David Besharim
McCarthy Historiography
McCarthyism: Interpretations since Hofstadter by Thomas C. Reeves
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4635090
3 different arguments, 2 voices each
The definition of McCarthyism and its root causes have been in dispute since it first came into being.
To those on the political left, McCarthyism is to be vilified.
Herbert M. Orrell said: “McCarthyism is a complex of repressive measures, basically anti-intellectual and
anti-humanist, resulting from a crisis psychology under which external attack and internal subversion
are assumed to be imminent.”
Those on the far right see McCarthyism as much more positive, but the conservative defense has
persuaded few and no prominent historian has come to McCarthy’s defense.
In “McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning,” William F. Buckley, Jr. and L. Brent Bozell
described it as “primarily the maintenance of a steady flow of criticism calculated to pressure the
President, Cabinet members, high officials, and above all the political party in power, to get on with the
elimination of security risks in government…It is a movement around which men of good will and stern
morality can close ranks.”
Several historians are proponents of Status Theory as an explanation for McCarthyism.
1 ) Starting in 1954, some began to interpret McCarthyism as a reflection of psychological and social
forces at work in American society. Chief among these was Richard Hofstadter, a prominent historian
who hypothesized that extreme right-wing politics, which he called pseudo-conservatism, was a product
of the “scramble for status and its peculiar search for secure identity” in American life. He thought
McCarthy and his followers were “given to a profound if largely unconscious” hatred of American
society, haunted by ears of phantom subversives, bigoted, impulsive, violent and authoritarian. This
came to be known as “status theory.”
2) In “The Sources of the ‘Radical Right,’” sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset endorsed Hofstadter’s
concept of status politics and commended McCarthy’s ability to appeal to seven segments of the Radical
Right at the same time. “To the status-deprived he is a critic of the upper class; to the privileged, he is a
foe of social change and Communism.”
3) Historian Peter Viereck, “The Revolt Against the Elite” interpreted McCarthyism as an antiintellectual, antiestablishment populist revolt. He saw it as the result of the rise of the proletariat, which
turned against those of greater status as they entered the middle class. It was “the same old
isolationist, Anglophobe, Germanophile revolt of radical Populist lunatic-fringers against the eastern,
educated, Anglicized elite….McCarthyism is the revenge of the noses that for twenty years of fancy
parties were pressed against the outside window pane.”
However, this idea of status politics fell out of favor starting in 1959, after historian C. Vann Woodward
disassociated populism from status politics.
Other historians view McCarthyism as an outgrowth of political desperation among Republicans for
power, following a major defeat.
1) In 1960, political scientist Nelson W. Polsby concluded “McCarthy succeeded at the grass roots
primarily among Republicans.” He found that McCarthy became a national figure for these reasons:
the GOP was desperate after a demoralizing defeat in 1948; that as a Senator, McCarthy had power,
a staff and immunity from libel suits; McCarthy was skilled at using mass media and boldly misused
evidence; Truman’s administration was vulnerable about Communists in government ; and (not
sure what this means) Eisenhower’s emasculation of executive resistance to the Wisconsin
Senator.”
In 1962, Lipset appeared to recant his earlier position, saying he could not demonstrate conclusively the
validity of the status theory. He also said the evidence did not clearly link McCarthyism and populism or
ethnic prejudice.
2) Picking up on Polsby’s theme, Earl Latham argued in “The Communist Controversy in Washington,
From the New Deal to McCarthy,” that McCarthyism was a political phenomenon that grew from
frustration with the crushing GOP defeat in the 1948 presidential election. “When McCarthy and
the Communist issue had served their purposes, they both disappeared.”
“McCarthy acquired his vogue and most of his meaning from the immediate political circumstances
which begot him, and for which he was the temporary instrument.”
3) In “The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter,” Michael Paul Rogin supported this
viewpoint. He said McCarthy’s popular support came mostly from the right wing of the Midwestern
Republican party. “Leaders of the GOP saw in McCarthy a way back to national power after twenty
years in the political wilderness. “ He also wrote that moderate Republicans feared that an attack
on McCarthy would weaken and split their party.
Rogin also rejects the views of Hofstadter, Lipset and Viereck, saying they misread history “because
of their own conservatism, elitism and mistrust of the masses. “The root pluralist fear is of mass
passion over public policy, not of concern for the public interest per se.”
Revisionists
Responsibility of the Truman administration and its liberal backers for McCarthyism. They argue
that Truman created a Red scare to start costly foreign policy programs, defeat Republicans and
discredit and destroy leftist critics.
1) In Seeds of Repression, Athan Theoharis said in 1971 that Truman had overdramatized anti –
communist rhetoric to secure support for his containment policy and damage left-wing opposition,
noting that he vetoed the McCarran bill while proposing an alternate internal security bill of his
own.
2) Richard M Freeland in 1972, in “The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism, said
Truman had set the stage for McCarthyism with his propaganda and police activities for
McCarthyism, his loyalty security program.
But liberal and centrist analysts argued that Harry S. Truman could not be the driving force behind
anticommunism.
In 1974, Alonzo Hamby argued that Truman’s strong opposition to the McCarran Internal Security Act
proved he was defending civil liberties.
Alan D. Harper’s The Politics of Loyalty, agreeing with the majority of scholars, places Truman’s loyaltysecurity program into the context of the turmoil at home and overseas at the time.