Last week’s Reporter Newspapers carried a column titled “Where is Edward R. Murrow when you need him?” Written by Donald Kaul, the piece extolled “Good Night, and Good Luck,” a film described by the columnist as “a stylish recreation of the time, 50 years ago, when the greatest of all broadcasters, Edward R. Murrow, played St. George to Joe McCarthy’s dragon and saved the Republic, more or less.”
Make
that less. Much less.
Liberals never tire of portraying
McCarthy as a virulent threat to the American people and their freedoms. He’s invariably depicted as an amoral brute who ran a national reign
of terror.
We’re told he ruthlessly ruined the lives of
thousands of innocent people by falsely charging them with being Communists. Time and again he trampled on civil liberties.
Not only that,
he cowed his critics into silence. People everywhere were afraid
to speak out for fear of being wrongfully indicted by the senator.
According to Kaul, McCarthy found “Communists under every bed
and in every government office.” He then expands the absurdity
by claiming that “more than a few (people) were driven to suicide.”
All
that simply isn’t true. What is true is that Communists and
their sympathizers had penetrated our government. If additional
evidence of that espionage were needed, the Venona messages supplied
it.
What also is true is that, current movies and selective memories
notwithstanding, Edward R. Murrow did not almost single handedly vanquish
McCarthy.
There was already massive media opposition to the
Wisconsin senator. Edwin Bayley’s 1981 book, “Joe McCarthy and
the Press,” catalogs newspaper coverage after Joe launched his anti-Communism
crusade in February, 1950.
Within days, the Washington Post’s
editorial, “Sewer Politics,” charged: “Rarely has a man in public
life crawled and squirmed so abjectly.” The New York Times condemned
“the campaign of indiscriminate character-assassination.”
Other
newspapers hopped on the bandwagon and ran editorials with headings
like “Irresponsible Senator McCarthy,” “Utterly Irresponsible,” and
“Jumping Joe McCarthy.” Editorial cartoons incessantly ridiculed
Joe and his efforts.
The 1973 book “When Even Angels Wept” by
Lately Thomas points out that the same press that constantly warned
of McCarthyite intimidation called the senator a “spiteful and delinquent
mental patient,” “a primitive form of political obscenity,” a “nauseating
character assassin,” and “our No. 1 Fascist.” And this is merely
a portion of what the author describes as “a sampling of choice billingsgate.”
By the time Murrow produced his “See It Now” attack on McCarthy
in 1954, the senator had been extensively pilloried for four long
years. Yes, selectively editing thousands of feet of film to
place McCarthy in the most unflattering light possible did have an
impact.
It’s grossly inaccurate, though, to claim Murrow slayed
the McCarthyism dragon, if that’s what you consider it.
Renowned
broadcaster Eric Sevareid said the Murrow assault “came very late
in the day. The youngsters read back and they think only one
person in broadcasting and the press stood up to McCarthy and this
has made a lot of people feel very upset, including me, because that
program came awfully late.”
Even Murrow admitted to less than
a significant role in destroying Joe. As quoted in Bayley’s
book, the newsman told New York Times columnist Jack Gould:
“My God, I didn't do anything. (Times columnist) Scotty Reston and lot of guys have been writing like this, saying the same things, for months, for years. We’re bringing up the rear.”
Murrow didn’t
save the Republic. For one thing, it didn’t need saving, at
least not from Joe McCarthy. For another, the broadcaster clearly
was more of a bit player than the lead in the senator’s ruin.
But when did liberals ever let facts get in the way of what they view
as a good story? That’s why we’re still waiting for the names
of the many innocent people whose lives were destroyed by McCarthy’s
smears. And now, the names of the more than a few who were driven
to suicide.
This appears in the November 17, 2005 Oak
Lawn (IL) Reporter. Mike Bates is the author of Right Angles and Other
Obstinate Truths.
