Thank you for your comment. It is always gratifying to see that one of my columns has lead someone to question what he’s been taught about history. I was especially pleased to hear you opine that the subject of McCarthyism deserves “further research.” I hope you and others will follow through on that.

I quite agree that you should not accept anything I say at face value, any more than you should accept the view of history taught in mainstream history books at face value. As Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

If you do spend some time looking into this, you will learn that the claims about hundreds of innocent people being imprisoned during the “McCarthy Era” are not actually true. Very few guilty people were ever inprisoned, and few if any innocent people.

Senator McCarty’s investigations never sent a single person to jail. Not even one of the obviously-guilty men I quote in this column. Outside of the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss, virtually no one went to jail for spying for the Soviets.

Thanks, and keep up the healthy skepticism!

Al Fuller

However, your conclusions surprised me in that they are exactly what you claim to abhor: sweeping statements that fly in the face of fact. Your statement: “A fair rendering of history would credit Joseph McCarthy with being one of the men who helped defeat Communism, thus making the world a safer and better place.” is particuarly skewed, to the point of almost delusional bias. That his efforts in part led to the arrest of some Soviet spies I do not disupte, and is indeed laudable. However, to ignore the other criminally and morally egregious behavior of McCarthy and the object lesson he represents for the politics of reckless accusation and paranoia is simply a staggering oversight on your part. McCarthy’s actions led to persecution and loss of employment for thousands of innocent US citizens, and imprisonment for hundreds more. The boundaries were not limited to suspected Communists, but included the persecution of suspected homosexual citizens. This was clearly and demonstrably a black period of US history and to selectively ignore these facts in favor of a minority of less reprehensible ones is a bit irresponsible, don’t you think?