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This Week in History

October 27 - November 2, 1953:
Edward R. Murrow Terminates
Senator Joseph McCarthy's Witch Hunt

October 2013

Edward R. Murrow.

It was 60 years ago, on Oct. 20, 1953, that renowned CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow took up the matter of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and began the challenge which ultimately ended the career of that infamous witch-hunter. Murrow's campaign against McCarthy began with his show, called "The Case Against Lt. Milo Radulovich, AO589839."

A review of how Edward Murrow, who clearly was deployed by a section of the Establishment, sparked the movement which finally finished off McCarthy, is especially relevant today, in light of Edward Snowden's explosive revelations of massive illegal and outrageous spying operations conducted by the NSA, and his insistence that American patriots must act to end this lawlessness. Exposing and destroying this “Secret Government” apparatus will lead us beyond illegal spying, to those involved in the the frame-up trials of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., former Congressman Neil Gallagher and countless other citizens who threatened the reign of this "Secret Government" tyranny, and it will lead to the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Like Murrow's exposes, today's wake up calls around the NSA are the opportunity to finally shut down this operation, which has been entrenched inside and running rampant around many government institutions over many years.

Lyndon LaRouche addressed this issue recently, identifying the biggest problem as the cowardice of the population, and the control, by fear, of a terrorized Congress. That was certainly the case in the McCarthy period, but finally, in 1953, the traditionalist institutions kicked in to save the United States from being destroyed as a republic. Today, those institutions are non-functional and almost non-existent, so it is up to us today to re-awaken in the American people the same spirit that created those institutions, the spirit of 1776 which wrote the inalienable rights of man into our Declaration of Independence, now, before all is lost.

Milo Radulovich in 1996, at an American Meteorological Society meeting.

Radulovich was a reserve Air Force weather officer, in Dexter, Michigan, who had been dismissed from service because he was considered a "security risk." Senator Joe McCarthy, as head of the Senate Operations Committee, and its subcommittee on investigations, had stirred up a massive search for such "traitors," to be identified not only by relations with communists, but what they read, and whom they knew.

Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The source of the charge against Radulovich was the fact that his father, an immigrant who read newspapers from his native Serbia, and his sister, who had attended a civil rights rally for the great African American singer Paul Robeson, were considered "communist sympathizers." When Radulovich refused to dissociate himself from them, he was dismissed from the Air Force Service. A legal fight by Radulovich failed to change the decision.

But the legal fight did yield an article in the local press, which Murrow and his CBS partner Fred Friendly, came across. Murrow immediately pursued the story, interviewed Radulovich, and personally publicized the upcoming show. That program served as a "little picture," in Murrow's words, which exposed McCarthy's evil mode of destroying people, without regard to truth or law. One month later, Radulovich was reinstated in the Air Force.

Attacks on McCarthy began to pick up somewhat after that, especially since the Wisconsin Senator had now turned his attention from the State Department to the military, including the Secretary of the Army. It is known that President Eisenhower was, himself, enraged by what "Republican" McCarthy was doing, but Ike had chosen to publicly ignore the charges, rather than take them on.

The next major attack on McCarthy after Murrow's, came from another famous Establishment journalist, Drew Pearson, who received leaks from the Army, and proceeded, in December 1953, to accuse McCarthy's chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of having illegally run interference for his "friend" David Schine, in respect to military service. This attack ultimately led to the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings, which ran from April 22 to June 17, 1954. The climax of those hearings occurred on June 9, when the Army's Chief Counsel, Joseph Nye Welsh, confronted the Senator: "Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?"

While the hearings failed to condemn McCarthy, they created a climate in which Senators began to go after him, ultimately censuring him, and stripping him of his chairmanship, in December 1954.

But before these hearings happened, Murrow had launched another direct charge at McCarthy, which hit like a bombshell, and emboldened others to move against him. This occurred on March 29, 1954.

Following the Radulovich broadcast, Murrow was aware that Senator McCarthy's committee was amassing evidence against him, to show his "communist" connections. A decision was made at CBS that Murrow should strike first. The 30-minute broadcast, to which the Senator was invited to reply, was entitled "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy," and it featured a series of film clips of the Senator himself, counterposed to trenchant analysis by Murrow, exposing the lies and absurdities behind what McCarthy said. The exposure of McCarthy's baiting of witnesses provided devastating evidence of his lack of credibility.

Murrow's conclusion, printed below, should have a familiar ring, as we observe the mounting cry against the lies and police state spying and other tactics of the Anglo Dutch empire and their puppet president, Barack Obama.

"No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that Congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyality. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men—not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

"This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation, we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

"The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it—and rather successfully. Cassius was right, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'

"Good night, and good luck."

Note: When this article was first published, the secret government apparatus operating during the Bush presidency functioned through the offices of Vice-President Dick Cheney and his network of Anglo-Dutch-Saudi networks.

 

The original article was published in the EIR Online’s Electronic Intelligence Weekly, as part of an ongoing series on history, with a special emphasis on American history. We are reprinting and updating these articles now to assist our readers in understanding of the American System of Economy.