McCarthy was right.
A couple of things I just recently came across:
For example, Owen Lattimore was not "the number one Soviet spy in America," as McCarthy claimed. But he was an influential scholar and shameless toady of Communism, who even visited the Gulag with vice-president Henry Wallace and pronounced it good.
amazon.com
A passage from Arthur Herman's great book, "Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life
and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator", describes just
how permissive, negligent and culpable Truman and his "liberal" Democrats were in
damaging Americas struggle for survival in this turbulent and precarious post-war period.
Just shortly after Truman was replaced by Eisenhower as present. Eisenhower's attorney
general made a startling public revelation that seemed to confirm, rather than weaken
McCarthy's [anti-communist cause]. Herbert Brownell announced that the Justice Department had definitive proof that Harry Dexter White had been a Soviet spy and--even more
damning that President Truman had know since the end of 1945 and had done nothing about it. Indeed, after learning that White was a spy, Truman had recommended him as head
of the IMF.
We now know that it was the Venona decrypts (a secret Soviet code-breaking project of
the G-2 (Army Intelligence) and in 1948 the FBI, that earlier had exposed both Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs. It is interesting that for many years this project was
prudently kept secret even from the White House) that allowed Brownell to be so certain of the facts. But the announcement was a serious blow to the "liberals" [socialists]
who had for years claimed that the Red Scare was just hysteria [McCarthyism, a witch hunt] and pure partisan politics, as well as being an unexpected vindication of Senator
McCarthy and his efforts.
Truman furiously denied the story--although his former Secretary of State James Byrnes
(delighted to see his old boss on the hot seat) and FBI director Hoover contradicted him. Even the [very Leftist] "New Republic" had to concede that the evidence against
White--and Truman--was convincing. (pp. 243-244)
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