"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." "To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful."

Murrow’s worst fears about the use of television to delude a mass audience have long since come to pass. While his own outlook, as expressed in his 1958 speech, did not go beyond an appeal to the consciences of the corporate leaders, this in no way minimizes the significance of his career. Good Night, and Good Luck accurately depicts an important episode in American history, and it deserves a far wider audience than it is likely to get.

They wouldn't have had to be "sneaking" if the government hadn't forced them underground in the first place, through a campaign of misplaced fear.

Do you understand that the Soviets were bound on world domination?

That the reputation of Senator McCarthy would profit from an encounter with issues of historical truth is too preposterous a claim to require serious rebuttal. Even were it to be definitively established that one or both of the Rosenbergs were involved in espionage, it would hardly detract from the indisputable fact that McCarthyism was steeped in lies and distortions that have left an enduring and devastating mark on the political and intellectual climate of the United States. For Mr. Radosh to minimize this essential element of McCarthyism speaks volumes about his political agenda.

Information has surfaced in recent years suggesting that Julius Rosenberg was involved in passing some form of intelligence to Soviet officials during the Second World War. According to the Soviet intelligence agent who claimed to have dealt with Rosenberg during the war years, this information pertained not to the bomb, but rather to electronics. In any case, the idea that he divulged the “secret of the atomic bomb” is preposterous on its face. Scientifically speaking, there was no such secret. The Soviets already had a program to develop atomic weapons, and it was understood within the US government and among American scientists that it was only a matter of time before they achieved their goal. Relaying any useful information on the Manhattan Project would have required the transfer of scores of volumes of scientific material, something that never happened and, indeed, was beyond the ability of the Rosenbergs or anyone else charged in connection with the alleged spy ring. It should be noted that at the time of the alleged conspiracy, the Soviet Union was a wartime ally of the United States, not its enemy. Aiding the Soviet Union, which was carrying out a life-and-death struggle against Nazi aggression, was hardly seen as a crime by most Americans, and many suspected that the Western powers were content to see the Soviet people bled by the Nazis. Within the Roosevelt administration and among the scientists most directly involved in the American effort to develop an atomic bomb, there were many who expressed the opinion that information on the weapon should have been shared with the Soviets, and that any weapons developed by the US should have been placed under the control of an international commission with Soviet participation. There was grave concern that attempts to conceal information about the bomb would only exacerbate tensions with Moscow and lead inevitably to an atomic arms race.

I think it is appropriate to defend Julius and Ethel Rosenberg here.

and the fact that McCarthy was correct, even though is methods were not.

I stated that his methods were not acceptable.

his claims of spies and communists in government were correct.

McCarthy's charges were correct.

Your problem then appears to be that old standby of the Left. You find that the actions of the Soviets are equal to the actions of the US

Now you have defined yourself. Let is hear no more about "patriotism" and support for the troops.

ppj, just because we disagree vehemently about the course the country is taking is no reason to declare me (or anyone else) unpatriotic. You owe me an apology.

Posted by Squeaky at September 19, 2005 11:19 PM Rove never needed proof for his smear machine, why should I.

With their baseless charges

and can't refute my point that McCarthy's charges were accurate, but his methods wrong.

Whizzy writes:

edgey - Of all the dishonest methods of debating, the one at the top of the list is claiming to know what the other person believes.

Squeak - I would have perferred the traditional investigation/charge route. I have never believed in baseless attacks and smears.

Sailor - Your problem then appears to be that old standby of the Left. You find that the actions of the Soviets are equal to the actions of the US, and you see us as no better than them.

Sailor - Your problem then appears to be that old standby of the Left. You find that the actions of the Soviets are equal to the actions of the US, and you see us as no better than them.

Do you understand that the US was (and is) bound on world domination?

SCHIEFFER: President Bush accused his critics of rewriting history last week. Sen. McCAIN: Yeah. SCHIEFFER: And in--he said in doing so, the criticisms they were making of his war policy was endangering our troops in Iraq. Do you believe it is unpatriotic to criticize the Iraq policy? Sen. McCAIN: No, I think it's a very legitimate aspect of American life to criticize and to disagree and to debate. But I want to say I think it's a lie to say that the president lied to the American people. I sat on the Robb-Silverman Commission. I saw many, many analysts that came before that committee. I asked every one of them--I said, `Did--were you ever pressured politically or any other way to change your analysis of the situation as you saw?' Every one of them said no.

And when you start with the assumption that we are "better than them",

You ignore the fact that the US took no territory during WWII and spent billions in the Marshall Plan to restore Europe [1]. The Soviet seized control of eastern Europe and killed hundreds of thousands of people under control [2]. If you can't understand that this action by them made them undeniably an "Evil Empire," then you can understand nothing [3]. Assume? Assume hell. Those are facts. Study some history. God knows you need to [4].

1. My point was clear -- the US acts in its own economic self interest. Your example supports this. The Wikipedia conclusion on the Marshall Plan is: "Today, the general consensus ... is ... that the United States was acting in its own self-interest by aiding Western Europe, but most believe the plan had an important and beneficial effect on both Western Europe and the United States."

2. In the past, white US immigrants killed hundreds of thousands of Native Americans under their control, and siezed their land, allowing settlers to occupy them. Wasn't this one of the factors that led to the rise of Jacksonian politics?

