, Um,
and that they they opposed the violence. And then here
was the kicker that they're a shamed that the President
of the United States is from Texas. Dixie Chicks are
also from Texas, but they were saying they're a shamed
of the president right that this is in London, and
they still did not have an easy time of it.
(03:30):
Immediately the international press jumped on it made its way
back to the United States, and it was war on
the Dixie Chicks and their lack of patriotism and their disloyalty.
People held demonstrations where they burned their CDs, and T
shirts and stuff. Um, and uh, ultimately there was a
(03:51):
radio group called Clearwater I believe that refused to give
them any radio play, and uh, it was pretty rough
going for him. They couldn't get any work or anything
like that for several years. And I was looking for,
um something to intro this episode of McCarthyism with. There
you go, that is new McCarthyism. Yeah, they were blacklisted. Yeah,
(04:13):
they couldn't get work because they expressed an unpopular, unpatriotic
sentiment and basically everybody turned on him McCarthy ism almost hysterically.
One could say they were turned on very good. But
they're back, baby, The Dixie Chicks are back and better
than ever. Are they? I don't know. Didn't they do
(04:34):
like a whole lot of like USO touring and stuff
to like kind of shake it off? I don't know.
I think they did. Hooked up with Toby Keith. Yeah,
that'll do it. That jingoism rubs off on you like
stank getting near that guy, and you just like start
to turn red, white and blue. Uh, McCarthyism, Is that
(04:54):
where we are? Yeah? I think I got us there.
So where do we start with this man communism? I well,
let's define McCarthy ism. I mean, that's a pretty good,
uh modern touchstone, but there's an actual definition of it.
What does Webster say? Well, what is the American Heritage Dictionary?
Hey man, Webster is British. You turned to the American
Heritage Dictionary to look at McCarthy ism. That's right. The
(05:17):
political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with
insufficient regard to evidence. So that's kind of the key there. Yeah,
it's basically saying, like, I publicly accuse you of being
disloyal to this country and not caring about mom and
apple pie and baseball, and I'm going to tell everybody
about it, and I do, even though I don't really
have any real evidence. It's just suspicion. It's rail roading.
(05:40):
And this was all because of Jenny McCarthy, right, yeah,
Cormac McCarthy, sure, okay, no, of course, Joseph McCarthy. Yeah,
that was his name, and he was a senator. Should
we give a little background on this guy? Yeah, born
in eight If I'm not mistaken, that is right. He's
a Scannie. He went to Marquette Golden Eagles, Go Golden
(06:01):
Eagles really, Yeah, you know they're from basketball. No, I
looked it up. Okay, let's gonna say it's pretty impressive.
I do know them for basketball though. Uh. He became
an attorney in ninety five during the Great Depression, and
became the youngest circuit court judge in Wisconsin history in
nineteen thirty nine at thirty one. Very young. Yeah, that
(06:23):
is young for a judge even then, even when old
timey times, that's right. Uh. Joined the Marines in World
War Two, but because of a hazing uh incident or accident,
had a broken foot, so he was I guess discharged years.
But impressively, he made it to captain in those two years.
So he's a Marine captain. And he rode that for
(06:43):
all it was worth, as far as using it to
get elected to a senate, right he he. In nineteen
forty four he ran for Senate in Wisconsin and lost,
but that's where he cultivated his image of tail gunner
Joe that was his name. Yeah, uh and he uh
he he just kind of, like you said, wrote that
(07:04):
military service for all it was worth. Yes, But he
did win a couple of years later in the nineteen
forty six and became a junior senator and was sort
of floundering as a senator as far as making a
name for himself until he latched onto the idea of, um,
let's get some attention here and start calling out people
(07:27):
and in power as is secret communists. Yeah, so he
had like this two pronged attack. Chucky. It wasn't just
like calling out these secret communists, it was simultaneously calling
out the soft liberal establishment that was apparently fine with
letting communists game position of powers within the U. S. Government,
which was not true or was it? It's not well
(07:50):
In in nineteen fifty in West Virginia, he gave a
speech um on Lincoln's birthday, and he had this list
of like two hundred and eight names of people who
worked for the State Department that he said, we're like communists,
drug addicts, sexual deviance which was a k a for
being gay, um, and said that these people need to
(08:12):
be rooted out. And the list was accurate. It had
been published a few years before by the State Department.
