TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/election/52elect/52elect.019

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                                                                                June 29, 1953

THE NATION

McCarthyism: Myth & Menace



     In mid-1953, the coincidence of new administrations in
Washington and Moscow creates a host of urgent questions. The
Korean truce crisis opens ill-defined opportunities and painful
threats in the struggle for Asia; the European alliance creaks
with strain; riots and strikes in East Germany call for a sharper
U.S. policy toward west Germany; at home, a new defense budget is
tossed about in fuzzy controversy; new Government policies toward
taxes, business, farming labor are on the national agenda.

     Amid this immense pressure for decision, public discussion
in the U.S. is dominated by one issue: McCarthyism. Abroad, among
its strongest allies, public discussion of the U.S. is almost
monopolized by McCarthyism.

     The Flattering Obsession. The American who reads newspapers,
listens to the radio or talks public affairs with his friends
does not need to be told how all-pervasive the McCarthy topic has
become. McCarthy-in-Europe may be more surprising. There, Senator
joseph mcCarthy is the second-best known of living Americans and
regarded by many as the most powerful. McCarthyism has cost the
U.S. billions spent to promote international cooperation and
trust and to advance U.S. leadership/

     With the British, especially, McCarthyism is an obsession-a
delightful, self-flattering obsession that salves the bruised
british ego with the balm of moral superiority to the upstart
Americans. The more McCarthyism can be exaggerated in its evil or
its power, the more it fascinates the British.

     A former Prime Minster can indulge himself by wondering out
loud whether MCCarthy or Eisenhower is the more powerful. The
anti-American New Statesman & Nation finds in McCarthyism the
thickest stick it ever brandished. Hardly anyone in Britain
laughs when the New Statesman says: "the Hitler-McCarthy analogy
is disturbingly apt." It goes on with a typical distortion of
McCarthy's power, finding him in alliance with "powerful
interests in contemporary America," including "a substantial part
of American Roman Catholicism" and "many American
industrialists." The New Statesman smugly concludes: "It is anti-
Communism that binds these social forces together. It is a deep
social malaise that finds the same outlet in anti-Communism as
that which so many Germans found in anti-Semitism."

     At the other end of the spectrum of British opinion stands a
passage in the queen's coronation speech (composed presumably by
the greatest living ghostwriter, Sir Winston), which plays to
British emotions on McCarthyism by heavily emphasizing British
liberties. Said the queen: "There has . . . sprung from our
island home a theme of social and political thought which
constitutes our message to the world . . . Parliamentary
institutions with their free speech and respect for the rights of
minorities and the inspiration of a broad tolerance in thought
and its expression-all this we conceive to be precious part of
our way of life and outlook." While there will never be a bad
season for praise of Britain's contribution to the history of
liberty, this passage was taken as another criticism of
McCarthyism in America-and was meant to be so taken.

     The specter of the U.S. in the grip of a hysterical witch
hunt, of the President cowering before McCarthy's power, bears
only a specter's relation to reality. But it is the specter that
flashes instantly to the Britain mind (and less vividly to the
French and German) when America is mentioned. Americans can
recognize the runaway inflation in the European myth of
McCarthyism. But the myth itself was first pumped up in the U.S.,
and in the U.S. today McCarthyism. But the myth itself was first
pumped up in the U.S., and in the U.S. today McCarthyism is more
myth than man-but not the less dangerous for that. The reputation
of power, even an originally false reputation, begets power.

     A Dubious Service. the aura of invincibility that now
surrounds McCarthy himself, not a man to discourage reports of
his own prowess. But the mcCarthy myth was not created by
parthenogenesis. it was busily fertilized not only by McCarthy,
but by one notable group of McCarthy's enemies: the apologists
for the New and Fair Deals.

     Long before McCarthy was a national figure, evidence began
to accumulate of how deeply the U.S. government in the 1930s and
'40s had been penetrated by Communists and their sympathizers.
the scornful cartoons of the '30s, showing nervous
"reactionaries" looking under the bed for Reds, lost their humor
as one ex-Communist after another told his shocking story. There
were, in sober truth, Reds under the bed-and not only under it.
Emerging and increasing evidence of this was politically
embarrassing to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

     When the McCarthy evangel began in 1950, the liberals saw in
his distortions and exaggerations a chance to divert attention
from the bedroom scene. They began to construct the myth of
McCarthy's great power and his menace to liberty.

