>>> I remember Wm. F. Buckley stating that research showed
that there were few if any "innocent" victims.
<<<
I think what he meant is that because most people destroyed had liberal or leftist ideas that was OK.
McCarthy was a weasel, but the real bad guys in the scenario were J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn (counsel and chief interrogator for HUAC), who used their own homosexual and organized crime contacts, along with illegal FBI surveillance like the movies taken through the mirrors in Washington hotel rooms, to gather blackmail information on people.
They also used tax and other info to trap people, and then got them to denounce whoever Hoover and McCarthy and Cohn didn't like. Huge numbers of writers, actors, artists, scientists, and others lost their jobs. That a notorious gabbling aristophile gasbag like Buckley thinks different makes no difference.
McCarthy wasn't the only one who used this to further his career. Nixon and Kennedy were on the committee also. And it helped them. Of course it could have been seen as "be on the committee or be eaten by the committee."
McCarthy finally accused some of the officers who won WWII of being Communists, and that is what got him, and HUAC, canceled. But most everyone but him associated with this character assassination went on to great success in American politics, administration, law, or finance. Hoover, of course, was able to deflect attention from his blind spot where organized crime was concerned. Cohn got rich. Kennedy
and Nixon got to be president.
That seems to be how it is with witch hunt participants, unless they end up being the one person who ends up holding the bag, like McCarthy. They benefit.
IMHO, of course.
Cheers,
Chaz |
