[70 years ago this week, the Senate voted to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, a key final step in the downfall of that domineering and divisive demagogue. So in this series I’ll AmericanStudy a few layers to McCarthy’s America, leading up to a weekend post on his and the moment’s modern echoes.]
On
espionage, railroading, and the true complexity of historical nuance.
In one of my
earliest posts for this blog, I used the wonderful Season 2 West Wing episode “Somebody’s Going to
Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail” to think about recently revealed details
of the Rosenberg case and the question of historical nuance. In lieu of a new
first paragraph here, I’d love for you to check out that post if you would, and
then come on back here for today’s thoughts.
Welcome
back! The same thorny questions I considered in that post, of how we can
accurately critique McCarthyism (on which more in tomorrow’s post) while
grappling with the apparent truths of the Rosenberg case, certainly seem to
apply to the story of two of HUAC’s most famous targets, Harry
Dexter White and Alger Hiss. In
August 1948, HUAC
subpoenaed Whittaker Chambers, an admitted former Soviet spy now working as
a senior editor at Time; in his
testimony Chambers named names of other alleged Soviet agents in the U.S.
government, including Treasury Department official White and State Department
official Hiss. Both men denied the accusations categorically; White died of a
heart attack a few days later and the question
of his espionage remains entirely unclear, while Hiss was
eventually convicted
of perjury (thanks to documents provided by Chambers which contradicted
Hiss’ sworn statements before the committee) and imprisoned for years. Hiss
maintained his innocence until his death in 1996, but recently released Soviet archival
materials seem to
provide proof that he was at least for a time on the Kremlin’s payroll.
There’s a
lot more to say about these cases than I can fit into one more paragraph, but I
want to make three points here. First, it’s important to note that someone
working for the federal government and spying for the Soviet Union is in a far
different and more troubling position than a cultural figure accused of
Communist sympathies (like all those about whom I wrote in yesterday’s post);
if that was indeed the case for Hiss, he deserved at least to lose his job, and
likely to serve time in prison. Second, it’s just as important to note that
lives can be and were destroyed by such accusations regardless of the facts;
Harry Dexter White, one of the 20th
century’s greatest economic minds, is exhibit A in that case. And
third, it’s precisely the job—or at least one central job—of all who seek to
explore and engage our histories to include both those points, among others, in
our nuanced and multi-layered understanding and narrative of the past. We can
add our own emphases and arguments to be sure, and I would argue that HUAC and
McCarthy were more damaging to the US than Soviet spies. But there’s no way to
understand the 1940s and 50s in America without recognizing that both those
communities were problematic parts of our political and social landscape.
Next
McCarthy context tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
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