Talk:Joseph McCarthy/Archive 1

message: The article on McCarthy contains the following sentence:
:Upon his ascension, McCarthy essentially re-staffed his Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, often not dismissing the predecessor.
The predecessor of what, one may ask.  Readers should not be forced to guess. I can't change it because I do not know what idea the original writer was trying to express. 金 (Kim) 06:28, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning what? 

message: A telegraph is a machine used to send messages.  These messages are called "telegrams".  See Telegraphy or a good dictionary. Peter 00:34, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Telegraph vs. Telegram 

message: As a cheesehead versed in Wisconsin's GOP, Progressive Republican, and Socialist political history, I feel qualified to revert this phrase and place it here, pending sourcing on Ike's sentiments.
:"a poor representative of the people of Wisconsin". nobs 01:52, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. Will Seriously look into.  Wisconsin has a fascinating and truelly relevent political history that is underrepresented and has never realy been collected or written about as whole. nobs 16:51, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wisconsin

message: May be its one of those days when I can't seem to think straight, but the sentence below look like its has some issues. I hestitated fixing it, for I can't be sure what it was meant to say. Can a sentence end with the words "should not be" It sound weird to me.
McCarthy stated that he referred to 57 "known Communists," the number 205 referring to the number of people employed by the State Department who, for various security reasons, should not be.
----
"should not be employed", or "should not have been employed", is the thought I beleive. nobs 18:59, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar fix necessary 

message: I belive this articale is POV because of the various negative portrayl of his events. It does not strain to show a opinon on his events, but i cant find any counterpoints, like how mccarthy did not want his list to be public, how he wanted secret meetings to discuss his concerns, and how he was demanded to show his list to the public by members of the liberal party.--NightDragon 07:35, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: you're right! I suggest you also visit this article, people keep saying such negative things about Hitler!! Not very NPOV!! I smell an anti-Hitler bias here on wiki!!! you must correct this at once!--172.161.129.117 19:21, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Regarding the irrelevence of listing names of 4 CPUSA members decyphered in Venona project materials as working on behalf of Soviet intelligence.  One member, Allen Rosenberg, a purported victim of McCarthyism, not only was never prosecuted for espionage, but  personally argued a case before the United States Supreme Court in 1955.  I could develope the information as whether or not he was ever subpeaned by Joseph McCarthy. However, I do understand the POV that this is not relevent.   nobs 17:50, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A second name on the list John Abt, was requested by Lee Harvey Oswald to represent him shortly before Oswald met his unfortuneate demise.   nobs 17:54, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, those are totally irrelevant factoids in this article. They are perfectly relevant in the articles on those particular people. ←Hob 23:37, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose you have a point; while McCarthy was engaged in witchhunts, Soviet agents were arguing cases before the Supreme Court.  nobs 04:01, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I do see the point you're trying to make there, though you sure chose a roundabout and sarcastic way of making it. However, I don't see that it adds much to the basic argument that's already implied by all the Venona stuff: Soviet agents existed at the same time that McCarthy was chasing Soviet agents; that by itself doesn't mean he was after the right targets, or that his methods were justified, any more than the existence of many criminals in the general public justifies every criminal investigation. (You're also, in this case, factually wrong: the Soviet agent [singular] who argued a case before the Supreme Court - which, by the way, can be done by any licensed lawyer and carries no governmental authority - did so in 1950, not 1955.) But if you can present such an argument clearly, please do. Until then, there is no point in adding a bunch of factoids without the context that would make them into a coherent point... which is what you did with that list of staffers. Figure out how to say what you're saying first - explicitly, not by means of unspoken implications - then put it in the article; the place to clarify your statements is in the article, not just here on the talk page. ←Hob 04:42, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Totally irrelevent factoid

message: Thank you. I was speaking from memory.  I'm dealing with ~311 cases, and I likewise just relized the case was 1951 not 1955 (in dealing with counterintelligence files, it's easy to see why McCarthy & James Jesus Angleton both went nuts).
I would like to call your attention to another problem; Venona was not used to corroborate Elizabeth Bentley's testimony, though now in most particulars the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (formerly NACIC) now stands by her credibility & testimony.  The problem is Venona only decrypted a fraction of transmissions sent, and evidence exists regarding a host of other individuals Bentley named, McCarthy investigated, but are not named in Venona decrytions.  They may be unidentified codenames, or references to them were never recovered in Venona traffic.  The point to be made is, in the late 1940s & first half of the 1950s, Bentley's credibilty was smeared and tarnished because of the governments unwillingness to use Venona material (or the FBI's screw up).  The U.S. government now states Venona confirms the accuracy of Bentley's testimony.  There are numerous others, many prominent, to whom the evidence exists, and who worked extremely closely with many who were named in Venona, specifically all members of the Perlo group, and Silvermaster group, among others.  nobs 05:09, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You can try to call my attention to whatever you like, but I won't respond to any more of these talk-page digressions unless they include an actual suggestion of what to do with an article. ←Hob 07:57, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bentley