     It was not easy to inflate McCarthy to his present
proportions of a national and international figure. Unlike most
demagogues, he has no glittering, positive program; he does not
deal in promises. He is conspicuously devoid of organizing
ability or any flair for latching on to existing organizations.
It is still hard to find any significant Mc Cathy following,
either in the Senate, or among political or business leaders, or
among the people. A recent Gallup poll indicates that less than
22% of the U.S. public have no opinion or think that he does more
harm than good.

     The 22% who think he does more good than harm are indebted
to McCarthy for helping them to keep up with the news. The
evidence of Communist influence (95% of which was drawn out by
investigators other than McCarthy) was not very difficult to
understand. But apparently millions did not understand it until
McCarthy restated it (and often misstated it) for them.

     mcCarthy's dubious service to the 22% who needed his
tutelage accounts for less than half the McCarthy myth. The rest
of it was supplied by the New and Fair dealers who set out to
prove that this cunning opportunist was the reincarnation of
Corquemada, Huey Long and hitler.

     Origin of a Myth. His cooperative enemies concentrated their
efforts to prove McCarthy's power in the Maryland senatorial
election of 1950. Senator Millard Cydings had criticized
McCarthy: Tydings, after 24 years in the Senate, was beaten; ago,
McCArthy the Mighty beat Tydings the Good.

     This was the key syllogism of the McCarthy myth. In 1951,
the Fair Dealing new York Post, in a series on McCarthy, said:
"Joe mcCarthy hasn't caught any spies. But he can claim credit
for the political death of at least one man . . . It is clear
that McCarthy defeated Tydings." This line came to be accepted
far outside the originating circle of McCarthy's Fair deal
enemies. Later, liberal commentators expanded this to say that
McCarthy eliminated six other Senators who opposed him. A man who
can defeat even U.S. senators is a power, and thus McCarthy's
aura of invincibility began. By the end of 1951, the myth of
McCarthy's power had reached the point where even journalists
with no ax to grind had to cover mcCarthy closely and seriously.

     Now signs appear that even some liberals look askance at the
myth they helped to create. A recent issue of the Nation warns:
"It is a mistake . . . to keep the spotlight focused on McCarthy;
his is what he wants his opposition to do." In the New York Post,
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., co-chairman of Americans for Democratic
Action, tried to deflate the myth at the point of origin. Wrote
Schlesinger: "The record shows . . . that the notion of
mcCarthy's invincibility is largely legendary. He certainly
cannot be credited with the defeat of seven Senators . . .
McCarthy conducted a vigorous campaign against Tydings in 1950.
But the strong probability is that Tydings would have been beaten
anyway . . . The Connecticut case is even clearer. In 1950,
McCarthy campaigned against (William) Benton, and Benton won in
what was generally tough year for the campaign target, (and)
Benton ran a considerable margin ahead of Stevenson."

     The Deadly Parallel. So a start has been made toward cutting
the McCArthy myth down to size. Before that job is finished, it
will need more than rueful second thoughts of liberals. President
Eisenhower will have to deal again and again with McCarthyism,
which is a major liability to Eisenhower's foreign policy, his
domestic policy and his party. Only an exaggerated fear of
McCArthy's power could account for such disgraceful episodes as
the delay in the appointments of Mildred McAfee Horton and David
Shillinglaw on the ground that they had belonged to organizations
that McCarthy may consider subversive. Eisenhower will have to
eliminate that kind of paralyzing fear from his Administration.

     McCarthyism has a parallel in modern history, and it is
neither Hitlerism nor Huey Longism. In the late '20s and early
'30s, Prohibition monopolized public discussion in the U.S. and
luridly colored the European view of American life. An
overwhelming majority of the u.S. people came to recognize that
Prohibition was a mistake-but before Repeal in 1933, the
opponents of Prohibition had exaggerated its evil effects as
widely as the most fanatic Drys had exaggerated the evils of
drink.

     Prohibition was such an all-evasive issue that it shut off
discussion of problems that turned out to be far more important.
Prohibition polarized Congress, dominated the 1928 election,
absorbed the White House, obsessed the press and smothered
discussion of other grave questions of the Coolidge-Hoover
period.

     The yatter over Prohibition died with Repeal. In 1953, the
responsible leaders of the U.S. will not get public discussion
back on the most important issues until they extinguish the
McCarthyism debate by an equivalent of Repeal. Since serious
people can hardly believe that Communism influences the present
Administration, much ground is already cut from under McCarthy's
feet.

     The U.S. had traitors and conspirators in the 1930s and
'40s, and previously it had Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr, too.
Public debate has long since passed over A for Arnold and B for
Burr. The time seems to have come when C for Communist
Infiltration may also be considered a lesson mastered. If so, the
U.S. may be able to pass on to D for Defense and E for
Enterprise.