But he was using it as an example of not
only are these is this real? Are these people really
in government power? But the State Department itself published this
list and these people still work there. So what's going on.
Let's go get the Communis out of government, okay? And
(08:32):
Um almost immediately this fervor, this anti communist fervor that
had just been kind of slumbering and was there and
taking shape. It was plenty there. People didn't like the
Communists in the US before McCarthy, but McCarthy came in
added a level of jingoism to it that just completely
(08:53):
created this anti communist hysteria in America. Yeah, there's a
little bit of I don't know about controversy, but back
and forth about how many people were on this list.
Uh initially was like he said two oh five, but
then when he submitted the speech formally to Truman the
next day or I think two days later, it was
fifty seven names. And so it's kind of gone back
(09:15):
and forth over the years on whether it was two
or five or fifty seven. So I think it was.
I think the original list that he got his hands
on and was unedited was two oh five, but possibly
there's just fifty seven communists on the list and the
rest were drug addicts or alcoholics or whatever. The irony is,
Chuck that Um had he been screened by that State
(09:36):
Department test. He probably would have been on the list
himself because he was a pronounced alcoholic. Joe McCarthy was.
And did you know this, he was apparently gay. Uh,
I've heard that, but there's been no proof of that. No,
it is conjecture, but there's conjecture that not only was
he gay, and there was a rumor back in the fifties,
(09:58):
but not only is there conjecture of he was gay,
but that his top aide, Roy Kane, and Roy Khne's
top aide, David Shine, we're gay as well. Well, I
don't think I think Cone was. Was he definitely gay? Yeah? Okay,
I mean he died of AIDS in the eighties, not
that that means you're gay, but I think he was
known to be gay, and that one was of course,
(10:21):
uh what's his name to uh j Edgar? Well, yeah,
so it was weird a weird time. Yeah, there's a
lot of homosexuals persecuting other homosexuals. Yeah, public office for
that allegedly. Well I'm curious then, I mean it was
McCarthy just gay by association because Roy Khne was. I
don't know, I think it was just never proven, Like
(10:44):
he dated two of the Kennedy Girls and was married
later on. Well he got yeah, he got married in
nine nifty two, right after the first public accusation that
he was gay was published in a column. So he
turned around and married a secretary and then they adopted
a five week old. That's kind of the formula, isn't it.
I guess so like, oh no, I'm in love with
(11:05):
my secretary. Look watch this. So whether he was or
whether he wasn't, it's kind of irrelevant. But it's fun
to talk about um or is it irrelevant? Well, no,
it's not, of course not. Okay, all right, Well let's
(11:48):
let's get back to it. So he uh, he starts
waiving this list. The list is out there. He's got
proof that the government's turning its back on known communists
who work in its own ranks, and um America starts
just going crazy. Well yeah, and it's it's important to
know what's going on here at the time. This is
the second Red Scare. The first one was during World
(12:11):
War One and after, and it was pretty brutal, like
jailing people, deporting people with not much evidence. This was
the second one, and at the time, a couple of
things had it happened that proceeded a speech. UM, China
had just been taken over a couple of months earlier
by communists chairman, very big deal. Uh. The Soviet had
(12:34):
just exploded their first atomic bomb thanks to the Rosenberg's
very well we'll get to that too, uh. And uh,
leaders of the Communist Party of the United States, which
I think they maxed out at about seventy five thousand
members at a certain point, which a lot of people
uh Uh, they had been convicted of conspiring to overthrow
(12:56):
the government, So people were ready for the speech, which
it was like just the icing on the cake for
this fervor. Right. And I think something that's often overlooked
because all of the blame for this hysteria, if you
can call it that, even these days, um is late
at the feet of Joe McCarthy. But he was definitely
building upon, like you say, something that was already there,
(13:17):
Like there was the Sedition Act, that's Bionage Act, the
Alien Registration Act. All these were acts that were passed
by the U. S Government in response to fear of communists,
and he figured out how to use them to his
advantage to root communists out of the country. Basically and
to make a name for himself. Well, that was part
of it, might have been a big part of it.
