Citation Needed - McCarthyism

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.[1] The term refers to U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s.[2] It was characterized by heightened political repression and a campaign spreading fear of communist influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents.[2] After the mid-1950s, McCarthyism began to decline, mainly due to the gradual loss of public popularity and opposition from the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren.[3][4] The Warren Court made a series of rulings that helped bring an end to McCarthyism.[5][6][7] Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

That's because you're not letting the butter get brown. It's gotta get brown and it's gonna smell like it's nutty. It's got a nutty smell to it. Seriously. Seriously, you gotta trust me. These are amazing. Admit it. You admit it.

Never. Do it. Guys, guys, what are you yelling about? What's going on? What is the smell? Thank you. Tom, he's not smell like brown butter. He's like, he's like, he's like farted.

He like farted. Cecil, Cecil, Cecil,il Cecil you gotta believe me look at this list look at this list 340 people who will swear under oath Keith farted those are all in your hand right and those are all fake names Exactly. Thank you and besides I have audio recordings that prove it was Eli who farted Well, it's me Eli. I love to fart. Here comes me farting. Seriously guys. Right, it wasn't even said like me.

Exactly. That's a very specific thing that I do from the show right there. Nothing to do. Fucking clear. Everybody can tell what's happening. Guys, hey, this is pointless. It's obvious you both farted. Is it? You both shit your pants? Hello, yeah, we can see it's like leaking out of your pants everywhere. It's disgusting. Oh

Okay You like Jewish what is that up to do with anything though? I'm just adding that I thought it might help Okay, well, it doesn't. A little. Hello, and welcome to Sitation Needed. The podcast where you choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we are experts because this is the internet and that's how it works. Now, I'm Cecil and I'll be investigating on American activities. So let me introduce my fellow investigators. First up, two guys that will use the many investigations they were the target of in the past as on

the job training Noah and Eli. I'll tell you what, I'm glad I paid attention to their techniques because now I always know when I'm in possession of narcotics. And I'm just saying whatever guy at the FBI is in charge of spying on me through my whip him deserves paid vacation. A lot of it. A lot of it. Also, a couple of guys that are so pale that every trip

into the sunlight results in a red scare. He's fantastic. OK. That's reasonable. Yeah. I too have some sunblock got skin cancer. Like it. I don't have to put sunblock on my sunblock.

OK, yeah, that jab at me was fair. I'm fair. You are. Fair. Absolutely. So, patrons, thank jab of me was fair. I'm fair. You're right. Absolutely. So, patrons, thank you for your generous support. Without you, we wouldn't do this show. Like, literally, would not do this show.

So, thank you. For letting us do this show. And if you'd like to learn how to make sure that we do this show, be sure to stick around until the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us Heath, what person placed thing concept phenomenon or event. We'll be talking about today. We're gonna be talking about McCarthyism.

Ooh, no, what did Jenny McCarthy do now? No, no, no, no. This is the McCarthy that stupid conservatives jack off to. Different, totally different. Okay. Yeah. But I wanna be clear though,

this episode is about McCarthyism, not Joseph McCarthy. He is way too boring to carry an episode. So yes, he's going to make an appearance. We're going to talk about him, but I'm not going to give him undue weight just because they named the thing after him. As a historian quoted in the Wiki article points out, if the public had known in the 50s, hold a later declassified shit that we know now, it's entirely possible that we'd be calling

this Hooverism. Yeah. Now if you just Google that, that's the fetish for fucking vacuum cleaners. Well, it is, don't Google it. No, no, Google it by all means. But we're not gonna keep the shame on the fucking chicken cleaner. So we're fucking vacuum cleaners. It doesn't matter. Our first stop here in this story is the dictionary. The wiki article defines McCarthyism as quote, the practice of making accusations ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha because like, and people were accusing Trump of treason way before they had proper evidence, but that was just a solid assumption

later proven to be true. And also, it's too narrow because in its modern usage, McCarthyism isn't really restricted to accusations of treason or subversion per se. So for the purposes of this essay, we're gonna kind of cobble together a bunch of different definitions and go by best one right here.

So this is the definition I'll be using. McCarthyism is using accusations of disloyalty, unfair investigative techniques, guilt by association, and or dubious evidence to restrict dissent or political criticism. And admittedly, that definition kind of sucks too, but it's not as bad as all the other ones I found in the dictionary. No, did you just crib that from the mission statement of Fox News? No, it's not every business? That's not every business. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time.

