McCarthy, Coulter and WSJ's Dororthy Rabinowitz

The Venona Project has been embarrassing liberals for nearly a decade now. Strangely, even after Venona corroborated McCarthy's charge that communists had infiltrated our government, liberals still demonize him. Worse, they still claim that his charges were groundless. Happily, these "useful idiots" are just as lazy and stupid today as they were then. Sadly, they are not all liberals.

Case in point: Dorothy Rabinowitz

Ms. Coulter has not just set about rehabilitating McCarthy as a martyr destroyed by anti-American leftists--she has also set about rehabilitating the most notorious of his cases, the kind dramatized in famous film clips of the period. Cases like that of Annie Lee Moss, a black code clerk who had lost her job at the Pentagon when she was hauled before McCarthy's committee as a security risk and Communist Party member. She had been confused with a different Annie Lee Moss, the witness explained--and who Karl Marx was she could not even say. So evident was Ms. Moss's confusion at what she was doing there that applause erupted in the hearing room when Democratic Sen. Stuart Symington declared he believed her.

But the evidence against Ms. Moss was not insignificant, the author of "Treason" now maintains. The code clerk had said there were two other people called Annie Lee Moss listed in the Washington phone book--whereas the two others were actually Anna Lee Moss and Annie Moss. Dynamite evidence, as far as Ms. Coulter is concerned--case closed. After all, an FBI report had identified her as a Communist.

Now, she may be able to pass this off on idiots, but not on me. You see I actually read the book. The case made by Coulter is much stronger than this, but do not take my word for it. Read what M. Stanton Evans has to say about it in his unprinted letter to the WSJ editors.

Mrs. Moss had been identified as a member of the Communist Party in the District of Columbia by FBI undercover agent Mary Markward, who had access to the party’s records. This information was passed on from the Bureau to the Army, which nonetheless promoted Mrs. Moss from cafeteria worker to code clerk, and security-cleared her for these duties.

The outrageous Joe McCarthy, if you can believe it, actually wanted to know how such a thing couldhappen. When Mrs. Moss appeared before him in March of 1954, she denied she was a communist, indicated she had never heard of Marx, and allowed that she was being confused with some other Annie Lee Moss who must have been the guilty party. This mistaken-identity theme was echoed by the Democrats on the panel, and has been repeated often since.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Moss and for such as Murrow, she inadvertently gave the game away in testifying--volunteering as one of her addresses 72 R St. S.W. in the District. This proved to be the crucial evidence in the case when, four years later, the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB) obtained the records of the D.C. party, and there found an Annie Lee Moss, of 72 R St. S.W., listed as a member in the middle ‘40s. Thus Markward’s testimony was confirmed by the Communists’ own records, reflecting this particular Annie Lee Moss, and no other, as a party member.

What an astounding lack of professionalism. Is it deceit, sloth, or stupidity? Whatever, it is troubling that it is in the WSJ. The bulk of her article is rhetoric of the tone “I can’t believe she is saying this.” She makes only four actual arguments: The one above and another similar one about Peress which are refuted by reading the book.

Then she goes off into idiotville about the actors. Coulter has claimed that the blacklisting was not as bad as we have all been led to believe. To counter this, Rabinowitz tells us the “sad story” of Philip Loeb. Problem one: McCarthy was in the senate not the House. It was the House Un-American Activities Committee that dealt with Hollywood. Problem two: it’s a lie anyway. It was not HUAC, nevermind McCarthy, that bankrupted Loeb. It was Loeb. Even if it is true that the allegations ended his career, he was bought out of his TV show for $40,000 years before he killed himself (Slate). This would buy about $250,000 worth of goods today. Don’t get me wrong. It is a sad story, but, Rabinowitz does not tell the whole tale. This is what Coulter is trying to do with McCarthy: tell the whole tale.

Her final argument though, is intriguing. I admit that I do not know anything about it. She condemns McCarthy for supporting several SS troops who killed American POWs. McCarthy, she says, claimed that these SS troops had been mistreated by the US. Is it not ironic that McCarthy would be condemned for attacking the US Army for "prisoner abuse?"

In any case, Rabinowitz fails to provide any valid criticism of Coulter's work. McCarthyism may have seemed real and terrible for decades, now the story is different. There were, in fact, communist spies in the State Department -- Thank God for Tailgunner Joe.
endymion at 3:09:09 AM EDT