What happened to joseph mccarthy
Joseph McCarthy
American politician (–)
For other people named Joseph McCarthy, see Joseph McCarthy (disambiguation).
Joseph McCarthy | |
|---|---|
McCarthy in | |
| In office January 3, &#;– May 2, | |
| Preceded by | Robert M.
La Follette Jr. |
| Succeeded by | William Proxmire |
| In office January 3, &#;– January 3, | |
| Preceded by | John L. McClellan |
| Succeeded by | John L. McClellan |
| In office January 1, &#;– January 3, | |
| Preceded by | Edgar Werner |
| Succeeded by | Michael Eberlein |
| Born | Joseph Raymond McCarthy ()November 14, Grand Chute, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Died | May 2, () (aged&#;48) Bethesda, Maryland, U.S. |
| Resting place | Saint Mary's Cemetery |
| Political party | |
| Spouse | Jean Kerr &#; (m.&#;)&#; |
| Children | 1 (adopted) |
| Education | Marquette University (LLB) |
| Signature | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Marine Corps |
| Years&#;of service | – (Marine Corps) – (Reserve) |
| Rank | Lieutenant Colonel |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Awards | Distinguished Flying Cross Air Medal (5) |
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, – May 2, ) was an American politician who served as a RepublicanU.S.
Senator from the state of Wisconsin from until his death at age 48 in Beginning in , McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communistsubversion.[1] He alleged that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry,[2][3] and elsewhere.
Ultimately he was censured by the Senate in for refusing to cooperate with and abusing members of the committee established to investigate whether or not he should be censured. The term "McCarthyism", coined in in reference to McCarthy's practices was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.[4][5]
Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, McCarthy commissioned into the Marine Corps in , where he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron.
Following the end of World War II he attained the rank of major. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". Some of his claims of heroism were later shown to be exaggerated or falsified, leading many of his critics to use "Tail-Gunner Joe" as a term of mockery.[6][7][8]
A Democrat until , McCarthy successfully ran for the U.S.
Senate in as a Republican, narrowly defeating incumbent Robert M. La Follette Jr. in the Wisconsin Republican primary, then Democratic challenger Howard McMurray by a 61% – 37% margin. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department.[9] In succeeding years after his speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S.
Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army.
Sen j mccarthy huac biography images Hearing Relating to H. McCarthy in McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and the press. Cassius was right: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government.[10] This included a concurrent "Lavender Scare" against suspected homosexuals, whose illicit sexual activity was presumed to make them vulnerable to blackmail by communists and others.[11]
With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of , and following the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C.
Hunt that same year,[12] McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, , the Senate voted to censure McCarthy by a vote of 67–22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. He continued to rail against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, , though doctors had not previously reported him to be seriously ill.[13] His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown",[14] which some biographers say was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.[15]
Early life and education
McCarthy was born in on a farm in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, the fifth of nine children.[16][17] His mother, Bridget McCarthy (nee Tierney), was from County Tipperary, Ireland.
His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm.
Sen j mccarthy huac biography After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. Read Edit View history. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. In , the committee investigated leaders of the American Youth Congress , a Communist International affiliate organization [ citation needed ].He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year.[18]
He attended Marquette University from to McCarthy worked odd jobs while at college, including as a dishwasher, parking-lot attendant, and boxing coach.[19] He first studied electrical engineering for two years, then law, and received a Bachelor of Laws degree in from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.[20]
Career
McCarthy was admitted to the bar in While working at a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for district attorney as a Democrat in During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.[21]
In , McCarthy had better success when he ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge.[22][23] McCarthy became the youngest circuit judge in the state's history by defeating incumbent Edgar V.
Werner, who had been a judge for 24 years.[24] In the campaign, McCarthy lied about Werner's age of 66, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office.[25] Writing of Werner in Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America,Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he (Werner) was disliked by lawyers.