I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time.

I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time.

I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. I've been doing it useful for some purposes. I will refer to it in this essay, but it's more helpful to think of the red scare as one thing that started in 1917 has been going on for 103 years and got particularly bad twice. No way call it a red scare, but if you're child free, it's actually a red sigh of relief, right? All right, so the red scare, of course, simply refers to being terrified of communism. This rash of paranoia called the first red scare pops up after the Bolshevik revolution, and it's mostly focused on perceived threats from labor unions, political radicals, and anarchists. All lumped together as one thing as America is want to do.

The idea of communism was damn appealing to the people of the earth. Yeah, exactly right. The right threat does left wing fascists. do. The idea of communism was damn appealing to the people of the early 1900s. Yeah, exactly right. Those left-wing fascists. Yeah, fascists. Yeah. Um, so the idea of communism was damn appealing to the people in the early 1900s, especially after the thing that we were doing up to that point, started World War One, right? Um, and that appeal scared the ever loving fuck out of rich capitalist. So they stoked the fear of the red menace in every way they could. Yeah.

And spoiler, after that second red scare died down, they invented supply side economics. Somebody literally pointed out that if you do economics upside down, it's better for rich people. The brown ragan finger painted his signature on too much of a tax cost for rich people. This is one of the most evil academic theories in recent history. And by the way, it's known as the Chicago School of Economics. It is the second worst thing you've produced. So, yeah, some fun facts for you. No, why don't you take us back to the origin of Reaganomics, what happened with that first red scare.

Now, now there's no agreed upon event. I can point to that that? First red scare. Now, there's no agreed upon event I can point to that ends the first red scare, but as labor unions start making noticeable improvements in their lives and as the Great Depression starts re-run in Tugleyhead, the idea that capitalism was just crushing things became much harder to sell. In fact, this was something of a heyday for American communism, and during the 30s,

the Communist Party of the United States added members every year until it peaked in 1940 at around 75,000 members. Now I should be clear that Americans fear of communism never abated and it just got less important for a while. But once World War II was over and everybody saw how much asked the Russians could kick, it became way more important again. And these fears were exacerbated when two Soviets spiced affected the US in separate instances and brought along hard evidence of Russian espionage in America.

This led then President Harry Truman to sign executive order 9835, which required that all federal civil service employees be screened for loyalty. Yeah. After your 10th civil service job, you turned in your loyalty punch card for an ambassador appointment. Yeah, right. Now we just bypassed that with donations. It's a real shame. Right.

Yeah. So I'd like a job working for a US government, please. Okay, yeah, sure. No problem. Obviously you're going to have to prove you love America. That's, of course, obviously. So I guess, um... I don't know, maybe do you know the Pledge of Allegiance?

Hmm... Do you know Pledge of Allegiance? Okay, this isn't about me. Rude, uh, okay. Can you sing the National Anthem? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Um, you first though. You sing first.

Okay, yeah. Point... Point taken. There. Uh... How do you feel about bald eagles? I love them? Good enough. Thank you, Comrade. Wait, what? Nothing.

Exactly like that. Yeah, I know very much like that, actually. And look, as bad as this shit is ultimately going to get and as shitty as Truman was, that pretty much everything, I can't help but be sympathetic to him a little bit. When a hostile foreign power is actively trying to undermine your nation, screening employees to make sure they're not working for that fucking country seems helpful. It would have been nice to have something like that for incoming presidents for example. And if your buddy gets in trouble, you just commute the sentence. It's win-win. Yeah. right.

But the order specifically states that one basis for determining disloyalty would be membership in or sympathetic association with any organization deemed to be totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive. And the determination as to what counted under that heading was at the sole discretion of the attorney general. Which is good because otherwise I've got some bad news about membership in the US government. So, sorry, you're all disqualified.

What? At first, not much comes from this executive order or from the loyalty screenings that had inaugurated, but over the next couple of years, a series of events would ramp up America's paranoia about communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular. Just a very quick couple of bullet points here. In 1949, Mao's Communist Party takes control of China. And in the same year, Russia tests its first atomic bomb way earlier than any American observers were expecting.

In 1950, you have the start of the Korean War, as well as the conviction of Alger Hiss, a high level state department official who was convicted of a spying for the Russians, or actually he was convicted of perjury for lying about all the espionage he did because get this, the statute of limitations had run out on the spying. We have one, I wouldn't be having one of those. Like who's like, Lou?

