Interesting list, Ethan. Though you name them "spies," are these people who were accused or people who were convicted and sentenced for espionage? Your post is unclear on this point.

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http://www.nsa.gov/venona/index.cfm

"There can no longer be any doubt about the widespread and successful Soviet espionage operations against the United States and Great Britain during the 1940s, and that, aside from their own professional skill, Soviet intelligence services could count on the aid of the Communist parties of the target countries."

http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/forward.htm

http://www.nsa.gov/venona/index.cfm

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Also interesting. I'll draw no immediate conclusions from this website's offerings, as I haven't taken the time to read them in any depth.

However, if I concede the point (for purposes of discussion) that Communist infiltration was a valid and serious danger, I still don't concede that generating an atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia helped overcome that danger. Please correct me on this point-- with a fact-supported argument-- if anyone on this discussion thinks I'm wrong.

At any rate, while I believe McCarthy has been somewhat exaggerated, and anti-McCarthyism has long been more dangerous to this country than McCarthyism was (i.e. spies are under every bed was replaced with spies were under no beds), I don't believe McCarthy means, methods, or accusations were proper.

I think he turned out to be right, with his general (not specific) points, but almost by accident.

I should note HUAC, Richard Nixon, McCarthy are all separate things. In fact, Eisenhower eventually had Nixon "attack" McCarthy. Nixon gave a speech aftyer Ike got pissed that the Secretary of War was accused by McCarthy.

 "Men who have in the past done effective work exposing Communists in this country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply."

One small point to consider: governments have a vested interest in substantiating and justifying their own histories. Is any government likely to offer candid assessments of where they screwed up?

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While I didn;t study it in detail, it was generally accepted fact when i was a histiry major, even by the liberal professors (which is all of them pretty much) that there was a lot of there, there.

From the Soviet Union archives and de-classified information.

None of this justifies McCarthy or McCarthyism.  But far too many people have minimized the threat of communism and the Soviet Union over the years.  I personally think they were proven wrong, for what it is worth.

The simple fact that McCarthy would accuse people of being communist without providing these individuals with evidence was one of many ways he and others trampled on people's constitutional rights. If you accuse hundreds of people for the same crime you are bound to find some that are guilty. It doesn't make your methods right because you found some real communists in the process. We are provided with certain rights in this country and it is up to our government to uphold those rights. When they refuse to do that they will go down in history as villians just like the communists they were trying to catch. The media was scared to speak out, for fear of being branded a communist. Murrow spoke out against this and guess what, McCarthy tried to brand him a communist. Ignoring indivual rights and trying to silence a free press through intimidation is something the communists used to do. Think about that when you look at what McCarthy did in his time.