His big problem was, though, was that, um, it's not
(13:39):
illegal to be a communist in the United States. Sure
it is. It's not though, it is illegal thanks to
the Alien Registration Act to even a bet to basically
sit by and let somebody try to overthrow the government.
And that's what they used to arrest the leaders of
the Communist Party of the United States. Subversion. Yeah, that's
what he was trying to get everybody on. So basically
(14:01):
he would bring you in front of his Congressional committee
and just give you the business, basically say admitted. Yeah.
And the other thing too, though, is like he was
immediately almost attacked by both political parties for this speech.
He wasn't. It wasn't like people the president was rallying
(14:21):
around McCarthy. He didn't get along with Truman or Eisenhower. No,
Truman was one of his great detractors. Eisenhower was a
supporter at first, but as we'll see, changed changed sides.
But yeah, he he found Truman to be a little
too soft on communists, even though Truman was the one
who made sure the Alien Registration Act got passed. It's
(14:42):
a weird time. Yeah, it really was. So should we
talk about the Rosenberg since you've lobbed that out there?
I have Julius and Ethel Rosenberg very famously were executed.
Only Americans ever to be executed for espionage in the
Cold War period, right now? No, I think Civil War
had plenty of people executed. First, they hung people left
(15:03):
and right. Uh, and they were were in fact communists.
There were known communists and played the Fifth which a
lot of people did, which ended up biting them all
in their collective took uses because that was tantamount to
a lot of people. Is a guilty plea right? And
of course the Fifth Amendment gives you the right to
not testify on your own behalf um, to incriminate yourself, Yeah,
(15:28):
to protect against self incrimination. The problem is is, I
think even today a lot of people say, well, what
what do you have to incriminate yourself about? If you
don't want to say anything, doesn't I mean you have
something to hide, You're guilty. And that was huge, huge
during the McCarthy trials that if you played the Fifth
you're basically saying, like, I'm not admitting to being guilty,
(15:49):
and everybody said it's guilty. That's true. But however, the
Rosenberg's um it has been found through the the Venona
transcripts and those where they they were secret Russian taped
recordings that were decoded in the forties but held onto
until what the two thousands when they were released it
(16:11):
made public. So now that the Venona transcripts are out,
we know that Ethel McCarty, I'm sorry, Ethel Rosenberg was
at the most and an accessory to this and not
you know, a blatant seller of of American secrets her
husband was guilty of of. Well, here's what this says.
(16:35):
It says they did not give the Soviets the secret
of the bomb because they never possessed the secret of
the bomb, and that there was evidence that Julius was
passing on information to the KGB, but it was military
industrial rather than atomic well selling out Boeing, So it's
not like they were like, yeah, that's great, they were
(16:56):
just working with the KGB on other things. But the
fact that they were executed is largely looked on now
that this has come out as a miscarriage ad justice. Well,
plus also if they're blamed like in this very article.
They're blamed for passing along the information that gave the
Russians the bomb, which live which led to like one
of the tensest periods in world history. So I mean, yeah,
(17:20):
they I imagine just their reputation, aside from the fact
that they were executed, just their reputation being tarnished in
that way. That's kind of a big deal. It was.
But you mentioned the Venona cables. They were intercepted and
decoded in the forties. The problem was McCarthy apparently didn't
have clearance enough to get his hands on these things.
