Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Joe McCarthy and Communism

I've always respected Senator Joe McCarthy's crusade in the '50s against communism in the USA, and thoughts of him were rekindled today on Twitter.

Over the years he has been vilified by the 'liberal' press and intelligentsia as a paranoid extremist, but we owe him a huge debt of gratitude for sticking to his guns. Reluctantly, many in the mainstream have revised their views on Senator McCarthy as witnessed by the following:

In 1953-54, McCarthy had been investigating lax security in the top secret facility at Ft. Monmouth, N.J. He was attacked by liberals and Communists on the grounds that there were no security problems at Ft. Monmouth. Years later, in addressing the reason why the U.S. Army's top-secret operations at Fort Monmouth were quietly moved to Arizona, Senator Barry Goldwater, in his 1979 book With no apologies: The personal and political memoirs of United States Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Goldwater stated:
"Carl Hayden, who in January 1955 became chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee of the United States Senate, told me privately Monmouth had been moved because he and other members of the majority Democratic Party were convinced security at Monmouth had been penetrated. They didn't want to admit that McCarthy was right in his accusations. Their only alternative was to move the installation from New Jersey to a new location in Arizona."[112]
Even though McCarthy's investigations proved that his suspicions were right, for many years afterwards and continue to this day, liberals have spread the falsehood that McCarthy had found nothing at Fort Monmouth.

Before the 1989 release of Carl Bernstein's book, Loyalties: A Son's Memoir, Albert Bernstein, Carl's father, expressed dismay at the revelations that the book would make regarding Communist infiltration of the U.S. government and other sectors of American society. Albert Bernstein stated:
"You're going to prove [Sen. Joseph] McCarthy was right, because all he was saying is that the system was loaded with Communists. And he was right. ... I'm worried about the kind of book you're going to write and about cleaning up McCarthy. The problem is that everybody said he was a liar; you're saying he was right. ... I agree that the Party was a force in the country."[113]
Both Albert Bernstein and Sylvia Bernstein, Carl's mother, had both been Communists since the 1940's. Albert Bernstein was a Union activist, while Sylvia Bernstein was a secretary for the War Department in the 1930's and, during the Clinton Administration, volunteered in the White House, answering letters that were addressed to Hillary Clinton. During the 1950's, Sylvia Bernstein invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid revealing her party ties to Congress but worked openly in assisting convicted spies Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for espionage.


Senator McCarthy had the guts to stand firm, in the face of particularly vile attacks, in his defence of freedom and liberty. This potted biography is well worth a quick look, especially if you are interested in an introduction to the story of Joe McCarthy's bravery and courage.

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