His judgements had often been reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases."[26]
McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the heavily backlogged docket he had inherited from Werner.[27] Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he expedited them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority.[28] When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding and relying heavily upon precise briefs from the contesting attorneys.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard,[29] but he was also censured in for having lost evidence in a price fixing case.[30]
Military service
In , shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service.[31] His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.[32]
According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P.
Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces in early , and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero—join the Marines."[33][34] When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?"[35]
He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron VMSB in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August – February ), and held the rank of captain at the time he resigned his commission in April [36] He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer.
These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe".[37] McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.[38][39]
He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions so as to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps decided to approve in under his political influence.[40][41] McCarthy also publicly claimed a letter of commendation from his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W.
Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations.[42][43] However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters for his men, and that he had signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it routinely.[44][43] A "war wound"—a badly broken leg—that McCarthy attributed to varying adventures involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire, had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time.[45][46] Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was used in mockery by his critics.[6][7][8]
McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent.
After he left the Marines in April , five months before the end of the Pacific war in September , McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin.
In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Senate campaign
In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42, in (equal to $, today). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47, over two years.[48]
According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W.
May,[49] McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette.
Joseph mccarthy Klaus Samuli Gunnar Romppanen. Yale University Press. He was told that if the case went ahead he would be compelled to take the witness stand and to refute the charges made in the affidavit of the young man, which was the basis for Greenspun's story. Have you left no sense of decency?The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination , votes to , It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe," using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner." Journalist Arnold Beichman later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M.
La Follette.[50] In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won % to McMurray's %, and thus joined Alexander Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.
Personal life
In , McCarthy assaulted journalist Drew Pearson in the cloakroom at the Sulgrave Club, reportedly kneeing him in the groin.
McCarthy, who admitted the assault, claimed he merely "slapped" Pearson.[51] In , using rumors collected by Pearson as well as other sources, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy was a frequent patron at the White Horse Inn, a Milwaukee gay bar, and cited his involvement with young men. Greenspun named some of McCarthy's alleged lovers, including Charles E.
Davis, an ex-Communist and "confessed homosexual" who claimed that he had been hired by McCarthy to spy on U.S. diplomats in Switzerland.[52][53]
McCarthy's FBI file also contains numerous allegations, including a letter from an Army lieutenant who said, "When I was in Washington some time ago, [McCarthy] picked me up at the bar in the Wardman [Hotel] and took me home, and while I was half-drunk he committed sodomy on me." J.
Edgar Hoover conducted a perfunctory investigation of the Senator's alleged sexual assault; Hoover's take was that "homosexuals are very bitter against Senator McCarthy for his attack upon those who are supposed to be in the Government."[54][55]
Although some notable McCarthy biographers have rejected these rumors,[56] others have suggested that he may have been blackmailed.
During the early s, McCarthy launched a series of attacks on the CIA, claiming it had been infiltrated by communist agents. Allen Dulles, who suspected McCarthy was using information supplied by Hoover, refused to cooperate. According to the historian David Talbot, Dulles also compiled a "scandalous" intimate dossier on the Senator's personal life and used the homosexual stories to take him down.[57]
In any event, McCarthy did not sue Greenspun for libel.
(He was told that if the case went ahead he would be compelled to take the witness stand and to refute the charges made in the affidavit of the young man, which was the basis for Greenspun's story.) In , he married Jean Fraser Kerr, a researcher in his office. In January , McCarthy and his wife adopted an infant with the help of Roy Cohn's close friend CardinalFrancis Spellman.
They named the baby girl Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy.[58]
United States Senate
Senator McCarthy's first three years in the Senate were unremarkable.[59] McCarthy was a popular speaker, invited by many different organizations, covering a wide range of topics. His aides and many in the Washington social circle described him as charming and friendly, and he was a popular guest at cocktail parties.
He was far less well liked among fellow senators, however, who found him quick-tempered and prone to impatience and even rage. Outside of a small circle of colleagues, he was soon an isolated figure in the Senate,[60] who was often widely criticized.[61]
McCarthy was active in labor-management issues, with a reputation as a moderate Republican.
