Friday, July 11, 2003

More Joe McCarthy

Sometimes brilliant men have so many ideas that they don't pursue all the intriguing avenues of investigation. One example is this from Robert Conquest in Reflections on a Ravaged Century:


The United States, though not Western Europe, had the McCarthy experience. (Russians have seriously suggested to me that he was a Soviet agent-- he had had Communist help in his own election in Wisconsin!) At any rate, he disgraced anti-Communism in the eyes of many, by wild or false accusations.


Not to go all conspiracy-minded, but Joe had Communist help getting elected? If true, (Conquest is a serious and careful historian so i tend to believe him), it raises all sorts of questions in my mind. And we are left with the fact that he was an abysmal failure as a red hunter despite the fact that there were plenty of reds to hunt. See also here.


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