So this is all the evidence he ever needed, but
(17:41):
he could never produce it. So what he did instead
was used really awful bully tactics to intimidate people into
admitting they were communists. And every single interview, every single
session was started with the same question, as far as
I understand, right, yeah, are you hour? Have you ever been?
(18:01):
I don't even have in front of me what was
it it is? Are you now or have you ever
been a member of the Communist Party of the United States.
That's how I thought you're gonna open the show. By
the way, no, I was going to talk about the
dream Police how did you not see that kind of Uh,
he did all this, it should be known from the
seat as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations,
(18:24):
which um increases level of power. But I think initially
he was given that position to sort of say, here,
just go playing that sandbox. Yeah. I don't think they
realized what power it gave him at the time. He
was very smart. He knew what he was doing. But
this was not who Act. No, and let's talk about
who Act. The House and American Activities Committee, Yes, first
(18:45):
established in seven and it was established to investigate things
like espionage, subversion, that kind of thing, including stuff by communists,
but it also originally investigated subversion by the right and
the left. And it was a house and he was
a senator. Yeah, so that's why a lot of people,
I think I still think that he was the chairman
(19:08):
of who Act, but that's not the game. Well he
how did he use it? Then? I think they worked
in concert. That's the best I could figure out. And
I was looking at that, I was like, well, why
is it always talking about who because they were involved
in the blacklist of Hollywood. But he was heading up
that thing, so so I guess maybe it was just
kind of hand in hand, like you say, working in concert,
because the blacklist of Hollywood happened three years before he
(19:29):
even gave his speech in West Virginia. How was that
when it started? Yeah? Um, well WHO ACT, the House
and American Activities Committee I was started in the seven
by UM. Like I said, they investigated the right and
the left, but they never investigated the clan because apparently
the three guys who were in power of the WHO ACT,
we're all clan sympathizers, if not members. So the clan
(19:51):
never got investigated, but everybody else did, including the communists.
And it was already UM sniffed out as uh so
really um, insincere political tool, that's how it was being used.
And uh there was a guy who was the head
of the Progressives and he basically said, you guys are
(20:12):
using this committee as a way to wrap the flag
over your grease stained togas um and and you never
have to you never have to explain your vote because
all you can do you can oppose anything. You can
oppose labor unions, you can oppose the farmer, you can
oppose anything you want and never have to answer for
it because you just say that you're fighting the communists,
and well, the labor unions was a big part of
(20:34):
the first Red Scare was the rise of the labor
unions and all these strikes going on. And people are
like the labor parties, they're they're communists, right exactly, But
that's how it happens. Like basically they say the Labor
Party communism, same thing. The American public doesn't put too
installed into it, buys it. And now still to this
day people people compare the two. It's sad, it's left
(20:58):
an indelible mark. You could say it has um And
like you said, he was an intimidator, threatened prison, no
evidence or very little evidence, and he would attack people,
release names publicly, and ruin people's lives without any recourse.
Uh except that in seven the Supreme Court ruled that
(21:20):
constitutional rights of witnesses were guaranteed during a congressional investigation,
even though it's not court. So they got along in
the books thankfully thanks to him. Yeah, um yeah. Apparently
McCarthy's big problem was he had good information, just no evidence.
Like he got all of his information from the FBI,
from Hoover's FBI, but it was basically just here staying
(21:42):
conjecture that was right. There's just no evidence to back
it up. So yeah, he just used to try to
beat people over the head and intimidate them into agreeing,
and it worked a lot of times. It had worked
before too, when Hollywood was blacklisted. UM, there was Do
you want to talk about Hollywood? Yeah, let's let's do it.
