Coming up next on booktv encore booknotes from january 2000. Arthur herman discusses his book Joseph Mccarthy. Professor herman reassesses cart these legacy and argues the senator from wisconsin was justified in arguing there was a real communist threat inside the u. S. Government. This is about an hour. Cspan arthur herman, author of Joseph Mccarthy, why do you think we needed to reexamine the life and legacy of americas mosthated senator . Guest well, there are a couple of reasons. One is that we now know a lot more about the times and the context in which mccarthy had his political career and built his career of notoriety. We also know a lot more about joe mccarthy, the man, and about his own life. And what i wanted to do was to really put it together in a book that would give people a broad introduction, both to the period, but also to joe mccarthy, the man; to understand who he was, why he has the kind of tremendous rereputation and notoriety that he does and to understand where that came from, what the origins of it were and maybe to sort of rethink just what we really dohhow we really assess joe mccarthy now, with almost 50 years of distance between ourselves and him. Cspan if you were there at his most visible time, where would you find him . Guest there at his most visible time . Cspan in history. Guest that would be 1950 to 1954. Its a very sharply defined career, meteoric. It starts in february of 1950, when he makes his famous speech at wheeling, west virginia, accusing the state department of harvingharboring communists and communist superfized sympathizers. And then it really comes to a crashing conclusion in december of 1954 when the senate censures him, and that really is the end of joe mccarthy as aas a public figure, although not as a senator. But as a public figure its over. Cspan a couple of basic facts. Where was he from . Guest hes from wisconsin. He grew up in the farming communities that surrounded appleton, wisconsin, called the township of grand chute. Its now mostly strip malls there now. The farms have receded as the suburbs have expanded outward. But at the time, it was aaafarming communities heavily populated by the children of particularly dutch immigrants. The irish mccarthy clan were rare. There werent a lot of Irish Catholics in wisconsin at the time, but there were a lot of catholics. Andand in that sense, the mccarthys were a part of aformed part of this homogeneous rural community. Cspan whats the story about his marine time . Guest the story about his marine time is a checkered one. He ishesin the book, i describe it as aa series of episodes from the Sergeant Bilko show in many ways. He was a wheelerdealer. He was somebody who was very popular with his fellow officers and with thethe other ranks. He was a marine observation officer. Basically, he debriefed pilots who came back from bombing runs. And later he would inflate his war experiences, grow it into a major career as aas a combat veteran, and it would spawn the myth of Tailgunner Joe of theof the brave marine fightergunner who has, you know, served his country in the pacific. He did serve his country in the pacific. He did have experience flying in missions, including combat missions, but that wasnt his principal role. And he way exaggerated the number of missions he flew for political purposes. You have to remember that in the postwar period, right after world war ii, that to have been a combat hero was a ticket into politics; john kennedy, for example, and pt109. Many of mccarthys fellow members of the class of 46, who came to washington with the 1946 electionrepublican takeover of both the house and the senatewere war veterans, and mccarthy was part of thempart of that group. And so mccarthy saw the political opportunities that came with that war experience, and he cashed in on them. Cspan what was his first public job . Guest his first public job was working as a judge. He worked as aa district judge in shawano county, wisconsin. And it was an elected post. Its there that he really sort of learned about how successful he could really be as a elected official and in running in popularity contests against other candidates. He really didnt know that much about the law. He had a law degree from marquette, but he didnt have the kind of lengthy experience that we normally associate with people who sitwho sit on the bench ininin county circuit courts. Its interesting, though, and its significant because his first public job was really his last one, until he became senator. In other words, he moved directly from his experience as beingyou know, serving as county judge to the us senate. There was no inbetween as a state senator, as a legislator or a member of the house of representatives and the congress. He never learnedand this is important for understanding why mccarthy created so much friction as aawith his colleagues in the senate and with the political establishment. He never learned the kinds of skills that are required to be a legislator. He wenthe was, in a sense, propelled by the election of 46 into the us senate and into an environment which he was very familiar and about which he developed a kind of greata great contempt. Cspan you say he was a democrat. Guest he originally was a democrat. He voted for franklin roosevelt, as his father had and had most wisconsinites ofof sort of aa workingclass background, rural background did. He washe first ran for offices, in fact, as a democrat. And he probably madeits quite possible that he would have continued as a democrat, but the opportunity came upthe opportunity came up to challenge aa republican senatora popular republican senator from wisconsin in the primary, and mccarthy realized that this was his opportunity. By switching parties he could really give his political career a boost, and thats. unintelligible him do it. Cspan whod he challenge . Guest thisthe senator was thewas alex wiley, who would later go on to become a majorone of colmccarthys colleagues here. The senatethe senator that mccarthy replaced, the one that got him into the senate, was his underdog campaign against robert la follette jr. Cspan how old was he when he was elected . Guest well, theres two versions