Okay, if they spy, but they get away with it, we're just gonna let them have that. That's okay. We were, you know what? We were beaten by the best. That's on us. let him have that. That's okay. We were being by the best. And on the top of that, I should point out to 1950, that's also the gear that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested for stealing atomic bomb secrets for the Soviets. Yeah, I mean, it was more about being guilty for

Jewishing than for being spies. But by the way, they were definitely also spies for sure. They were spies, but they didn't find Jesus like Roger Stone. So they got ex-games dead. Right. People build clocks. Of course, then as now, communism has two definitions in America, right? One is that political and economic philosophy described by Angolan marks. The other is any left-leaning policy I disagree with. Right? So there were plenty of conservatives back then and now who dubbed things like women's suffrage and child labor laws communism

or at the very least communist plots to undermine America. For plenty of these folks, FDR was at least as much a communist as Stalin. And of course politicians catering to that crowd have used that vague threat of communist influence as a boogie man for years. So you can imagine that when their constituents started hearing about actual communist spies infiltrating their government, they went apoplectic. Yeah, and all those antifa members just returned home from Europe five years ago at that point. Right. So we're inundated with them. Inundated with years ago at that point. Right. We were in a dating with him. In a dating with Antifa at that point. Okay, a little fun fact about child labor.

That's still not entirely illegal, actually. As long as you're 12, at least 12, you can work unlimited hours if you work in an agricultural field. And that sounds bad, but like imagine if the commies had won and we didn't have any child labor but that would be the hellsweep, right? You know what expensive a phone would be? It'd be insane. Crazy. I mean, not not that expensive, but expensive. Just kind of expensive. This is the environment though that Joseph McCarthy was stepping into on February 9th of

1950. So McCarthy was a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer with a reputation for bravery that was pretty much entirely built on exaggeration and bullshit. After World War II, McCarthy returned to his home state of Wisconsin where he successfully ran for Senator in 1946. And for three years, he's basically abhorring nobody of a senator, but his Lincoln Day speech to the Republican women's club of Wheeling, West Virginia, with skyrocketing. What's that?

That's so fucking horrible. Everything. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. It's where Heath goes when he dies if he's not good or so. So it's during that speech, that for the first time he refers to his secret list of communists. He holds up.

He famously holds up this sweaty ass looking piece of paper and says quote, I have here in my hand a list of 205 names that were made known. The sector is. And the members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the state department. Okay, you should have to do the whole assay in that voice. You should have to do the whole assay. God damn it should have to do the whole essay. God dammit. Okay, Karen's do your thing. And that's when the entire fucking, what is the Republican women's club of Wheeling,

West Virginia. Oh, Wheeling West Virginia. Oh, and up into Karen fucking Voltron and started weighing everyone against a duck all over the country. Hey, spoiler alert, I got a whole fucking essay. You just summed up, okay? Now, it's hard to imagine that all over the country. Hey, spoiler alert, I got a whole fucking essay you just summed up, okay? Now, it's hard to imagine that remarks made to the Republican women's club of Wheeling, West Virginia would make national news.

But this claim led to such a flood of press attention that the term McCarthyism would be coined 47 days later. I don't want to jump right on it, I guess. Yeah, well, right. Yeah, no, and it first appeared in jump right on it, I guess. Well, right. Yeah. It first appeared in a Christian science monitor article on March 28th of 1950, though it's kind of hard to get a sense of what the hell they were talking about in that article. The more common claim of coinage, at least in the modern usage, comes from, comes one

day later, actually, and I'm Washington Post cartoon that shows a bunch of GOP senators trying to coax an elephant onto a precarious pile of stuff labeled McCarthy. Yeah, now it's just trying to coax a bunch of elephants into an outdoor convention tent city. It's a little different. You know, Cecil, the hardest part of organizing that Southern GOP rally is trying to build all the scooter ramps. It's not from getting stuck in the yard.

You know what I mean? I didn't do that. It's like an empty, extra painting of rams, just everywhere. It's like, but that's the thing. It's Florida. It already looks like that. You got to cook through a Republican party to theme park in Brooklyn.