This is the most interesting part to me as a
movie guy. UM. So we were talking about how there
(22:07):
was this blacklist that was created. There's an official version,
as I understand, right, an official blacklist? Is there? Or
was it all unofficial? Um? No? I mean like three
people were on it, but there's some like Orson Welles
was supposedly on it and Charlie Chaplin, but I don't
think that was proven or maybe I'm wrong. I couldn't
(22:28):
find found a list of people, but I don't know
if there was an official list passed around. There probably was.
So basically there was. Um there was a pamphlet called
Red Channels and it was put together by um, some
FBI guys and a producer in Hollywood, a right leaning producer,
and it was a blacklist. It was basically the blacklist, UM,
and it was distributed to everybody in the entertainment industry,
(22:51):
and basically, if your name was on there, to get work,
you had to go appear before the House on American
Activities Committee or McCarthy and clear your name and then
you could get work again. Or name names. Name names,
and a lot of people did, like Lee J. Cobb,
great actor and twelve Angry Men. He named names. He
apparently put up a heck of a fight for a
(23:12):
while and then finally said, like, my family's starving, and
I thought about it. I'm not willing to die for this,
so here's some names. And then he named some names,
and some of those people would name some more names,
and people were naming names. Other people were going to Europe,
like Check Baker. He was on the list because he
was gay, as far as I understand, so he went
to Europe and never came back to the US. I believe. Yeah,
(23:32):
chaplain went overseas to get work too. Um. Elijah Elliot
Kazan very famously named names. Director Legendary Director on the
Waterfront named eight names of people that, uh, we're already
known to be communists. So that was his reasoning, was
I gotta save my career I'm not willing to go
(23:54):
down for this. They already know these people, so I'm
just gonna name those eight. And he was did you
watch the Officers in two thousand two when he got
his honorary award. It was divisive, to say the least.
They brought him out there. I think um Scorcese and
de Niro brought him out and um they showed reaction
shot to the crowd, some people standing and cheering, and
(24:15):
then like Ed Harris and Amy Madigan like sitting there scowling,
and like Nick Nulty sitting on his hands. Yeah, you
don't want to take off. She's mean. But so yeah,
that was really divisive. Um before the Blacklist though, or
I don't know if it was before the Blacklist, but
the Hollywood Ten we're very famous because they were ten screenwriters.
(24:37):
I think one was a I think nine of the
ten were screenwriters. One was a director. But they always
picked on the writers, it seems like. But they were
questioned by McCarthy and said, we're not cooperating. We're gonna
claim our First Amendment right to free speech. And eight
were sentenced to a year in prison, to who received
six month sentences and out of the black list, and
(25:00):
that was the Waldorf Statement, very famously was issued. Um,
the head of the m p a A met with
basically the member of every major Hollywood studio behind closed doors,
developed their blacklist, released the Waldorf statement because it was
at Waldorf Historia and said, uh, these people aren't gonna
work again, and hear their names, and I think only
(25:25):
at the end, out of the three hundred and something,
only about ten percent ever like worked again. It's so sad,
Burgess Meredith, he was on the list. He worked again.
He was great in the Rocky movies. Oh and Batman.
Yeah remember the point um so zero Mustel he was
on there. He was creating the Producers pizza here he
(25:45):
was folk singer. Uh so. Um. There were like real
(26:20):
repercussions of this, not just you know, basically a single
senator deciding that he was going to interpret the Constitution
anyway liked um, not just whipping up this fear among
the average American person. Um, but there were people whose
careers were ruined, whose lives were ruined, who who just
lost their livelihoods because they went to a Communist meeting
(26:42):
or something ten years before or maybe even we're communists.
Probably The big problem with this is um McCarthy took
a really iron rand esque approach to this, where he
kind of interpreted allowing Hollywood to bows any kind of
um communist ideas as a moral crime, just like um
(27:05):
you know, recently, Congress tried to go after um MPR
for having liberal bias. They were going to cut off
its funding. It's very randy in where it's a moral
crime to support something that's trying to destroy you, and
McCarthy definitely had that that viewpoint, and I think that's
why he was going after Hollywood himself or at least
(27:26):
supporting it well, because yeah, they were supposedly making movies
that subversively, you know, supported communism. But the problem is
is that's going after the intellectuals. He's not going after
the spies any longer. He's going after communist thinkers, like
people who aren't trying to overthrow the government. They just
think communism is a better idea, and that's when that's
(27:47):
it's going after spies. I don't think anybody really has
a problem with that, but he went well beyond that.
