Senator Joe McCarthy

by Richard H. Rovere

Book Overview

The story of Senator Joseph McCarthy's rise to unprecedented power and the decline of his influence is a dramatic one. Richard Rovere documents the process by which a clever, power hungry individual came to mislead and manipulate members of Congress and the American public and to damage countless lives. A new foreword for this edition by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. places the book in historical context and relates it to current issues in American public...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520204727
• ISBN13: 9780520204720
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Place McCarthy In A New Perspective

"Senator Joe McCarthy" is an account of the four years, 1950-1954, during which Sen. McCarthy held the attention of the nation and the world. Author Richard H. Rovere was serving as a correspondent covering McCarthy during the period of his national prominence. This book contains some material on McCarthy's earlier life and political career and a little about his personal life. It, for the most part, focuses on McCarthy's time as the Communist hunter in chief. Little is said about McCarthy's attractive personality and his close friendships in the Senate, particularly with Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. This book makes the case of McCarthy as a demagogue, seeking nothing more than personal glory. He makes the case that McCarthy was misguided and that, if the Communists in government issue had not been available, McCarthy would have pursued some other issue with equal vigor. He makes the case that McCarthy was misguided in that the Communist threat was in the form of external aggression rather than internal subversion. He claims that, for all of his ranting and raving, McCarthy got no Communists out of government. He makes the claim that McCarthy's preparation was sloppy and that his evidence did not support his charges. He criticizes McCarthy's treatment of witnesses as merely being an attempt to make McCarthy look good rather than a legitimate attempt to discern the truth. Rovere does give McCarthy credit for the immense power which he wielded and the influence which he had, for better or worse. He credits McCarthy for ending the career of Gen. George C. Marshall and other, less distinguished, officials. He explains how McCarthy took the issue of recognition of Red China out of the realm of public debate. He identifies Senators who, after incurring McCarthy's wrath, were defeated for reelection and issues on which the Truman and Eisenhower administrations were terrorized into positions which they, in the absence of McCarthy, might not have taken. I began this book with the expectation of disliking it. I expected a hatchet job of Sen. McCarthy, but really did not find it. Rovere makes cases for his opinions. He does not dig into the slime of gossip to support his criticisms of McCarthy. He raises the claim that McCarthy was a homosexual, and then concludes that there is no evidence to support it. He comes down very hard on staffers Roy Cohn and David Schine, but limits McCarthy's culpability to the decisions to hire them and subsequent failure to properly supervise. First published in 1959, it lacks some of the historical perspective that more modern works may have. It makes a reference to America falling behind in the arms race with the USSR, an issue which was important in the 1960 election, but which was later shown to have been unjustified. The subsequent opening of KGB archives may place the issue of Communist infiltration of government in a different perspective. The later success of his Senate cronies, Kennedy a

an interesting but dated biography

No one will be offended by Rovere's much-racking depiction of Joseph McCarthy. Seriously, how many people are there left in America, or anywhere around the world, still willing to stand up and smugly look you in the eye and say Joseph McCarthy was a necessary man fighting for American freedom in a time when Communists were hiding in every shadow? But the book, written in 1959, just isn't all that up-to-date. Of course much of the information we now know was suppressed at that time and J. Edgar Hoover--viciously complict in the development of all the Red Scare and blacklisting craziness--was still in power at the time of publication. Nobody would want to make an enemy of Hoover, so anything dealing with McCarthy and Hoover's contact is treaded over very lightly. This, unfortunately, makes the book somewhat inaccurate, which is a shame because so many dark secrets and shameful public deeds are recorded with a passion and an obvious intense desire to destroy the image of the drunken old demogogue. In 1959, just three years after McCarthy's death, and five years after his disgrace, this was an important book because so many people were still unsure of their opinions towards Tailgunner Joe. I imagine that this book made quite a difference as even Hoover himself took the opportunity to smear the late Senator, drawing comparisons to Krushchev's posthumous denunciation of Stalin. The book is certainly worthwhile for anyone interested in a recreation of the terror of the 1950s, written from the perspective of the 1950s, but there are several more contemporary biographies of Joseph McCarthy and, regardless of the fact that this one is likely written with more beautific prose, in a case study like this, information beats out pretty words every time.--Lance Polin