to that. Again, mccarthys skill in playing with thein playing with the truthhe was, actually, in fact, the youngest senator when he took offwhen he took office inin 1947. He wouldve beenwell, lets see, he was born in 1909. He wouldve been makes noise 38. But just to make sure that people understood that he was, in fact, the youngest senatsenator, in his official biography, he knocked off a yearlopped off a year from his birth date to make himself even younger, to appear as sort of fresh, young blood the young maverick arriving in the us senate. Cspan elected first in 1946. Guest yes. Cspan . Took his seat in 1947. Who controlled the senate . Which party . Guest then, it was the republicans. It was a stunning coup that had really taken place in the sense of a change from democratic dominance of all the branches of government since rosince roosevelts new deal. The republicans got control of both the house and the senate in a landslide victory. And mccarthy, when he comes in, although he is a junior senator, he comes in as a member of the party in power. Cspan whos running the white house apparatus . Who are some of the players, besides the president . Guest well, Harry Trumans entourage of advisers and aides were a group ofprobably the most distinguished group, i have to saythe most distinguished group of americans to enter into Public Service in this century. These were the ones that historians like to call the wise men, men like dean acheson, who served as trumans secretary of state. Cspan in here on the left . Guest yeah. Thats acheson that you see on the left. That, in the middle, is achesons special ambassador at large, philip jessup. And there in the background on the right is dean rusk, who would, in a sense, inherit the mantle of the legacy of the wise men of this american liberal political establishment and the responsibilities for running the cold war and for america as a superpower. Cspan so in 1947, hes a freshman senator. What committee does he go on . Guest he goes on a couple of small committees. He goes on, for example, the committee forhe goes on the post office committee, as i recall, the committee for the district of columbia. These are very small posts. But the other position that he gets is on a committee which had been very active during the war period, the committee for the investigation of government expenditures. And it was this committee that, ironically, harry truman had used to build his political career in investigating corruption and overspending and cooking of the books by various Government Departments, including the us army, and it was anow in the hands of republicans. It was going to become an instrument for examining what republicans were convinced had been, really, 12 years of democratic corruption and of wheeling and dealing and of allowing americas large Government Agencies to become centers of political patronage here. The committee, in the hands of the republicans, very quickly, and particularly its subcommittee, the subcommittee on investigations, very quickly becomes a key instrument in conducting investigative probes what have the democrats been doing in those 12 years of power . What kinds of abuses are we looking for . What kinds of problems have been lurking there in the corners that we now are able, as republicans, to bring to light . and its in that background, you see, that mccarthy gets thegets thethe impetus for this idea of using investigations, using probes as a wainto democratic malfeasance and misfeasance in Government Departments as a way of, first of all, straightening out the problems, but then also, of course, to building your political career. Cspan youve been to his grave in appleton, wisconsin . Guest yes. Cspan why . Guest i went there because i wanted to do two things. One was i was visiting my parents, who live in wisconsin, and i wanted, first of all, to see mccarthys grave. Why not . Its a short drive away from home. But i also went for another reason, and that was because i wanted to get a sense, which was important for the book and for the writing of the bookthe sense of the kind of place that mccarthy came from and the kinds of people and the sort of community that rallied around joe mccarthy all the way down to his death, all the way after his disgrace and censure and so on. Appletonians never lost theirthe majority of appletonians never lost their sense of loyalty andand admiration for joe mccarthy. And i wanted to get, at least in a kind of firsthand way, a taste of what thatof what that was about by going to the grave andandand seeing theand seeing whatwhat appletonthat part of that appleton was like. Cspan born in 1908. What year did he die . Guest he dies in 1957. Cspan of what . Guest he diedwell, the death certificate says hepatic liveralliver failure, and it does seem to be had that hepatitis was the immediate cause of death. But theres no doubt that the liver damage that he suffered was the result of hisof his chronic drinking. Cspan how much did he. Guest . Which had been going on for yearshad been going on for years. You know, theres atheres athe legend is is that mccarthys disgrace and his censure drove him to the bottle and that he killed himself in the process. Actually, in fact, what i discovered wasis that his drinking had really begun long before that. It had really begun during the period of time in which he was at the height of his popularity and the height of hisof his notoriety here. And the tremendous quantities of alcohol that he did consume as he responded to the tensions and the pressures of his, you know, National Celebrity that had been thrust on him simply did physical damage thatthat was irrirrirreparable. And after the censure, he doesnt seem to have drunk quite as much as he did before. A lot of people who met him andduring that period of time describe him as being a moderate drinker, and perhaps so. But the truth is is that the physical damage had already been done by the timeby the time of hisby that time of his censure, and he goes into agoes into a physical and mental tailspin after that. Cspan so hes, like, 48 years old when he dies. Guest yeah, hes only 48 years old when he dies. Thats right. Cspan are there any mccarthy