He fought against continuation of wartime price controls, especially on sugar. His advocacy in this area was associated by critics with a $20, personal loan McCarthy received from a Pepsi bottling executive, earning the Senator the derisive nickname "The Pepsi-Cola Kid".[62] McCarthy supported the Taft–Hartley Act over Truman's veto, angering labor unions in Wisconsin but solidifying his business base.[63]
Malmedy massacre trial
Main article: Malmedy massacre
Main article: Malmedy massacre trial
In an incident for which he would be widely criticized, McCarthy lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war.
McCarthy was critical of the convictions because the German soldiers' confessions were allegedly obtained through torture during the interrogations. He argued that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation.[64] Shortly after this, a poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S.
senator" currently in office.[65] McCarthy biographer Larry Tye has written that antisemitism may have factored into McCarthy's outspoken views on Malmedy. Although he had substantial Jewish support, notably Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Industries, Rabbi Benjamin Schultz of the American Jewish League Against Communism, and the columnist George Sokolsky, who convinced him to hire Roy Cohn and G.
David Schine,[66][failed verification] McCarthy frequently used anti-Jewish slurs. In this and McCarthy's other characteristics, such as the enthusiastic support he received from antisemitic politicians like Ku Klux Klansman Wesley Swift and his tendency, according to friends, to refer to his copy of Mein Kampf, stating, "That's the way to do it," McCarthy's critics characterize him as driven by antisemitism.
However, historian Larry Tye says that this is not the case. Based on accounts of his opposition to Soviet antisemitism, friendship with and employment of Jews, pro-Israel outlook, and testimony of colleagues to his lack of antisemitism, Tye suggests that those aspects his critics denote as antisemitic are rather byproducts of McCarthy's absolute lack of a filter and his inability to avoid colleagues colored by hatred.
Tye says, "He certainly knew how to hate, but he wasn't that [antisemitic] kind of bigot."[67] This perspective that McCarthy was not an antisemite is supported by other historians.[68][69]
Tye cites three quotes from European historian Steven Remy, chief Malmedy prosecutor COL Burton Ellis JAG USA, and massacre victim and survivor Virgil P.
Lary, Jr:
Both willfully clueless and supremely self-confident, McCarthy impeded but did not derail a truly fair and balanced investigation of the Malmedy affair, — Steven Remy[67]
It beats the hell out of me why everyone tries so hard to show that the prosecution [team] were insidious, underhanded, unethical, immoral and God knows what monsters, that unfairly convicted a group of whiskerless Sunday school boys.
— Burton Ellis[67]
I have seen persons bent on murdering me, persons who murdered my companions, defended by a United States senator. … I charge that this action of Senator McCarthy’s became the basis for the Communist propaganda in western Germany, designed to discredit the American armed forces and American justice.
— Virgil P. Lary, Jr.[67]
It was later found that McCarthy had received "evidence" of the false torture claims from Rudolf Aschenauer, a prominent Neo-Nazi agitator who often served as a defense attorney for Nazi war criminals, such as Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf.[70]
"Enemies within"
McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile beginning on February 9, , when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia.
His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of —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 the State Department."[71][72]
There is some dispute with whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "" or "57".
In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number [73] The origin of the number can be traced: in later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J.
Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.[74]
At the time of McCarthy's speech, communism was a significant concern in the United States.
This concern was exacerbated by the actions of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets' development of a nuclear weapon the year before, and by the contemporary controversy surrounding Alger Hiss and the confession of Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs.
With this background and due to the sensational nature of McCarthy's charge against the State Department, the Wheeling speech soon attracted a flood of press interest in McCarthy's claim.[75][76]
Tydings Committee
Main article: Tydings Committee
McCarthy himself was taken aback by the massive media response to the Wheeling speech, and he was accused of continually revising both his charges and figures.
In Salt Lake City, Utah, a few days later, he cited a figure of 57, and in the Senate on February 20, , he claimed [77] During a five-hour speech,[78] McCarthy presented a case-by-case analysis of his 81 "loyalty risks" employed at the State Department. It is widely accepted that most of McCarthy's cases were selected from the so-called "Lee list", a report that had been compiled three years earlier for the House Appropriations Committee.
