How Senate historian botched data on McCarthy

Editor Taints Recently Published Hearings

The more we learn about the executive hearings on subversion held 50 years ago by Sen. Joe McCarthy (R.-Wis.), unveiled this month for public viewing, the more bizarre the tale becomes.

Though mostly covering the same terrain as did public probes run by McCarthy in '53 and '54, these 4,000-plus pages of closed-door sessions contain a lot of added information and should be a great resource for scholars. Assuming, that is, that anyone actually bothers to read them-rather than relying on the gloss supplied by Senate historian Donald Ritchie, who edited them for publication.

Ritchie permed an introduction to the hearings, plus editorial notes along the way, that variously slam McCarthy and/or stack the deck against him. In addition, he has been remarkably free with negative statements on McCarthy in dealing with the media, who have with few exceptions taken these as gospel. However, when the data are examined, the gap between Ritchie's comments and demonstrable facts of record is astounding. Following are a few examples.

As already noted in these pages, one of the more famous episodes discussed by Ritchie is the case of Annie Lee Moss, portrayed in most treatments of McCarthy as an innocent victim of his bluster. This version is essentially recapped by Ritchie-with a bare minimum of hedging-footnoting his account to three biographies of McCarthy. (When I asked Ritchie in a phone interview if he had looked at the primary documents on the case, he abruptly ended our conversation. [See "Senate Historian Clams Up When Queried on McCarthy," HUMAN EVENTS, May 12, 2003].)

In a nutshell, the facts about the matter are these: Mrs. Moss had been identified by FBI undercover operative Mary Markward as a member of the Communist Party in the District of Columbia, based on party records Markward said she had handled. This information was provided not only to the FBI, but also the Civil Service Commission and the Army. Despite this, Mrs. Moss had been hired as a code clerk by the Army, and had been cleared to do this work as of the early 1950s.

When Markward and Moss appeared before McCarthy in the winter of '54, Markward repeated her story, naming not only Mrs. Moss but several others as members of the D.C. party. Mrs. Moss, seeming frail and bewildered, denied all, saying she was not a Communist and suggesting there was some other Annie Lee Moss out there with whom she was being confused. This mistaken-identity theme was stressed as well by Democratic members of the panel.

The hearing containing these exchanges and related bits of by-play was shown on TV and thereafter re-broadcast in part by Edward R. Murrow on his CBS program, "See It Now." The thrust of this reportage was that Mrs. Moss was a pitiful, dazed and harried victim smeared by the nefarious McCarthy. Such also is the standard version of the matter found in countless histories of the era.

Unfortunately for the standard version, and for Mrs. Moss, she gave herself away in testifying-volunteering one of the addresses where she had lived as 72 R St., S.W., in the District of Columbia. This went to the question of whether she was the individual named by Markward, who had seen the Communist Party records but not Mrs. Moss in person. The question would be resolved four years later when 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 party member in the middle '40s.

Proof Positive on Moss

These records made the matter quite open and shut, rendering moot attempts to discredit Mrs. Markward, argue that there were three different Annie Lee Mosses in the phonebook, and other such rhetorical smokescreens. Whether Mrs. Moss was as befuddled as she appeared, or had been recruited into the party without knowing what she was doing, are debatable issues. What isn't debatable is that this particular Annie Lee Moss, and no other, had been listed in official Communist records as a party member. The Markward testimony to McCarthy was 100% on target.

Senate historian Ritchie's take on all of this is of interest, as he is the authority everyone else is quoting. In a fairly lengthy discussion of the case, he throws in a 24-word reference to the findings of the SACB, but so handled as to becloud them. He says the board confirmed Markward's identification of Moss, but immediately adds that "the board conducted no further investigation of Moss" and that thereafter it had said "Markward's testimony should be assayed with caution." These comments can only suggest to readers that there is some serious doubt about the Moss case-the more so as Ritchie follows up with an extended eulogy to Moss offered by a liberal writer, attesting to her blameless nature.

These comments, however, are thoroughly misleading. For one thing, the point of this particular SACB inquiry wasn't to investigate Moss, but to gauge the credibility of Markward. There was no intent or reason for the SACB to investigate Moss beyond the acquisition of the Communist Party records, so Ritchie's gratuitous comment about "no further investigation" is a red herring. No such further investigation of Moss had been in prospect.