So that, combined with his tactics, have basically smeared his
name through the mud. For the rest of history. It's true. Uh,
if you're interested in some good movies on on the
Blacklist era Guilty by Suspicion as one DeNiro really good movie,
(28:08):
and good Night and good Luck of course, which was awesome,
or just read The Crucible that was great. Arthur Miller
famously in nineteen fifty three wrote a play that was
a very thinly veiled attack on McCarthy is m by
way of the Uh. The portal was the the witch Hunts,
the Salem witch Trials switch. It's basically like, here's what's
(28:29):
going on now, Goodie McCarthy right, Surprisingly didn't just outright
say it. Um. Also he went after Um books too.
He apparently had people scan the libraries for books that
contain anti American sentiments. They identified thirty thousand titles and
(28:50):
purged libraries of these books. What a jerk, so Um said,
you said it, so chuck this guy. At one point
in for it his peak, there was a poll taken
that found it was a gallop pole. So you know
that's quality. Uh. Fifty percent of the American people had
a favorable opinion of McCarthy, Like I don't think Ronald
(29:14):
Reagan even ever had. Yeah, and everybody loved Uncle Ronnie. Well,
that was in January, that same pole taken in June.
I saw that number of fall tot for very good reason.
What happened, What happened. What happened was he made the well,
he didn't make the mistake. Uh President Eisenhower. For the
(29:36):
very first time in broadcast history, he said, let's broadcast
these hearings and this at this time, it wasn't the
Hollywood Blacklist hearings. That was the his war on the Army. Yeah,
which is a bad move to do when your president
is a decorated general from the last war, like five
years before. Yeah. It was called the Army McCarthy hearings,
broadcast in nineteen fifty four on live television, and after
(30:01):
some one of a mundane start to the hearings, he
started accusing very heavily decorated and respected Army officers of
not being fit to wear the uniform. He told Brigadier
General Ralph Wicker, he compared him mentally to a five
year old, said he was a disgrace to the uniform.
(30:23):
And then everyone watching this on TV, it's like, wait
a minute, wait, this is what he's been doing. This
guy is a total jerk. Yeah, because before they were UM,
there were transcripts and there were minutes, but they were classified. Yeah,
well they weren't out. The media was also very sympathetic,
so they're portraying everything in a real light. So basically
Eisenhower was like, I'm gonna give you a little rope
(30:44):
and I think you'll go hang yourself with it, and
he did, UM, and the American public turned on him
like crazy Truman or I'm sorry, not Truman, but Eisenhower.
UM also instructed as Vice President Richard Nixon to go
speak vaguely but publicly against McCarthy, which he did, which
gave the media tested approval to go after McCarthy. Gave
(31:06):
who the media, but who did he get to? Nixon?
Nixon was Eisenhower's VP, and Nix him out there was like,
oh okay, I love the UM and he uh yeah.
After that, the floodgates open and all of a sudden,
everybody was all against McCarthy because basically Nixon had been
like a government against McCarthy too, and the Army started
(31:29):
feeding the media. Army intelligence had dirt McCarthy. He used
his office or tried to unsuccessfully UM to influence the
army to keep from drafting um David Shine, Roy Cohn's
lover or aid um. And it didn't work. And then
once he was drafted, they he used he tried to
(31:51):
use his influence again to get the army to take
it easy on the guy so that he wouldn't go
into battle. Um. So they released that to the media.