Led by a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent named Robert E. Lee, the House investigators had reviewed security clearance documents on State Department employees, and had determined that there were "incidents of inefficiencies"[79] in the security reviews of employees.
Mccarthyism: In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks. New York : Free Press, No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. The American people watched as McCarthy intimidated witnesses and offered evasive responses when questioned.
McCarthy hid the source of his list, stating that he had penetrated the "iron curtain" of State Department secrecy with the aid of "some good, loyal Americans in the State Department".[80] In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist".[81]
In response to McCarthy's charges, the Senate voted unanimously to investigate, and the Tydings Committee hearings were called.[82] This was a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations set up in February to conduct "a full and complete study and investigation as to whether persons who are disloyal to the United States are, or have been, employed by the Department of State".[83] Many Democrats were incensed at McCarthy's attack on the State Department of a Democratic administration, and had hoped to use the hearings to discredit him.
The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Millard Tydings, was reported to have said, "Let me have him [McCarthy] for three days in public hearings, and he'll never show his face in the Senate again."[84]
During the hearings, McCarthy made charges against nine specific people: Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Haldore Hanson, Gustavo Durán, Owen Lattimore, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Schuman, John S.
Service, and Philip Jessup. They all had previously been the subject of charges of varying worth and validity. Owen Lattimore became a particular focus of McCarthy's, who at one point described him as a "top Russian spy".
Sen j mccarthy huac biography wikipedia Eisenhower: The American Presidents Series. In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record , he used the number Euripides Goes To Washington". In , at the beginning of his second term as senator, McCarthy was put in charge of the Committee on Government Operations, which allowed him to launch even more expansive investigations of the alleged communist infiltration of the federal government.From its beginning, the Tydings Committee was marked by intense partisan infighting. Its final report, written by the Democratic majority, concluded that the individuals on McCarthy's list were neither Communists nor pro-communist, and said the State Department had an effective security program. The Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's charges a "fraud and a hoax," and described them as using incensing rhetoric—saying that the result of McCarthy's actions was to "confuse and divide the American people to a degree far beyond the hopes of the Communists themselves".
Republicans were outraged by the Democratic response. They responded to the report's rhetoric in kind, with William E. Jenner stating that Tydings was guilty of "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history".[85] The full Senate voted three times on whether to accept the report, and each time the voting was precisely divided along party lines.[86]
Fame and notoriety
From onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks.
McCarthy also began investigations into homosexuals working in the foreign policy bureaucracy, who were considered prime candidates for blackmail by the Soviets.[87] These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.
In Congress, there was little doubt that homosexuals did not belong in sensitive government positions.[87] Since the late s, the government had been dismissing about five homosexuals a month from civilian posts; by , the number had grown twelve-fold.[88] As historian David M.
Barrett would write, "Mixed in with the hysterics were some logic, though: homosexuals faced condemnation and discrimination, and most of them—wishing to conceal their orientation—were vulnerable to blackmail."[89] Director of Central Intelligence Roscoe Hillenkoetter was called to Congress to testify on homosexuals being employed at the CIA.
He said, "The use of homosexuals as a control mechanism over individuals recruited for espionage is a generally accepted technique which has been used at least on a limited basis for many years." As soon as the DCI said these words, his aide signaled to take the remainder of the DCI's testimony off the record.
Political historian David Barrett uncovered Hillenkoetter's notes, which reveal the remainder of the statement: "While this agency will never employ homosexuals on its rolls, it might conceivably be necessary, and in the past has actually been valuable, to use known homosexuals as agents in the field. I am certain that if Joseph Stalin or a member of the Politburo or a high satellite official were known to be a homosexual, no member of this committee or of the Congress would balk against our use of any technique to penetrate their operations after all, intelligence and espionage is, at best, an extremely dirty business."[90] The senators reluctantly agreed the CIA had to be flexible.[91]
McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many.
Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery