Important Background Truths
Desiring to protect the reputations of those not yet proven to be Communists or Soviet spies, McCarthy did not name names in public hearings.
34 For example, he would bring to the attention of the Senate and/or the public details of case number 17, seeking to show Communist loyalties without divulging the individual’s name. In the absence of knowing the individual’s identity, it was exceedingly difficult for journalists or historians to fact-check the specific accusations. Related, some of McCarthy’s hearings were held in executive session, records of which were sealed by the Senate for fifty years, not opened to the public until 2003.
Today, from some of the above sources, especially FBI files, we know the identities of the parties involved as well as a great deal of the security intel then available on them. We know, therefore, what McCarthy knew.
Second, strongly suspected in McCarthy’s day and known with absolute certainty in ours, the CPUSA was controlled from Moscow and was an instrument of Soviet policy.
35 For example, when the Soviets signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler, the CPUSA continued to take orders from Moscow and opposed U.S. aid to those battling Nazi Germany. Haynes and Klehr, based on extensive research in Soviet archives, wrote, “The essence of American communism was loyalty to Stalin.”
36
Third, hundreds of CPUSA members worked for and spied on the U.S. government, reporting information to Soviet Intelligence.
37 Haynes and Klehr noted, there were “hundreds of American Communists who abetted Soviet espionage . . . the party chief himself [Earl Browder (“Helmsman”)] knowingly and purposely assisted Soviet spies . . . espionage was a regular activity of the American Communist Party.”
38
CPUSA membership on the part of U.S. government employees, although not prima facie evidence of spying, meant loyalty not to the United States but to the Soviet Union—and it meant the distinct possibility of spying. In brief, CPUSA membership by government officials constituted a substantial security risk.
McCarthy sought merely to remove such individuals from government employment—not to incarcerate them in Leavenworth, nor deny them employment in innocuous private-sector jobs unrelated to defense or government secrets, nor to hound or besmirch them in perpetuity—but only to fire them from their government posts.
McCarthy had the funny idea that neither Soviet agents nor known Communists should be working for the U.S. government.