Backlash

The McCarthy Red Scare

Trials and Tribulations

Backlash

         Former President Harry Truman was outspokenly against McCarthy’s tactics. When he began to use the term “McCarthyism”, originally coined by The Communist Daily Worker, McCarthy fired back by claiming Truman’s organization was being investigated by the FBI.

"After having been caught five times red-handed, Truman comes up with the granddaddy of them all. Here’s what he says, he says, ‘oh, but it’s all McCarthy’s fault,’ he says, ‘all the fault of McCarthyism, and isn’t that nasty McCarthy an awful man?’"
- Senator Joseph McCarthy, November 24, 1953 (McCarthy, National Address)

"Joseph McCarthy on Democrats", McCarthy, 1950

President Eisenhower (elected in 1953) took a more subtle approach with McCarthy.

"Telegram from Senator Joseph McCarthy to President Harry S. Truman", Page 6,  Harry S. Truman Library, Feb. 11, 1950

"Reply from President Harry S. Truman to Senator Joseph McCarthy (Probably Unsent)", Harry S. Truman Library, 1950

“President read my text with great irritation, slammed it back at me and said he would not refer to McCarthy personally—‘I will not get in the gutter with that guy.’”
-C. D. Jackson, Eisenhower speechwriter, 1953 (UVA Miller Center)

        Roy Cohn (McCarthy’s chief counsel) and David Shine (appointed by Cohn) were sent on a trip in 1953 to Europe’s major libraries to find authors associated with communism. Many librarians had adverse reactions to this, some even burning books that they thought may raise suspicions. It was an embarrassment to McCarthy, as book burning was associated with the very organization he opposed. Eisenhower made a speech in reference to the events for a Dartmouth graduation.

“How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is, what it teaches, or why does it have such an appeal for men?”
-Dwight Eisenhower at Dartmouth, 1953 (McCarthy, PBS)

"David Schine (left), Roy Cohn, and Senator Joseph McCarthy (right), in 1953", Everett Collection Inc

      Finally, the tables turned when McCarthy attacked the Army. McCarthy accused army dentist Irving Peress of being communist, solely for suspicion around his promotion. When Ralph Zwicker, brigadier general, refused to give McCarthy names of the officials involved on orders from Eisenhower himself, McCarthy turned on him.

“Any man who has been given the honor of being promoted to general, and who says, ‘I will protect another general who protects communists,’ is not fit to wear that uniform, general!”
-Joseph McCarthy, 1953 (McCarthy, PBS)

     But McCarthy would soon be eating his words. The army was important to Eisenhower, and McCarthy's attack upon it was his final straw.

"Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, half-length portrait, seated, facing front", Library of Congress