“McCarthyism” In British Academia
It was one of the darkest times in American History. Senator Joseph McCarthy and his evil band of Hyenas (including famous lawyer Roy Cohn ) were all trying to make it big by trouncing on the truth and the US Constitution with a witch hunt. In this case it was a commie hunt he was trying to find communists in the US Government and within Government Contractors. In the process this cadre of zealots ruined people’s lives, broke up families, and destroyed the careers of others.
but In a now famous interchange, McCarthy responded to aggressive questioning from the US Army’s attorney, Joseph Welch. Welch challenged Roy Cohn to give the US Attorney General McCarthy’s list of 130 communists or subversives working in defense plants that he claimed to have “before the sun goes down.” McCarthy responded by saying that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a group which U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. had called “the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party.” At the time Brownell was seeking to designate the NLG as a Communist front organization. This was a violation of a pre-hearing agreement not to raise the issue because the designation was being litigated. Welch responded:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness….”
When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch cut him short:
“Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator…. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
That one decent man standing up for what’s right, changed the course public opinion and American history. Today, Joe McCarthy’s bullying witch hunts are alive and well and living in Great Britain. This time the evil zealots want delegitimize the Jewish homeland and are willing to cause a British “brain drain” to make their point……