Remember that? You're an electrician. To death. Yeah. All right. So interesting side note on the coinage, by the way, are interesting to me and probably nobody else. I guess we're a long time, everybody seemed to accept that the cartoonist Herbert Blot

came up with the term, but then somebody dug up the Christian science monitor article to predate it by a few hours. So block later said of the dispute quote, if anybody has a prior claim to it, he's welcome to the word and to the junior senator from Wizconcent along with it. I'll also throw in a set of free dishes in a case of soap.

Yeah, not sure why. In truth, it's almost certain that the term had already entered limited usage in DC and neither of those print versions represented the first use of the term of. Well, now that we're all trying to do everyone, trying to demonstrate how we all liked McCarthy before it was cool, let's take a break, and then we'll have to pull nothing. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Hi, I'm Cecil, something Italian. And I'm Tom. Are you a fearful white man? Did you accidentally learn just enough history to figure out that America is the bad guy? Well then why not try the red scare? The red scare can be used by anyone. White. For anyone.

White. To explain away feminism. Or explain away social justice. Or even while your job at the bait shop hasn't made you a millionaire. The red scare. It's not your fault. It's communism's fault. Now available in Black Lives Matter. Well, when we last left off, Joe McCarthy was standing in front of a desk full of blank

reams of paper that listed all the communists in America. And no, you cannot read them. What happened next, now? Right. A lot of stains on the paper, Joe. It's on the paper. So, all right. So we already discussed the loyalty review that Harry Truman set up in 1947 or loyalty

review, as I should say. Now to be clear, Truman was not another when it came to a communist infiltration or at least not compared to his contemporaries. He was most likely reacting to the ass kicking his party took in the 1946 midterm elections and the growing calls to get top fund the red menace. But once the EO was signed, Jay Edgar Hoover was the one tasked with actually designing the loyalty review program. And as you can imagine, the idea of using quasi legal means to obtain potential dirt on government

employees was exactly his cup of tea. Fucking Jay Edgar Hoover. When you absolutely, positively positively need it over rot. That's well done, sir. Well done. Obviously nobody can say how much of Hoover's reaction was a response to genuine fear of communist infiltration and how much of it was just J Edgar

who varied opportunism. But we can say for certain that it was at least some of both. Right, Hoover was a deeply paranoid human being and there was actual Soviet infiltration into the federal government. So there definitely was some of that, but carrying out the loyalty reviews he implemented under executive order 9835 also allowed him to nearly double the size of the FBI between 1946 and 1952. What's more, his investigations led directly to thousands of government employees

losing their jobs. And those had to be tough conversations. And to be like, you know, bad news, you're out of a job. We've got this great new program called Find Something New. Shit. Yeah. That's what should. I hear goy ideas in Newsy. So the nature of these loyalty reviews was problematic is all hell, right? Who for quite reasonably wanted to keep his informants confidential, but that often led to people trying to defend themselves without the benefit of cross-examining their accuser, knowing who their accuser was or in the most extreme cases, even knowing what the hell they were being accused of. And podcasts we call those iTunes reviews. That's. I like laughing. These guys are funny. Whatever.

Yeah, fuck you. We'll edit you an episode without the laughs. It's four seconds long. Super fun. And it's the other podcast that sounds like our title. All right, but just because his mandate limited him to federal employees, Hoover did not limit himself to federal employees. He investigated whoever not limit himself to federal employees.

He investigated whoever the fuck he felt like investigating. And when he didn't have the authority to do anything about his findings, he would just send documents to people's employers and whatnot with details of their communist sympathies and just sign them the FBI. Right? So very often the people accused in these blind memoranda were fired without any process whatsoever and of course it's Hoover

So this also includes like leaking info to the press calling for IRS audits and all the other dirty tricks that he's so famous for Fired without recourse. That's very unem- no wait, that's very very I mean fired for Sickle sell anemia Okay, wait, I mean fired for sickle cell anemia. That's just a word sickle in my history. I own a hammer too. You want to fucking arrest me for that? Idiots.

I should know too. This wasn't just a thing that the federal government was doing. Companies all over the country started suddenly worrying that they too were being infiltrated by communists, right? And they started demanding that their employees sign loyalty pledges and shit, even when there's no god damn reason for it, when they had nothing to do with the government or national security. In fact, so many companies,

one of their employees screened for communist ties that it became a booming industry, and several third party communist investigators opened up to help corporate America root out all the hidden russ... Capitalism is America's psycho lover. Since they met, we've all had to deal with their economic insecurity man. Capitalism is just sitting outside our window, killing the middle class, leaving it on our doorstep, press the button.

