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I watched the TV piece on Joe McCarthy with great interest the other night. I had reason to. Of all the hundreds of articles I have written over the past 70 years for the T&G and other periodicals, none stirred such a response as one I wrote in 1953 about McCarthy.

It was titled MCCARTHY SHOULD BE EXPELLED. Today that doesnt surprise, given what we know now about McCarthy and his slimy sidekick, Roy Cohn. But 75 years ago it dealt with an issue of astonishing destructive power. In the space of less than three years, McCarthy and Cohn divided the nation dangerously, crippled the U.S. Senate, destroyed important careers in the State Department and made the U.S. Army look ridiculous. All done with a series of blatant lies lies easily refuted but strangely persuasive to millions of Americans.

Joe McCarthy proved one thing: you dont have to be in the White House to rip the country apart. You can do it with a megaphone if you understand the target and the timing. His target in 1951-54 was communism. He was only a junior senator from Wisconsin, but he was eerily able to sell the notion to the nation that the United States was imperiled by a massive Communist conspiracy centered in the State Department and the Treasury. The facts, amply proven many times in the ensuing years, is that the leftist influence in the government was limited to a handful of individuals. Unfortunately, a few of those, such as Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs, were prominent and made for scary headlines.

The McCarthy piece on TV did a good job with the history of the time. But it didnt quite convey the chilling atmosphere that pervaded the land the feeling.that something ominous was imminent. For McCarthys true believers it was the insidious threat of communism, ready to subvert the nation from within. For those opposed, it was the destructive, malign McCarthy-Cohn crusade itself that posed the greatest peril. The nation watched in fascination as prominent public figures went up on television to the various hearings.

Are you or have you ever belonged to a Communist organization was the routine question posed by McCarthy to any number of individuals. Not all could answer in the negative, a fact duly exploited by the far-right press. Those who called on the Fifth Amendment or the rule of law got little support or sympathy from McCarthy and Cohn.

McCarthy was a toxic subject for many of the nations newspapers. My own piece caused a stir at 20 Franklin St., where the T&G was then housed.

I had decided, after months of McCarthys outrages, that the paper should declare itself on the issue. I wrote it without consulting the higher-ups, which in those days meant George F. Booth, editor, publisher and part owner of the newspapers. Booth and his fellow colleagues apparently were not yet ready to condemn McCarthy, and my piece floated in the wind for a week or two. Then, finally, Mr. Booth sent word that it could be published, but not as an editorial. So it came out as an article with my byline. As I noted earlier, never before or since have I experienced such a reaction both pro and anti McCarthy. You had to be there to appreciate it.

I dug out that old article to refresh my memory. It was hardly the firebrand grenade of 1953, but just a summary of the main charges against him familiar enough today. What seems amazing even now is the depth of the division in the country. People on both sides could not understand how their friends and relatives could possibly hold such views. Many a family meal was broken up in acrimony.

I listed some of the misdeeds committed by McCarthy his arrogant handling of his investigating committee with his one-man hearings, his brow-beating of witnesses and his fantastic and false claims.. . Joe McCarthy stands up in the Senate and has the gall to claim that the nations fate is his own ... that he and he alone knows what is good for America.

Particularly disappointing was the craven way the U.S. Senate responded to McCarthy. Only one senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine had the guts to condemn him on the floor of the Senate. I remember cornering Sen. Leverett Saltonstall and plying him with questions. Didnt he see the damage McCarthy was doing to the Senate and the country and the Constitution? But Saltonstall, no crusader, refused to follow Senator Smiths lead. He thought the thing would play out in time.

Eventually, of course, it did play out and the Senate eventually voted, 67 to 22, to censure him. And with that, McCarthy reign of terror was over. But he left a lasting impression. Populist movements can pose a danger to constitutional government.

More here:
Al Southwick: Joe McCarthy and me - News - Worcester Telegram