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Time Machine
50 Years Ago
The Demagogue’s Downfall
By Frederic D. Schwarz
On December 2, by a majority of 67 to 22, the U.S. Senate voted to condemn Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, for conduct “contrary to senatorial ethics.” The act brought to a close a national drama lasting nearly five years, during which McCarthy had made reckless and far-reaching accusations of Communist influence in just about every area of American life.
In 1950, when McCarthy suddenly came to prominence, most Americans were deeply worried by Communism, a fear reinforced almost daily by world events. Earlier exposures of Communist agents in and out of the government made McCarthy’s allegations sound plausible, and although his numbers and details kept changing, the senator was a master at dredging up fresh outrages. Some of the people McCarthy accused were genuinely guilty, but eventually his highhandedness, his carelessness with facts, his habit of making charges based on little or no evidence, and the crudeness and monotony of his tactics turned many of his early supporters against him.
The final straw came with the Army-McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954. McCarthy had made accusations of the usual sort against some Army officers who had defied him or his chief counsel, Roy Cohn. In a series of nationally televised hearings, the Army’s lawyer, Joseph N. Welch, expertly demolished McCarthy and Cohn’s case. By the end of the hearings a majority of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of McCarthy.
Still, the decision to condemn him was far from easy. The wording of the resolution had to be watered down considerably to get it past McCarthy’s hard core of supporters and the lame-duck Republican majority. Senators were still squeamish about looking soft on Communism, so they condemned McCarthy only for his disrespect of other senators who were investigating him, not for his anti-Communist activities. Yet even this mild slap on the wrist was a turning point.
McCarthy affected to shrug off the vote. After all, he had taken severe criticism in the past and managed to stay popular with his strong and simple message. Just as important as the condemnation, however, was the outcome of the November elections, which had given the Democrats control of the Senate. This meant McCarthy would no longer be chairman of his Communist-hunting subcommittee and thus would have no authority to call hearings or issue subpoenas. Deprived of this platform, McCarthy began drinking even more heavily than usual, and on May 2, 1957, he died of liver failure at the age of 48.
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50 Years Ago
November 11, 1954 In a letter to The Reporter magazine, Albert Einstein says that if he were young again, he would become “a plumber or a peddler.” Einstein’s remarks are a response to increased government regulation and control of scientists, especially the recent denial of security clearance to J. Robert Oppenheimer, former director of the Manhattan Project.
November 27, 1954 Alger Hiss, a former State Department official who passed government secrets to the Soviet Union, is released from prison after serving 44 months for perjury.
December 2, 1954 President Eisenhower warns conservative Republicans that the party must adopt a progressive course or risk losing its influence in the United States.
December 5, 1954 A brief item in The New York Times Book Review discusses the first issue of American Heritage. Most of the review is devoted to the question of whether the hardcover publication is a book or a magazine. The reviewer quotes a “historian of the oldfashioned school” who was given a copy and reported that American Heritage “was a first-class popularization and that it was a magazine.”
December 16, 1954 Lt. Gen. John W. (“Iron Mike”) O’Daniel says that despite the feebleness of South Vietnam’s government and armed forces, “I still believe this country can be saved.”
December 27, 1954 Air Force Lt. Col. John P. Stapp sets a land-speed record by accelerating to 632 miles per hour in a rocket sled. He then comes to a stop in 1.5 seconds. The deceleration test is performed to study the physiological effects of bailing out of planes traveling at supersonic speeds.
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