The middle class shows up in our bed bloody like a horse. So what are the other big players in the institutionalization of the red scare was, of course, the house committee on un-American activities often called who I could have it. It was. It might not actually be called that, but it was the most prominent and most active government committee involved in anti-communist investigations. And it's so closely associated with macArthur's him that a lot of people seem to think that he had to do that

but this is the house committee on on american activities macArthur was a senator his committee was called the senate internal security subcommittee but ciss is a much less memorable acronym that who act uh... of course who i can work on for them just a catch't more going for it than just a catchy acronym it was made famous to its investigation of Hollywood which began in october of nineteen forty seven when they subpoenaed a bunch of Hollywood writers directors and actors who

were members are suspected members of the communist party now famously some Hollywood big wigs push back a group would become known as they Hollywood ten refused to testify on first amendment grounds and as much as we'd love to think that they were like applauded by all the freedom loving Americans in truth they were fired from their jobs blacklisted by Hollywood and thrown in jail for contempt of Congress. After that everybody in Hollywood they got subpoenas fucking testified. Um, now some of them did plead the fifth of course, but that just let them to be branded fifth amendment communists and that usually ended their careers as well.

Yeah, but on the bright side, we will always have the historical record of zero mustel telling them just how hard they can fuck themselves. Yeah. It's not going to be. He didn't even have a lawyer. He was just like fuck your face. Love tepia. If we threw everybody in jail that had contempt for Congress, I've just, well, who would be guarding the jail is the question that I've got. And I should say, by the way, these blacklist were legitimate things. That is not a euphemism. There were physical lists of people in Hollywood that all the major studios agreed not to hire on account of their communism.

The same thing existed to varying degrees in a number of industries, thanks to like the private loyalty review boards and anti-communist investigators popping up nationwide, failing a review by one of those groups could follow a person around for years and keep them from getting virtually any job. So like kneeling in the NFL, then. That was exactly right. Yeah, right.

And so and black listing, by the way, was not the worst thing that could happen to you. A lot of victims of McCarthyists have wound up in jail under the smith act that was a nineteen forty law that made it illegal to quote knowingly or willfully advocate a bet advise or teach the desirability or propriety of overthrowing the government of the united states by violent overthrow and quote hundreds of people were prosecuted under that law during the red scare including by the

way Elizabeth girly flint a founding member of the ACLU okay, but what if instead of a violent overthrow you just built an enormously powerful network to crush American culture from within with the direct support of Russian operatives huh you become a billionaire and Jesse Eisenberg plays you in a movie yeah yeah yeah we have a system for that yeah yeah all right so so what kind of things could and Jesse Eisenberg plays you in a movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah, we have a system for that. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So what kind of things could cause you to fail a loyalty review? Well, obviously, past or present membership in the Communist Party or any significantly left leaning organization did the trick. Having a spouse romantic partner relative or close friend who belonged to or expressed sympathy for a group like that could do it, being accused of secretly belonging to such a group could do it, but not even the most tenuous association with communism was required. See, in addition to the red scare, McCarthyism was steeped in something that has been dubbed the lavender scare. And that is the threat to national security

posed by gay people. What? I mean, they do love to gossip. Oh, okay. She says, come on, dude. You love to spill tea. So, well, you have to keep in mind that back in the 50s, homosexuality was still classified as a psychiatric disorder. And was largely seen as, I have no fucking idea how, a contagious disease.

You know, once you're popping all that. It's, ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's, ha ha ha ha ha. Now, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha true Americans and an enormous amount of the FBI effort in these loyalty reviews was invested in digging up compromising material on gay federal employees and then firing them. I must have made for some awkward interrogations. Johnson, thanks so much for coming in. Happy to help, Mr. Huba.

So how goes our lavender perch? Well, sir, Mirnaf was fired, because, you know, I mean, he said that roommate of his for years. Oh, good, good. That's good to hear. Yeah, same for Weber. We asked him what color of the walls were. He said egg shells. Smart choice there. And McNally, well, McNally almost evaded us, but when we offered him coffee or tea, he took tea. Your investigation skills are amazing. Now What do you say we go on vacation together to celebrate? You and me awesome you and I very very very straight the straight as you can be

Now I should say few people and no groups were spared from a car the isum some of the most uh... famous victims who are either blacklisted or suffered some for them of uh... persecution include charlie chaplain or some wells w e b de boys and lucille ball in fact even the oppinheimer the man chiefly responsible for building the fucking atomic bomb the man whose brain came up with the greatest military secret in world history wound up blacklisted for communist sympathies. All right, thanks for the bomb to kill Russia.