message: It would be helpful to list the actual espionage that those called "Soviet Agents" performed. "Agent" is an extremely vague term. Did these people engage in spying, sabotage, political reporting, or what? Thanks, -Willmcw 04:04, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean language like, "subverted FDR's foreign policy and assisted the Maoist regime to power", for example?  nobs 04:11, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, if that is what the evidence shows. -Willmcw 01:45, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Willmcw, it's going to be a little difficult to rigorously document exactly what services and material most of these people provided, in part because the Venona cables were usually just administrative in nature. For instance, the actual intelligence 'take' (copies of documents provided, etc) would have traveled in diplomatic bags, etc. There are exceptions; e.g. we know a lot about what Judith Coplon provided, but most are not like that. You can take a look at Haunted Wood, which includes some material from NKVD/NKGB archives, and it goes into a little more depth, but not much. The historical situation in these quarters is still (and may always be, alas) a lot murkier than in say, the Allied code-breaking effort in WWII, which is now pretty well laid open to light. Some clues as to their activities, other than providing information, are available, but a lot of it is to some degree reading between the lines, and people who for ideological reasons wish to play down what happened will only accept absolute "beyond reasonable" doubt levels of proof. I suspect the best we're going to be able to manage, for a lot of the people who had connections with Soviet intelligence, is things of the form "person X says in book Y that they did Z", as the historians battle it out. Noel (talk) 11:18, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: VENONA files - actual work

message: Which of these people were called to testify by McCarthy?
*Mary Jane Keeney
*Lauchlin Currie
*Virginius Frank Coe
*Harold Glasser
*Four staff members of the LaFollette Civil Liberties Committee
*Allan Rosenberg
*Nathan Gregory Silvermaster
None of those names are listed as having testified in the index of the McCarthy hearings.  William Ludwig Ullman is the only one on our list who is. I suggest that the names of miscellaneous Soviet agents are not helpful for this article, and make it appear that McCarthy actually uncovered them. -Willmcw 22:42, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me make that clearer: What do these people have to do with Joseph McCarthy, the subject of this article? Thanks, -Willmcw 23:03, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's all fair enough. Until we've established a direct connection between these individuals and McCarthy, let's leave them out of the article. Thanks for your input. -Willmcw 23:30, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The direct connection has been established; all these persons were subjects of Joseph McCarthy's investigations.  nobs 23:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  VENONA - random list? 

message: Individuals and institutions investigated by McCarthy who the NSA disclosed between 1995-1998 either singularly or within thier ranks had persons complicit in espionage.
*Amerasia, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 1 Folder 5 
**Joseph Bernstein, Board of Economic Warfare
**T.A. Bisson, Board of Economic Warfare 
*Earl Browder, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 2 Folder 10
*Fort Monmouth, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 3 Folder 99 (Army Signal Corps Laboratories)
**Joel Barr (emigrated to USSR)
**Julius Rosenberg, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 13
**Alfred Sarant (emigrated to USSR)
*Institute of Pacific Relations, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 4 Folder 24
**Harry Dexter White (deceased)
**Alger Hiss (in prison)
**Virginius Frank Coe, Special Assistant to the United States Ambassador in London, Department of State; Executive Session 
*Mary Jane Keeney, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 5 Folder 11
*Philip Keeney, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 5 Folder 11
*Lauchlin Currie, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 4 Folder 24 (emigrated)
*Sergei Kournakoff, (Sergey Nikolaevich Kurnakov) Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 5 Folder 17
*National Labor Relations Board, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 6 Folder 14
**Charles Kramer
**Allan Rosenberg, Executive Session
*Duncan Lee, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 5 Folder 21
*J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 6 Folder 20 (NSA deemed inconclusive; Pavel Sudoplatov says otherwise)
**See Wikisource:Letter from William L. Borden to J. Edgar Hoover, November 7, 1953 for sentiments of the FBI Investigor who spent years studying the matter.
*Ethel Rosenberg, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 13
*Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 20
*Harold Glasser, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 3 Folder 48
*Staff members of the LaFollette Civil Liberties Committee
**Charles Flato
*State Department, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 25 and 26
**John Abt, LaFollette Civil Liberties Committee
**Marion Davis Berdecio (inconclusive)
**Ralph Bowen
**Laurence Duggan, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 3 Folder 2
**Maurice Halperin
**Donald Hiss
**Flora Wovschin
*William Ludwig Ullman, Executive Session
nobs 00:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the direct source for this info, please? Thanks, -Willmcw 01:50, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Mostly List of Americans in the Venona papers, Joseph McCarthy Papers, Marquette University Library, and the Executive Session transcripts Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations#External links; but as I said, this does not include evidence given in the more famous Public Sessions.  nobs 02:12, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's another example: The McCarthy Papers list "Lee Report, 1948, n.d.", this refers to Duncan Lee of the OSS.  This high profile case dates from 1948, before McCarthy began any of his investigations, but it will add several more members of the OSS, who are subjects of this case.  nobs 03:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Correction: the "Lee list" refers to the c. 1947 "Lee list" of Department of State security officer Robert Lee.  nobs 17:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Documentation