So this guy who's like, you know, smearing decorated army
generals on TV right, has has tried to use his
power to keep somebody else from having to serve. That
didn't play very well either. So basically they centure him, right, Yeah,
(32:15):
they said, you know what, uh, we don't like you anymore.
I think that's the official statement, because we don't like
you anymore. Um cruel and reckless. And he was centered
by a vote of sixty to twenty two. Originally in
nineteen there were forty six charges of abuse of legislative power,
but they reduced that to two. Or they only centured
(32:38):
him onto because they didn't want to appear like there
were big softies on communism. They were trying to strike
the right balance of getting him out of there without
looking like there you know, commues themselves. Um. So He
remained uh in office at least for a little while
longer um, but at age forty eight in nineteen fifty seven,
(32:59):
he died of acute hepatitis from alcohol abuse. If you're
forty eight and you die from alcohol abuse, then you've
been drinking since you were one and a half. Yeah,
he said. Apparently read some biography a bit that said
that he when he was on the wagon, that meant
he just drank beer and didn't drink whiskey. So when
he quit drinking, that meant he only drank beer. He
(33:19):
was like Dennis Hopper and Hoosiers, except in the Senate.
Very powerful. Wait, so he was like Ted Kennedy. Well,
he was actually a friend of the Kennedy's, which is
weird because Kennedy's were very liberal obviously, but he was Catholic.
He identified with the Kennedy's because they were Catholic. Joseph
Kennedy was big anti communist, and he thought, Hey, if
(33:44):
I can help this guy get into office, then that
will be a good road paved for other Catholics. Like
my son's Johnny, like my Johnny, my Bobby, and like
I said earlier, he dated two of the daughters supposedly
and um, well not supposedly he did. I just don't
know what went on on those dates. And um uh
(34:06):
John Kennedy was very quiet about this whole thing. He
never came out and attacked him because Uh McCarthy was
very uh had a lot of sway in campaigning against
Democrats and elections, and he never did that too to
John F. Kennedy. So Kennedy kind of laid off when
it came time to attack McCarthy. And I think Bobby
(34:27):
Kennedy actually worked with him. Well, that was another abuse,
Like basically he used this whole hysteria and the power
given to him by by targeting New Deal Democrats and
basically helping further Republican policies rather than going after the communists. Yeah.
He he was quoted at one time saying that Democrats
uh had been operating on quote twenty years of treason.
(34:50):
He accused them of being treasonist Democrats and Truman um
once referred to him as the best asset the Kremlin
has and said he was out the set abotage with
the foreign policy of the United States. So man, they
were not. They did. He did not get along with anyone,
so chuck outside of his group. Of course, here's the kicker,
(35:12):
as shamed and publicly humiliated and just kicked to the curb.
Joseph McCarthy. The big jerk was he was writing a
lot of instances. He was in a way. Um, I
have a historian on my on my speed dial named
John Earl Haynes. He went over the Venona transcripts and
(35:37):
his conclusion was that out of a hundred and fifty
nine people identified by McCarthy, nine of them were aiding
Soviet espionage efforts. And he said a majority of those
could legitimately have been considered risks, but a substantial minority
could not. So he said he has nine people, which
(35:57):
included a captain in the navy, Uh, Davy, he was
still in the Navy, And imagine he would be for
life to two atomic spies, someone who held meetings with
Churchill and Roosevelt. Yeah, who who is that? I don't know.
I couldn't find out. I'm very curious. Um, and somebody
(36:18):
who held the top office in today's equivalent of the
c I A, oh yeah, it also says ten senior
level officials. Uh. We're also later shown to have had
Communist ties. Even though they weren't necessarily a security risk, right,
so there were a Um, you can also make the
(36:38):
case that if you cast a wide enough net, you're
gonna catch some some tuna along with the sea spiders.
As the old saying goes, Yeah, it's it's still divided
like some people and culture loves the guy now and said,
you know, history has shown that he was right about it.
All is. She's still around. Yeah, she's alive. Okay, well
what do you what do you think having to her?
