Communist Threat Quotes
McCarthy accused thousands of people of being communists and disloyal. He claimed to have lists of communists in universities, the Army and other agencies of government, but never produced such lists. In addition to being a overbearing demagogue, he suffered (and died from) from a serious case of alcoholism. McCarthy’s false and irresponsible attacks eventually caused the Senate to censure him. That and his drinking destroyed his career. Not a single person “exposed” by McCarthy was ever convicted of anything. Many had their careers destroyed however. A number of universities fired Professors because at an earlier phase of their careers, they had been a member of an organization that was communist or affiliated with communists, and then left. These firings led to intensive efforts to strengthen the rules of tenure and academic freedom so that the McCarthy abuses could never be repeated. McCarthy could not be sued for his defamatory lies as he always made his accusations from the floor of the Senate where there is absolute protection even for malicious and irresponsible statements.
The president was surprised by the rapid spread and expansion of the anti-war movement at the time was convinced that the communists were organizing the effort. After all the investigations and histories, it was an extremely fast growing movement—perhaps the first of the digital political movements as e-mail was one of the tools used in the universities where e-mail was then coming into use.
Indeed, many of the countries went communist as Kennan predicted.
The 40 Committee was a secret committee of officials to deal with major national security covert operations possibilities. Chile had democratically elected Salvador Allende, a strong socialist, as President. He then, as he had promised in his campaign, begun to nationalize mining and other heavy industry and nationalized the very large farms. Kissinger and some others thought that Allende might probably transform Chile to communist state. The committee was discussing whether or not the United States should, via covert operations, try and destabilize or overthrow the Allende government. There was a strong minority aristocracy of the wealthy who would definitely support such an activity. Kissinger argued for intervention and some others observed that Allende had been fairly elected as a leftist by the people. Kissinger made this famous statement, and America covertly though the CIA worked with the Chilean right wing and fascists to overthrow Allende. The military, having been given the “green light” started attacking the Presidential Palace. Allende made a radio speech to the nation. A few hours later, the military seized the palace and reported that Allende had committed suicide.
Kissinger stating that the US should “correct” the election “mistakes” of other countries was of course Top Secret and the official US position was to support the right of any people to elect their preferred leaders. Normally, the public would never have seen the transcript of the meeting until many decades had passed but part of the transcript found their way to a manuscript of a book about the CIA. That agency went to the courts to block the publication and Kissinger’s statement. However, although the quote was removed from the book, enough people had now seen it, and the quote was leaked.
The quote is historically important for the real story of what really happened in Chile as General Pinochet who seized power turned out to be guilty of Crimes Against Humanity and Allende is today a national hero and martyr. In addition, it is a wonderful example of “overclassification”. After the action was completed, why should the American Public not know that its Secretary of State did not believe in democratic elections if the people would elect communists? --especially when the official stated policy he was presenting was just the opposite. The argument faded when the Watergate Scandal broke and consumed America’s attention.
The investigations were by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. At the time we were in the midst of the Red Scare and McCarthyism was rampant.
At the time the some conservatives in America were on witch hunts claiming that all sorts of undesirables were “infiltrating” the Federal Government. As we know, in any large population of people, there will be some tall people, some gays, some leftists, some drug users, some creative people, some ultra patriots, etc. The Federal Government has millions of employees. The deduction that if a sex pervert is one of the millions, he is “infiltrating” the government is silly. 60 years later, a few others claimed that Muslims were having children in America to “infiltrate” the nation with terrorist “sleeper agents.” Politicians are a large group and some of them are bound to be fanciful and somewhat paranoid.
Like many in the 1920s, Dewar saw the Communist Soviet Union as the biggest potential risk to peace. However, although the Russian leaders constantly castigated the West, they did not have a large military, and were for the most part highly anti-war as they saw war as the product of Capitalistic competition and the tool of the aristocracy. They had little military equipment and almost no training or officer corps with which to build any Army. Germany in contrast had the skill, experience, officers, a history of aggression, and huge resentment over what they considered their humiliating WWI defeat and peace terms. They would start WWII, not Russia.
Moody was an avid Protestant Evangilical. The reference to the "reign of terror" was not to the French Revolution per se but to a national calamity of the severity and magnidute of the French Revolution sd God's wrath would be triggered if more AMericans were not Evangelized. What is particualry interestting is by 1886 Communism had already developed a bad reputation in the part of many religious fundamentalists and considered a sin of the first order such as adultery. The red scare was alive and well. Ironically, Moody and most other anti-communism evengelicals were not hostile brecause of Karl Marx's economic or historical views and theories, but rather Marx's, Engels', and other early Communitists hostility to organized religion was the main casue. The economic adn political opponents of Communism enlisted the aid of as many religious people was possible by emphasing "Godless Communism" and the vast majority of Americans at the time, if they knew anything about Communism at all, it was that the communists were hostile and opposed to religion.