descendants . Guest there is. There is a sthere is aa daughter, a stepdaughter. He and jean adopted a child only months before his death, as a matter of fact. It was an adoption that was arranged with the help of Cardinal Francis spellman. Cspan shes in thehis wifes in this picture right here. Guest thats right. Thats right. And that daughter is still alive. I didnt contact her at all because, for one thing, the mccarthy personal papers, such as they are, are basically sealed. The family doesnt want anybody toto see it, and i respected her privacy. But also because, again, she would nohave had almost no memory of her father since he died when she was still really an infant. Cspan when did you get interested in this . What were you doing and why . Guest well, ill tell you itmccarthysince i grew up in wisconsin, mccarthy was always a kind of shadowy figure in the history of wisconsin politics. Wisconsin is a very progressive state. Its the place where bill proxmire and Gaylord Nelson were senators, and has ayou know, has a long history and proud history of progressivism in its politics. And joe mccarthy was always kind of bankwells ghost at the feasts. No one really wanted to talk about how he became a senator and reelected as a senator from the state. And it was a very murky part of this whole sort of political heritage ofofofof being in wisconsin. And that had always intrigued me about it, about him and about his links to wisconsin. But the other issue, too, that got me interested in this was the whole question about american communism and the socalled red scare, and about the 1950s probes into anticommunism. And the first book that really got me interested in it, oddly enough, was victor navaskys naming names. I read that in graduate school. It made enormous impact on me. Cspan the man who used to run the nation magazine. Guest thats right. Exactly. He was publisher of the nation. And it waswhat itmost impressed me about it was the human side of the story that he was capturing, the human tragedies of these figures who had become caught up inin the communist party and inin the accusations about their membership and their links to the party in the 1950s. And it was a veryand is a very powerful book. Although my own view about the role of domestic communism is radically different now from navaskys, its still a very powerful book because it captures that human tragedy element. And although my own professional interests as a historian moved in a different direction, i always kept an interest in the period and in the subject. And it struck me a number of years ago that if i wanted to write something on thisyou know, people write books very often because itsthey want to read the book that theyre going to write, and this was my case, too. I wanted to read a book about joe mccarthy, that mccarthy was a way in which all of these kinds of issues about the 1950s, about what america was about, what domestic communism and its role and place in American Life in this period and the cold war, that mccarthy was a way to reexamine all of those issues in thein ain ain a single way and in a singlein a single form. And thatfrom the point of view ofof human tragedy, that the story of joe mccarthy is a tragedy. It really is. I mean, it is a tragedy which in many ways he brought upon himself, but its aits a tragedy all the same. Cspan what do you do fulltime . Guest what i do fulltime is i teach at george mason university. Im visiting associate professor there. And at the same time, i also lecture at the Smithsonian Institution at their campus on the mall. And i amorganized their western Heritage Program there, bringing on teachers and setting up courses and so on forfor the large audiences that we getthat we get over at the smithsonians ripley center. Cspan how would you describe your own political views . Guest i guess i would describe my own political views as conservative of aof a sort that is someone who grew up as a progressive, who in graduate school had been of the left, but then became disillusioned with it as a result of what had happened in vietnam and in cambodia after the american withdrawal there. Andand of really kind of reassessing your own deeply held beliefs and beginning to think that perhaps theres a different way to sort of see, a different perspective on all these other kinds of things. Its been a slow, long march for me to the kinds of views and issues thatthatthat ive come to realize here. But insofar asinsofar as thethe view that i used to have about joe mccarthy and about the kinds of people who supported him and about the red scare and all of these other issues of domestic subversion, that is a view which is, i think, the mthethe main weight of historical evidence simply runs against it. And youits just not aits just not a feasible position anymore to hold about these kinds ofthese kinds of issues. That the weight of historical evidence has to compel us to reexamine andandand to really reappraise how we understand all these things. Cspan where did you get your undergraduate degree and. Guest i got it at the university of minnesota. Cspan in what year . Guest in 1978 within history. A ba in history and then a masters degree at Johns Hopkins in 1980. And then i did my phd at Johns Hopkins inin 85. Cspan and how longexcuse mehow long have you been associated with the smithsonian . Guest i started teaching there about 19901990 or 1991. The number escapes me right now. And ive been teaching for them on a more or less regular basis ever since. Cspan go back to the wheeling, west virginia, speech. What day, what year was it given . Guest this was february 9th, 1950. It was a speech for the lincoln Day Celebrations that were being organized by the Ladies Republican Club of wheeling, west virginia. Lincolns birthday was traditionally a opportunity for republican officeholders to give a speech about republican principles, about thethe great traditions and the heritage of the Republican Party and itsthen, alof course, also to associate themselves with the figure of Abraham Lincoln and about howandand about sort of current political views. Mccarthy was invited to give the speech. He was, at that time, still a very obscure senat