On Ole Tailgunner Joe...

Adam L. Silverman, PhD*

MS2 in the comments to COL Lang's recent post about Marshall asked about where to go to get started reading about these things.  In regards to the Senator McCarthy material I highly recommend Oshinsky's biography entitled A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy.  I found it very easy to read, well researched, and the author, clearly dealing with a controversial subject, actually manages to show Senator McCarthy's humanity while clearly articulating how far off the rails he had gone.

The transcript for the Army/McCarthy Hearings can be found at this link.

* Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the US Army War College.  The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army War College and/or the US Army. 

Comments

[turcopolier]

all

I understood MS2 to have asked a more general question having to do with comprehension of the era of Marshall, the Chinese civil war et al. I, too recommend Forrest Pogue's fine biography as well as Barabara Tuchman's book on the era of Stilwell in China. BTW, I remember the McCarthy/Army hearings and watched the Army's general counsel ask McCarthy if he had no sense of decency left at all. pl

[Mj]

Have you read Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter" about Korea and by extension, China? I wondered what you thought if so?

[MS2]

Thanks. I said "reading about these things" so it was too vague. By "these things" I meant nationalist China in the 1930s-1950s and how the goings-on there were perceived in the US by policy makers, so I will read Tuchman's book. I read a "Chinese Black Chamber" book that was colorful. I am still wondering how one gets oriented if they want to dig into undigested history of that time, as in, reams of recently declassified cables. I suppose I should stick to my day job and wait for you professionals to digest it into book form.

[oofda]

Off McCarthy, but on the topic of Congressinal hearings, what about Congressmen Issa and Chaffetz conducting hearings on the Benghazi attack and through their ham-fisted and incompetent questioning, disclosing the presence of an Agency facility? Gobsmackingly dumb.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-letting-us-in-on-a-secret/2012/10/10/ba3136ca-132b-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html?hpid=z2

[ked]

I found The Soong Dynasty (http://www.amazon.com/Soong-Dynasty-Sterling-Seagrave/dp/0060913185), to be a pretty good insight to the those times its players.

[toto]

I understand that there is a growing movement on the right to claim that "McCarthy was right!" Apparently an ever larger portion of the conservative electorate is coming to see McCarthy as a misunderstood patriot, who was fighting very real Communist agents engaging in a very real Communist conspiracy.

Examples.

I'm not sure quite what to make of it.

[Pkenn]

Raddatz did a good job in moderating the debate. Lehrer has put tone above substance for years.
That is why he failed ,in my opinion.

[Hank Foresman]

In addition to reading Tuchman's masterful and majestic tome Stilwell and the American Experience in China, there are several good biographies on Pat Hurley, who succeed Stilwell in China. As Colonel Lang has mentioned Pogue's excellent biography of Marshall, in particular Volume 4 (I believe) focuses on his role post WWII in China; but Volume 1 Education of a General among other things covers his years with 15th Infantry in China. Understanding the relationship between Chaing Kai Skek, the Soong family, the Luce's and the American right can be summed up in one word religion.

[LeaNder]

Yes, I encountered some people on the web that in fact think he is some kind of martyr.

The fact that the book Adam recommends is sold already at really low prices on Amazon.com to me suggests that people aren't too aware that Mc Carthy's special inquisitorial enterprise of detecting the enemy in the nook and cranny of everybody's psyche is not perceived as possible of ever happening again.

What it basically reminds me of is that I would want to know much more about the American Culture War than I do.

[LeaNder]

Here is one, by the way:

http://tinyurl.com/Mc-Carthy-right-on-target

[Charles I]

There is a fellow, Peter White is his name I think I'm not at home, who has done some very interesting very well cited work on the Nationalists, The Soongs, General Chennault, the Flying Tigers, et al, albeit all in a Military Industrial Copmplex + heroin trade context. If you email me, I will give you cites when I pass thru home around Nov 10 or so.