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.