Just a quick thing. Did you say now I am become death, the destroyer of war? Are you gay? Do you love the ghost? No, of course, it's worth noting that it's widespread as this paranoia was, it wasn't universal. From the very beginning, there were plenty of American politicians, even in McCarthy's own party that denounced his tactics.

Harry Truman was dragged into it reluctantly and spent much of the Eisenhower administration denouncing it from the sidelines with the Supreme Court upheld a law that allowed state loyalty review boards to fire subversive teachers. Justice William O. Douglas wrote a scathing rebuke of McCarthyism in his dissent. And of course, legendary CBS newscaster Edward Armero took on McCarthy in one of the most famous moments in the history of broadcast news.

And so by the mid-50s, McCarthyism was starting to unravel. When Radio host John Henry Falk was blacklisted by a loyalty screening service in 1957, he sued the third party investigator for loss of income and ultimately won the case. When all of these companies realized that they could be held legally liable for the damage they were doing, the vast majority of them basically closed up shop and cashed in their chips. Right?

Around the same time, the Warren court was starting to dismantle all the legal justifications they've been using up to that point. And a ton of the Smith Act convictions were overturned and blacklisted people started to slowly reemerge. Now, I want to close up by pointing out that I very intentionally never used the term witch hunt in describing this bizarre historical phenomenon. I did that intentionally because there is no such thing as witches, right? They're actually were communist spies infiltrating our government, right?

And based on the documents later declassified by the Russians, there were also a fuck ton of them in Hollywood too, right? They're not just that we're communist, but that we're also like had strong Soviet ties. So there was an actual real problem they were trying to root out. The key lesson to McCarthyism isn't the same as the witch trials. The key lesson here is that the effort to root it out was way more problematic than what they were trying to eradicate.

And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, no, what would it be? It turns out we actually are descended from fearful men. It's damn right. Absolutely true. Are you ready to go to class, my friend? Well, what would it be? Turns out we actually are descended from fearful men. And Dan Wright. Absolutely true. Are you ready to go to close, my friend? Yeah, yeah, why not? All right, Noah. Due to black lists, what movie never made it

to the silver screen? A, better off red. B, Camoon struck. What? C, Russia, hour two. That's not bad. That's not I like that one. Thank you. Or D a decent conclusion to the Godfather series.

I think I'm going to go with C here because like obviously you're almost admitting how bad it was by adding the two unnecessarily to that. I want to emphasize that a little bit. So I'm gonna go with C. Good, correct. So, Russia, I did make it to the silver screen. Yeah, right. You're apparently the first one.

There's a sequel that was very controversial. All right, Noah, what is the name of the counter movement opposing McCarthyism black lists? A, all lists matter. Oh, you made a top of me. Okay, I'm going to go with A. Oh, you got it. I got it. Damn it.

I got to put more choices in these questions. Noah, what band never worked after they were blacklisted? A joy division of labor. Fantastic. Petite bourgeoisie's e-top. I don't know. See. Right against the machines of production or D. John Lennon. Okay. Obviously, because otherwise I wouldn't get a chance to say it, the answer must be

B. Petite Bourgeoisie's Etaugh. That's correct. That is absolutely. Alright, Noah, one more for you. What's the official term for the more general mental condition that includes McCarthyism? Is it A? Caranoia? It's A? Karanoia

It's a Another slam dunk for me. Okay. I'll go with a Karanoia man You are just crush it today Noah you are the winner all right well since he made it so easy for me to win They're all let him be essay us next week. Okay. All right. Well for the guys I'm Cecil. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and by then, Heath will be an expert on something else between now and then you can listen to our other stuff. You can find it at citationpod.com.

And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a poor episode, donation at patreon.com slash citation pod, or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes connected to us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com.

Ah, this is the life. Sure is. Just two straight men, very publicly on vacation together after having spontaneously decided to root out all the gays in their department. Just that, you know? Yes, yes, sir. spontaneously decided to root out all the gaze in their department. Just that, you know?

Yes, yes sir.