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From: tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: making things up
Message-ID: <1056@frog.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Sep-86 18:51:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: frog.1056
Posted: Sat Sep 27 18:51:33 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 03:56:13 EDT
References: <8579@duke.duke.UUCP> <1047@frog.UUCP> <15757@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Superfrog Heaven [ CRDS, Framingham MA ]
Lines: 57
Summary: Lazarus has a movement.

>> Not that McCarthy deserves defending, but no one he accused of being a
>> Communist wasn't.

> Actually, no one Joe McCarthy accused ever *was* a Communist!

Extreme hyperbole at best.

> he had nothing to do with any of
> the espionage convictions which were ever secured.

Non sequitur.

> People whom McCarthy did accuse - let's see.  Owen Lattimore
> (never shown to be a communist), J. Robert Oppenheimer (ditto),
> China experts JS Sargent et al (not a one ever shown to be
> a Communist, at least one reinstated in the 60s), Dean
> Acheson (res ipsa loquitur), etc.

I can't comment at the moment except on Oppenheimer.  He was fingered
*not* by McCarthy but by the AEC and the FBI, back when McCarthy was
still a Marine, for not reporting a contact with a Soviet agent.  I
was told by a man who claimed he had a chance to look at the Top
Secret evidence on Oppenheimer that (trusting to his memory)

- Oppenheimer's brother was a known card-carrier.
- The evidence on Oppenheimer was conclusive.

That is *not* the same thing as saying that Oppenheimer was or was not
a traitor.

>  Of the 89 Communists in the
> State Dept. which McCarthy claimed to know about (famous
> Wheeling W.VA. speech), he never named one outside the Congress,
> where (by law) he was immune from Libel and Slander actions.

As I said, I don't consider McCarthy to have been worth defending.
Like most successful politicians, the man was clearly a demagogue.
And there are few people who doubt that his waving of lists was
anything more than hand-waving.  But all of that is irrelevant to
the question of whether or not he accused anyone falsely of being
a communist.

> I challenge you
> to supply a list of Communists fingered by McCarthy.  For
> every one you dig up (no, don't bother with Khrushchev), I
> will find three non-communists he slandered.

As long as he slandered them by accusing them falsely of being
communist.  We're starting out even, for the moment.  Agreed?  I'll
have some more names in a few days.

> Have you no decency, sir.  No human decency?

I'm happy to see that you think accusing someone of being a communist
is a terrible thing to do.  I might suggest that you be a little less
extreme about it. :-)

				David Hudson