3. Will you label the US an "Evil Empire" because of its history of Native American genocide? Why should the US receive a pass when you are dispensing your righteous judgements?

4. History? What will be the place of the US in history? You did not even repond to my question about the comparison between the US and the place of other historical empires? What makes you think that the US will be immune from their fates?

On a more recent note, the military suffered under Clinton, and Kerry voted for cuts time after time. The military in 2001 was ill prepared to fight an actual war. You blame Bush. I blame the people who ran it into the ground.

Rumsfeld said the two-war requirement led to one of the Army's top divisions as being rated unready for war last year -- not because of lack of training or equipment, but because it was busy with peacekeeping chores in Bosnia.

President Bush used the example cited by Rumsfeld during the campaign to back up allegations that the U.S. military was neglected by the Clinton administration.

Rumsfeld's view appears to coincide with what the Pentagon argued last year: That there was not a readiness problem in the Army, but rather a problem with listing units already deployed as the first to fight in a major war.

Bush rarely spoke of restructuring again and retreated into vagaries about strengthening the U.S. military after "years of neglect" by the Clinton Administration.

Secretary, at the beginning of the year, you were talking about getting $38 billion in additional defense expenditures. Now you're scrambling to get $18 billion. Snow: Now, during the campaign, the president and Republicans criticized Bill Clinton for sending troops to a number of theaters of war abroad. But we're not pulling out of any of them, are we? Rumsfeld: Well, no.

Contrary to the expectations of many in the military and in Congress, the administration's 2002 budget devotes relatively little to military modernization beyond what the Clinton administration had planned.

McCarthy continued his anti-communist barrage until 1954. Unlike other congressional investigators, McCarthy seemed not to notice that the administration had changed in 1952. With Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House, McCarthy's campaigns against subversion in the government became an attack on his own party and an increasing liability for Republicans. In the spring of 1954, however, the tables turned when McCarthy charged that the United States Army had promoted a dentist accused of being a Communist. The ensuing hearings proved to be McCarthy's downfall. For the first time, television broadcast allowed the general public to see the Senator as a blustering bully and his investigations as little more than a misguided scam. In December 1954, the Senate voted to censure him for his conduct and to strip him of his privileges. McCarthy died three years later, but the term "McCarthyism" lives on to describe anti-Communist fervor, reckless accusations, and guilt by association.

The facts are plain. We are not perfect, but we are the best that has ever been seen on the third planet from Sol. And history will show that.

...the TOTAL LACK OF ETHICS in those attacks, his LACK of evidence, his DEMAGOGUERY, which is despicable, and the character assassination of innocent people, which disgusted the entire country.

In January 1954, in what were to be the first televised hearings in American history, McCarthy obliquely attacked President Eisenhower and directly assaulted Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens. Day after day the public watched McCarthy in action -- bullying, harassing, never producing any hard evidence, and his support among people who thought he was "right" on communism began to evaporate. Americans regained their senses, and the Red Scare finally began to wane. By the end of the year, the Senate decided that its own honor could no longer put up with McCarthy's abuse of his legislative powers, and it censured him in December by a vote of 65 to 22.

As proven time and again, McCarthy's claims about communist spies in government were and are true and correct.

See, Jim just because a person considers themselves a communist does not mean they support the Soviets or that they are a spy.

Some of this information is available in a book titled "Vernona, Decoding Soviet Espionage in America." It was complied from information forced from the government through FOIA requests by the authors with the help of Senator Monynihan, and from Soviet Archives. It details how our intelligence people cracked the Soviet's most secret code in during the WWII war years, and has page after page of intercepts, discussions about loyalty to the Soviets by American citizens, military and diplomatic secrets. It specifically names 349 US citizens, immigrants and permanent residents. It details how a personal assistant to Pres. Roosevelt, "Lauchin Currie, warned the KGB that the FBI had started an investigation of one of the Soviets' key American agents, Gregory Silvermaster." It completely puts to rest any questions about the Rosenbergs and Hiss.

Communism has never worked and everytime it is tried it leads to dictators and the mass murder of innocent people.

Provide some examples of communist “spies” in the government that were tried and convicted?

Alger Hiss was a US State Department official and Secretary General to the founding charter conference of the UN. Following accusations that he spied on behalf of the Soviet Union, Hiss was convicted of perjury.

There was a secret intelligence project called "Venona." A single document, dated March 30, 1945, referred to an agent code-named "Ales," a State Department official who had flown from the Yalta Conference to Moscow. An anonymous footnote, dated more than 20 years later, suggested "Ales" was "probably Alger Hiss."

As proven time and again, McCarthy's claims about communist spies in government were and are true and correct.

A rational arguement[sic] can be made for the tactics the administration is pursuing.

Name me one time in the history of the world that true communism has been applied successfully?

He's a liar; McCarthy was a liar; Jim is a liar; and roy is a liar. It's all switcheroo -- McCarthy was a stinking liar, but there were spies -- STOP THE DAMN PRESSES!

The movie is not about communists, Roy. The movie is about a great journalist, Edward R. Murrow, and his confrontation with Joseph McCarthy.

Hitler is responsible for the murder of 16 million people and has blood on his hands for the death of millions more by starting WWII.