message: *Joel Barr 
*Earl Browder
*Louis Budenz, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 2 Folder 13 (not in Venona), defector
*Virginius Frank Coe, Special Assistant to the United States Ambassador in London Department of State, Executive Session 
*Lauchlin Currie
*Laurence Duggan, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 3 Folder 2
*Harold Glasser, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 3 Folder 48
*Alger Hiss
*Clarence Hiskey; employed on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory; testified in Executive Session in relation to the State Department Teacher-Student Exchange Program, 19 June 1953     pg. 1305.  Also, comes up in testimony at the Fort Monmouth hearings; See The Army-McCarthy 1953-1954 Communist Witch Hunt.
*Charles Kramer
*Sergei Kournakoff, (Sergey Nikolaevich Kurnakov) Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 5 Folder 17
*Franz Leopold Neumann, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 6 Folder 16  
**(Info added to the German Wikipedia by an IP in New Mexico on 20 Oct 2005.)
*Allan Rosenberg, Executive Session
*Ethel Rosenberg, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 13
*Julius Rosenberg, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 13
*Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 20
*William Henry Taylor, Jospeh R. McCarthy Papers Series 14 Box 7 Folder 34, Executive Session (not in Venona)
*William Ludwig Ullman, Executive Session
*Charles Flato (from a source other than Weinstein and Vassiliev).
Source: Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—the Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1999).
Allen Weinstein is now the Archivist of the United States.  nobs 03:49, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the direct source for this info, please? Thanks, -Willmcw 01:50, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Mostly List of Americans in the Venona papers, Joseph McCarthy Papers, Marquette University Library, and the Executive Session transcripts Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations#External links; but as I said, this does not include evidence given in the more famous Public Sessions.  nobs 02:12, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's another example: The McCarthy Papers list "Lee Report, 1948, n.d.", this refers to Duncan Lee of the OSS.  This high profile case dates from 1948, before McCarthy began any of his investigations, but it will add several more members of the OSS, who are subjects of this case.  nobs 03:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Correction: the "Lee list" refers to the c. 1947 "Lee list" of Department of State security officer Robert Lee.  nobs 17:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Soviet Archives

message: OK, here we deleted four spies named in Executive Session transcripts;
*Venona transcripts confirm the Senate Civil Liberties Subcommittee, chaired by former Senator Robert LaFollette, Jr., whom McCarthy defeated for election in 1946, had at least four staff members working on behalf of Soviet intelligence.  Chief Councel of the Committee John Abt; Charles Kramer, who served on three other Congressional Committees; Allen Rosenberg, who also served on the National Labor Relations Board, Board of Economic Warfare (BEW), and the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA); and Charles Flato, who served on the BEW and FEA, all were Communist Party members and associated with the Comintern.
now if we follow two links from the above passage,
*Board of Economic Warfare 
*Foreign Economic Administration
Voila!
*Greg Silvermaster 
*Joseph Bernstein 
*T.A. Bisson
*Jack Fahy
*Charles Flato
*Jane Foster
*Mary Jane Keeney
*Nathaniel Weyl
*Lauchlin Currie, Administrator 
*Frank Coe, Assistant Administrator
*Bela Gold, Office of Economic Programs 
*Michael Greenberg
*Irving Kaplan, chief advisor to the Military Government of Germany 
*George Perazich, Yugoslav section of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
*Allen Rosenberg, Chief of the Economic Institution Staff
In three clicks we uncover more Communist spies than Joseph McCarthy ever did in his wildest wet-dreams.  nobs 02:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just remember, we're only here to write a biography of McCarthy, not to uncover the Soviet agents that he missed. Thanks, -Willmcw 03:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the thorough documentation, BTW. Cheers, -Willmcw 03:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Let's review what was deleted

message: McCarthy to Truman telegram  clearly reads,
:"We have been able to compile a list of 57 Communists in the State Department. This list is available to you."
elsewhere reads,
:"You personally appointed a board to screen State Department employees for the purpose of weeding out fellow travelers. Your board did a pain-staking job.  And named hundreds which it listed as "dangerous to the security of the nation", because of Communistic connections.....one group of approximately 300 certified to the Secretary for discharge, he actually discharged approximately 80.  I understand that this was done after lengthy consultation with Alger Hiss."
This is not reflected accurately in the text.  nobs 04:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 11 February 1950