I just thought she fell off the radar. Oh, I
(37:00):
don't know. Okay, she's not on my radar, but I'm
sure she's on somebody's radar. She's on Bill Mar's radar.
She's on um oh man, Ted Nugent's radar. Really yeah, man,
he used to uh he he would guest host for
Neil Boort's years back. And I heard her on his
show once and um, He's like, I'm look, I'm just
(37:22):
a guitar player. And she stopped him. She's like, I
love it when you say that. It was like really wow.
Like I was like, if I were Ted Nugent's wife,
I'd be mad. Right now. That's a little creepy. You
got anything else? No, So in this episode, if you
come across the stuff, you should know quiz that mentions
the McCarthy ism episode. The four bands that made an
(37:45):
appearance were Cheap Trick Yep, the Dixie Chicks, Billy Joel,
and Ted Nugent. You knew, I don't know. The Billy
Joel that was a cheap one. It was good. It
was good man. Um. So that's about it for McCarthy ism.
It's still alive today. Instead of communists, we know, target
(38:06):
Muslims what a lot of people say, um, and the
Dixie Chicks Muslims in the Dixie Chicks. Basically anybody who
opposes America invading other countries. That's the new McCarthy ism.
All right. Um, I could throw an r M reference
in there already I already said it. We're not gonna
(38:26):
exum him what exuming McCarthy's r M? Oh is it? Well?
How did you wait this long to throw that in?
I don't know. I just think it would be a
little cheerry on top. All right, So the five bands
are Cheap Trick, Billy Joel, Dixie Chicks, Uh, Ted Nugent
in r E M. But Ted nugent was in r
A M so oh Man. Anyway, just go type in
(38:48):
McCarthy ism and c C A R T H y
I s M into the search part hows to first
dot com and that will bring up new stuff that
we didn't even touch on, um, including factual errors about
such groups as the Rosenberg family. Uh and I said
search part how stuff works dot com, which means it's
time finally for that's y s K contests rules. That's right, Josh.
(39:21):
We are running a contest our our parent company, Discovery
Channel is where you can come to Atlanta and come
see the studio, have lunch with me and you and
hang out a little bit. Yeah. And if you're interested
in such a thing, I don't know why anyone would be,
you can enter this contest. It runs through December thirty one.
(39:44):
Winners are announced the week of one one. Yeah, right
at the New Year. You get a little gift that's
a big gift. Grand prize trip for one to Atlanta
to go on an office in studio tour and have
lunch with us. Includes hotel, one night, air fare up
to five hondy and an Amex gift card for travel incidentals,
(40:06):
which is nice, Yeah, Tony doll AMEX gift card for
the toothbrush you forgot. You know how much I don't
even know. I don't. You're the guy with the list
of rules in your hand. And there is also a
referr prize. So if your person a you enter the contest,
is it refer or refer? Okay? If you're a person
a and you refer someone to the contest and they win,
(40:29):
then you get the Kindle Fire. So person A has
to click share. Person A and b UH have to
both enter the contest. In person b wins the grand prize.
Person A wins the Kindle Fire. I would rather win
Kindle Fire. You win the grand prize. If you can
explain what you just read right, and if you want
(40:49):
to enter this contest, go to Facebook dot com slash
how stuff Works. There's how stuff works dot com. I
think it's how stuff works. And go to the how
stuff Works fan page, not the stuff you Should Know page.
How stuff Works fan page. You gotta like it and
then enter it right there on the on the page
there the front page. So you have to live in
America and you have to be at least a semi
(41:10):
computer literate to get to this Facebook page and like it.
But other than that, it's wide open. It's your big chance,
probably once in a lifetime, chance to know what Jerry
smells like. Here's a spoiler which smells very pleasantly she does. Um, So,
if you want to do that, go do that. And
if you want to get in touch with us via
tweet er, we want them to call you on tweeter
(41:34):
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(42:04):
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