[extropy-chat] can't second guess history

[Stephen Van_Sickle]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> McCarthy specifically focused on investigating
> government officials who
> were Soviet spies. He was never a judge at any
> trial. His 'list' was
> based on actual FBI tallies of public officials,
> however the FBI and
> Army intelligence refused to declassify intelligence
> like the Venona
> intercepts which would have corroborated McCarthy's
> assertions. They
> did this because they were more interested in
> turning high level ACP
> officials into double agents.

But McCarthy never saw any such list, nor did anyone
with knowledge tell him about it.  He made it all up,
and coincidentally turned out years later to be
somewhat correct.  Of course, correct in a trivial
way, since no one with any sense doubted that there
were spies in the US government.

McCarthy could not have hurt the cause of
anti-communism more if he tried.  I have sometimes
wondered if *he* was the mole in the government, but
people have been looking through the old Soviet
archives long enough now that it would have turned up
if he was.