What is McCarthyism? And how did it happen? - Ellen Schrecker — Transcript

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1. 0:06Imagine that one day, you're summoned before a government panel.
2. 0:10Even though you haven't committed any crime,
3. 0:13or been formally charged with one,
4. 0:15you are repeatedly questioned about your political views,
5. 0:19accused of disloyalty,
6. 0:21and asked to incriminate your friends and associates.
7. 0:25If you don't cooperate, you risk jail or losing your job.
8. 0:30This is exactly what happened in the United States in the 1950s
9. 0:35as part of a campaign to expose suspected communists.
10. 0:40Named after its most notorious practitioner,
11. 0:42the phenomenon known as McCarthyism destroyed thousands of lives and careers.
12. 0:49For over a decade, American political leaders trampled democratic freedoms
13. 0:54in the name of protecting them.
14. 0:57During the 1930s and 1940s,
15. 0:59there had been an active but small communist party in the United States.
16. 1:04Its record was mixed.
17. 1:06While it played crucial roles in wider progressive struggles
18. 1:09for labor and civil rights,
19. 1:11it also supported the Soviet Union.
20. 1:14From the start, the American Communist Party faced attacks
21. 1:18from conservatives and business leaders,
22. 1:20as well as from liberals who criticized its ties to the oppressive Soviet regime.
23. 1:26During World War II, when the USA and USSR were allied against Hitler,
24. 1:30some American communists actually spied for the Russians.
25. 1:35When the Cold War escalated and this espionage became known,
26. 1:38domestic communism came to be seen as a threat to national security.
27. 1:43But the attempt to eliminate that threat
28. 1:45soon turned into the longest lasting and most widespread episode
29. 1:49of political repression in American history.
30. 1:52Spurred on by a network of bureaucrats,
31. 1:54politicians,
32. 1:55journalists,
33. 1:56and businessmen,
34. 1:58the campaign wildly exaggerated the danger of communist subversion.
35. 2:03The people behind it harassed anyone
36. 2:05suspected of holding left-of-center political views
37. 2:08or associating with those who did.
38. 2:11If you hung modern art on your walls,
39. 2:14had a multiracial social circle,
40. 2:16or signed petitions against nuclear weapons,
41. 2:19you might just have been a communist.
42. 2:21Starting in the late 1940s,
43. 2:23FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
44. 2:26used the resources of his agency to hunt down such supposed communists
45. 2:30and eliminate them from any position of influence
46. 2:33within American society.
47. 2:36And the narrow criteria that Hoover and his allies used
48. 2:39to screen federal employees
49. 2:41spread to the rest of the country.
50. 2:44Soon, Hollywood studios,
51. 2:45universities,
52. 2:46car manufacturers,
53. 2:48and thousands of other public and private employers
54. 2:51were imposing the same political tests on the men and women who worked for them.
55. 2:57Meanwhile, Congress conducted its own witchhunt
56. 3:00subpoenaing hundreds of people to testify before investigative bodies
57. 3:04like the House Un-American Activities Committee.
58. 3:08If they refused to cooperate, they could be jailed for contempt,
59. 3:12or more commonly, fired and blacklisted.
60. 3:16Ambitious politicians, like Richard Nixon
61. 3:18and Joseph McCarthy,
62. 3:20used such hearings as a partisan weapon
63. 3:23accusing democrats of being soft on communism
64. 3:26and deliberately losing China to the Communist Bloc.
65. 3:30McCarthy, a Republican senator from Wisconsin
66. 3:33became notorious by flaunting ever-changing lists of alleged communists
67. 3:38within the State Department.
68. 3:41Egged on by other politicians,
69. 3:43he continued to make outrageous accusations
70. 3:45while distorting or fabricating evidence.
71. 3:49Many citizens reviled McCarthy while others praised him.
72. 3:53And when the Korean War broke out, McCarthy seemed vindicated.
73. 3:57Once he became chair
74. 3:59of the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations in 1953,
75. 4:04McCarthy recklessness increased.
76. 4:06It was his investigation of the army that finally turned public opinion against him
77. 4:12and diminished his power.
78. 4:15McCarthy's colleagues in the Senate censured him
79. 4:17and he died less than three years later, probably from alcoholism.
80. 4:22McCarthyism ended as well.
81. 4:24It had ruined hundreds, if not thousands, of lives
82. 4:27and drastically narrowed the American political spectrum.
83. 4:32Its damage to democratic institutions would be long lasting.
84. 4:35In all likelihood, there were both Democrats and Republicans
85. 4:39who knew that the anti-communist purges were deeply unjust
86. 4:43but feared that directly opposing them would hurt their careers.
87. 4:48Even the Supreme Court failed to stop the witchhunt,
88. 4:51condoning serious violations of constitutional rights
89. 4:54in the name of national security.
90. 4:57Was domestic communism an actual threat to the American government?
91. 5:01Perhaps, though a small one.
92. 5:03But the reaction to it was so extreme that it caused far more damage
93. 5:08than the threat itself.
94. 5:10And if new demagogues appeared in uncertain times
95. 5:13to attack unpopular minorities in the name of patriotism,
96. 5:17could it all happen again?