McCarthy's Legacy Still Misportrayed by Media After Venona Disclosure

Right before the kitchen sink, notorious anti-communist Sen. Joe McCarthy was recently tossed on the FISA Court, Oval Office, US Congress, FBI, CIA, and Russian “active measures” bonfire. For what specific reason exposing communists was piled on, I cannot discern. But evoking McCarthy is like pulling out the trusty “your Mama is ugly” at the end of a school-yard fight.

The hook that elicited McCarthyism could be the current national hysteria that Russia influenced the presidential race to favor Donald Trump. McCarthy was dedicated to identifying Soviet spies in the FDR regime, who certainly could have been helpers in Franklin Roosevelt winning four terms. And, oh yeah, the Soviet spies were Americans.

Today, McCarthy is the icon for attacking communists in government. Or, he is the victim of a purposefully organized mise en scene to ruin him, and with him anti-communism. The descriptions of McCarthy’s alleged “witch hunt,” to expose “innocent” communists working in the Franklin Roosevelt administration — before HUAC and McCarthy’s own Senate Security committee — are pabulum compared to the Army vs. McCarthy hearings, organized by Democrat forces to annihilate him.

The battle majeure to destroy and discredit McCarthy lasted from the late 1940s through the early 1950s. After the conflict, a political poison pill was exposed. The fall-out is dramatically at work now: The nation remains virulently divided between progressive liberals — the Democrats who were allegiant to the destruction of McCarthy — and Republicans who lost ground trying to counter the vilification of McCarthy’s persona.

So what do we know 67 years later? For one thing, that McCarthy actually underestimated the number of American Soviet spies working for the USSR in the FDR administration. It took a while, but in 1994 NSA and CIA released 190,000 formerly classified cablegrams they, and their predecessor agencies, intercepted from 1943 to 1980. The number of American Soviet agents identified from Venona has reached 500, more than double the 205 McCarthy predicted — as researchers have decrypted only ten percent of the documents thus far.

Most of the spies named so far are well known: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Alger Hiss, whom the left maintained were victims of American imperialism, are now proved guilty. Assistant U.S. Treasurer Harry Dexter White, now deceased, who became head of the World Bank; and Lauchlan Currie, highly placed in the President’s office; and hundreds more placed in every Cabinet level organization in the U.S. government.

Due to the left-leaning U.S. media, Venona has been ignored. Fortunately, journalist Stanton Evans wrote "Blacklisted By History," relying on newly declassified FBI and CIA documents that reveal a sinister plot, but not by McCarthy. The person harmed by the so-called witch hunt was McCarthy himself.

It is speculated President Truman could have saved the nation a bitter and destructive  internal conflict, caused by McCarthy’s accusations, by making Venona public. This has allowed McCarthy’s enemies to dine out on their role to ruin him. Conservatives have been stained as perpetually guilty, demonstrated by any mention of McCarthy anywhere.

If Bernie Sanders runs for President against Donald Trump, prepare for what could be the final act simmering since McCarthy went down.

Bernie Reeves founded five regional publications and the Raleigh Spy Conference. His writing has appeared in National Review and American Thinker. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.