Talk:Joseph McCarthy

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To be done:

Redirects from 'Joseph McCarthy' and 'Joe McCarthy.'

Add links to Conservapedia (currently unavailable) and Wikipedia.

Otherwise jazz this article up — Unsigned, by: 212.85.6.26 / talk / contribs 18:37, 9 August 2010

The redirects are done and done. Star of David.png Radioactive Misanthrope 19:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Dr. Who

Why should we see Dr. Who? This may come as a shock, but not everyone on earth will get Dr. Who references. John Childermass (talk) 22:18, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Joe McCarthy was right.

The Venona Project found that the the Soviets had over 250 spies in the United States. Most of them were American citizens who were born in the USA.

The important atomic spies were Klaus Fuchs, Theodore Hall, Morris Cohen, Saville Sax, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Alan Nunn May, George Koval, Morton Sobell, Irving Lerner, Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg.

They gave the blueprints for the "Fat Man" bomb and detailed descriptions of the processes for purifying plutonium to Soviet intelligence. Moonshot926 (talk) 22:31, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

k, cool. who cares now?--il'Dictator Mikal 22:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Gasp! Shock! The Russians had spies in the US!!!! OMG!!!!! Oh noes!!! Hey, do you think we might have been spying on them, as well? Nah, we're the good guys. Bob Soles (talk) 22:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Everybody has spies everywhere. All the time. I used to intern at a company that took a few minor military contracts, and from time to time representatives from other countries would come in to scope out the products offered. Everything on display or in progress in the halls had to be shut away under lock and key in case of security breach. Chinese and Indian customers were especially scrutinized. Spies are Serious Business and we all periodically had to sit through a long, long speech on how to not disclose information to people. Everybody from the CEOs, to the contractors, to the interns. ±Knightoftldrsig.pngKnightOfTL;DRsufficiently advanced argument still distinguishable from magic 23:17, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
I've added a section that should address Moonshot's, er, "concerns." Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:55, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Klaus Fuchs and Alan Nunn May were not American citizens; Morris Cohen was in Europe at the time of the atomic thefts; Moonshot probably means his wife, Lona Cohen, who is responsible for what the Rosenbergs got the electirc chair for. nobsCorporations are people, too. 02:01, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
More to the point, McCarthy had little or nothing to do with exposing any of those people. The article now says that many of his charges were unsubstantiated. I don't think a single one ever was, but I need to find a cite for that. Godspeed (talk) 02:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Can this be moved to either "Joseph McCarthy" or "Joe McCarthy"? Unless the guy was actually known as "Joseph Joe", putting both in the article title seems pretty fatuous. We don't have pages titled 'William "Bill" Clinton' or 'Richard "Dick" Cheney' etc. WẽãšẽĩõĩďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 23:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll move. ТyPlease do not click on this 00:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Mary Jane Keeney

It is often said for all of McCarthy's accusations he was never able to find one communist. That's not exactly correct. In the one case he got right, he actually got wrong. He accused wp:Mary Jane Keeney of only being a member of the Communist Party when she really was a Soviet spy. nobsCorporations are people, too. 02:16, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Interesting point, Rob. Godspeed (talk) 02:33, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
In 1936 FDR appointed wp:Archibald MacLeish Librarian of Congress. Because he was not a librarian, the American Library Association opposed his candidacy, but he was endorsed by the Progressive Librarians Council founded by Mary Jane and wp:Philip Keeney. Soon after MacLeish got the post, Philip Keeney was working at the Library of Congress, handling classified material. nobsCorporations are people, too. 02:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
cool, but who cares? --il'Dictator Mikal 03:20, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Rosenbergs

So Truman persecuted and fried the Rosenbergs, not McCarthy or Republicans. That a new, interesting, and non-partisan twist. nobsCorporations are people, too. 05:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Huh? Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 05:08, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Generally as the narratives go the Rosenbergs were victims of a McCarthtyite right-wing fascist conspiracy. As the article rightly clarifies -- McCarthy had nothing to do with the Rosenbergs. But it goes on to reveal the embarrassing truth the Rosenbergs were investigated, charged, and convicted by the Truman Justice Dept. Now one can argue, on a bi-partisan basis, this is just another example of Truman's incompetence. On the other hand scholars moreless agree, Truman's reputation has been rehabilitated over the years (George Bush's approval ratings were higher than Truman's when he left office). Many misnotions about Soviet Communism and infiltration into U.S. life have been exploded, and the old myths and narratives don't stand up to scrutiny. nobsCorporations are people, too. 05:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Also, the Rosenbergs were guilty--or at least Julius was, Ethel's guilt is still an open question. The point really is, though, that McCarthy accused the Democrats of being soft on Communism when they were anything but, even getting caught up in the hysteria themselves. Godspeed (talk) 08:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
McCarthy's immediate motivation only two weeks after the Hiss conviction (remember, 1952 Democratic Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson appeared as a character witness for Hiss) was the Amerasia coverup. Several operatives were caught red handed in possession of stolen classified materials and the worst punishment was a $500 fine, I think. McCarthy's Wheeling speech occurred shortly after the Soviets exploded their first nuke when it became impossible to hide from the public security breaches during the FDR/Truman years. And within 6 months after the Wheeling speech, 58,000 Americans began getting killed in the Korean War under Truman's police action. So public opinion was very attuned to hearing McCarthy at this time, and the sniping ad hominems against McCarthy then -- and now -- really appear to obscure underlying issues and be sympathetic to Stalinism. nobsCorporations are people, too. 12:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
cool, but who cares?--il'Dictator Mikal 13:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
You should. NebraskaStudies.org basically outlines the issue almost exactly as above -- with one big exception that even contradicts this wiki article. "I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals", not the 205 cited in the article. What? Are people in Nebraska that ignorant of history? Perhaps they think Rommel won the North Africa campaign, too. nobsCorporations are people, too. 16:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
User:Mikalos209/Cool--il'Dictator Mikal 18:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Is the "sympathetic to Stalin" jibe some sort of meta-joke about fellow travelers? The Soviet union broke up 20 years ago. As to the substance of your comments, you probably know more about Reds under the beds than I do. Wikipedia seems to have a different take on the Amerasia affair than you do. Apparently, in order to get a conviction, you have to have something called "evidence."
The problem McCarthy had is that once you get caught out as a serial liar, you lose all credibility. If he learned nothing else from the Hiss case, he should have learned that. Godspeed (talk)<
Amerasia was an illegal breakin, first by the OSS (in today's parlance called "domestic spying"), then by the FBI without probable cause (they got their evidence from OSS). So those who arrested civil rights were violated. A little more than two decades later, these same abuses were called "impeachable offenses". So there is just a whole shitoad of stuff here that's been glossed over. nobsCorporations are people, too. 01:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

[edit] McCarthy was right about everything

The first Soviet atomic bomb called RDS-1 was a copy of the American "Fat Man" implosion device. From 1944 to 1947 the Soviet. A man named Klaus Fuchs who worked at Los Alamos gave the Soviets all the info on Fat Man. — Unsigned, by: 24.189.254.24 / talk / contribs

What's that got to do with the price of fish? --il'Dictator Mikal 00:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
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