Defend the Indefensible: Joe McCarthy

I initially read that as Radiohead.

It's unsurprising to me that that in the 'with us or against us' era of dubious simplicity that McCarthy would be so attempted to be revived...

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/mccarthy/j-mccarthy.jpg

Seriously, there's been some revisionist history in recent years about McCarthy, thanks to the opening of the Soviet archives. There's some evidence that yes indeedy there were Communists in the State Department, but little evidence that McCarthy himself actually knew about it despite all his bluster.

Christ, he looks like he could have been Jimmy hoffa.

Richard Brody on the Hollywood blacklist, and its artistic effect on films of the era (incl the exiles of Chaplin and Welles):

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/hollywood-lost-communists-purged

any history buffs care to comment on the Venona project and the scope of its impact on McCarthy's legacy?

i know it isn't new news but just reading a little on it now. any books related to topic to recommend?

Started reading Citizen Cohn. Roy wowed everyone in high school when there was a party at his house in honor of Kathleen Winsor, who I'd never heard of; wrote Forever Amber, a scandalous novel at the time, and looked like a movie star herself.

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/2-kathleen-winsor-author-of-forever-everett.jpg

any history buffs care to comment on the Venona project and the scope of its impact on McCarthy's legacy?

― Neanderthal

no impact outside of texas textbooks, which tend to bear the same relation to history as "creation science" does to science. mccarthy was a congenital liar whose actions ran counter to justice and were indefensible. venona was so top-secret even president truman wasn't made aware of its existence, hence the content of the venona intercepts do nothing to change history's judgment of mccarthy as a dangerous and paranoid demagogue.