The Joe McCarthy story: Through the years, television and film treatments have transmitted the late Senator's persona--and exposed his perfidy.

AuthorRampell, Ed
PositionRECKLESS CRUELTY

In the tradition of screen bad guys like Star Wars' Darth Vader, Harry Potter's Lord Voldemort, and Batman's Joker, Joe McCarthy is a villain you love to hate. The junior Senator from Wisconsin is seen as such an embodiment of evil that an entire repressive era and tyrannical tactics are described using his name: McCarthyism, McCarthyite. His was the face of rabid anti-communism--and what an ugly mug it was.

During the Cold War, McCarthy adeptly exploited Reds-under-the-bed hysteria, rising from Senate obscurity like a "shooting star," as Tom Wickers 2006 biography of McCarthy is titled. Wildly alleging communist infiltration of Washingtons highest echelons, McCarthy parlayed being Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (not to be confused with the House Un-American Activities Committee, HUAC, which initiated the Hollywood blacklist) chairman into a position of power and prominence. He attracted press coverage with showmanship, outrageous behavior, and Torquemada-like tactics, "convicting people by rumor and hearsay and innuendo," as Arkansas Senator John McClellan fumed about the Wisconsinite who put the "badger" in the Badger State.

But McCarthys Red Scare-mongering backfired when he attacked military brass. The U.S. Army alleged that McCarthy's vile chief counsel, Roy Cohn, sought special treatment for subcommittee ex-aide David Schine (possibly Cohn's boyfriend) when he was drafted. That led to the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, which were broadcast live on TV. And what the American public saw proved devastating.

In fact, Joe McCarthy's reputation has often been forged on big and little screens, transmitting his persona into theaters and homes. He has been featured in numerous television and film works, including a new PBS documentary premiering in January.

Here are some of them:

"A REPORT ON SENATOR JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY"

This episode of the CBS-TV news series See It Now, hosted by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, aired on March 9,1954, shortly before the start of the Army-McCarthy hearings. It depicted the smirking not-so-Grand Inquisitor haranguing witnesses, denouncing Democrats for "twenty years of treason," and labeling the ACLU as a Communist Party front, punctuated by McCarthy's hyena-like laugh.

"I resent the tone of this inquiry very much," State Department official Reed Harris was shown saying. "It is my neck, my public neck, that you are... very skillfully trying to wring."

The episode concluded with this...

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