The Dietrich – Harscheid Debate

In response to an article in History News Network entitled “Where’s Edward R. Murrow When We Need Him?” by Bruce W. Dearstyne (http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/166009#comment-3383824311) I engaged in a discussion with 

David Harscheid.  This exchange follows:

            JohnWDietrich • 12 days ago 
Bruce,
You might try reading some history. You could start with M. Stanton Evans’ Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies. Could you survive a “carefully edited and organized series of clips?” Murrow’s “dramatic visual message (that) exposed McCarthy as a phony and bully” was an early example of fake news. We are living in the age of the internet. People on all sides of an issue have to be more careful today. My book on the Morgenthau Plan has been successfully “blacklisted.” Wikipedia called it unreliable although it has over 800 footnotes. The age of the “blacklist” is coming to an end.



            

Peter B Hrycenko • 10 days ago 
Time for a frank talk about decency and witch hunts. Your history and mine.
 The real Joe McCarthy hasn’t yet been recognized by most of our generation.
 McCarthy was well liked by many, including the Kennedys, and harmed no innocent people. His communist cases were already known for years by federal investigators. See the best word on the subject from M. Stanton Evans "Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies. "
McCarthy burst upon the scene with his 1950 Wheeling WV speech on 57 red subversives that indeed were active in the State Department. One has to understand that while the progressives had the upper hand in DC, Truman and his bunch failed to squelch what Americans were discovering.
 Eisenhower had avoided confronting the Wisconsin dynamo precisely because there weren’t grounds to do the Left’s dirty work.
 By 1954 a fickle media joined establishment darling Eisenhower and a vast liberal network to isolate and entomb one of America’s greatest and most misreported patriots.
 Columnist Jack Anderson marveled in his memoir “Confessions of a Muckraker” that “we had used up almost our entire bag of tricks against McCarthy, without marked effect. We could comfort ourselves that all the blows we landed were bound to take their toll in the late rounds, but, Lord, three years had passed since Wheeling, and he was still coming on stronger. ”
What was in that bag of tricks? Outright slander, creative editing, attempted linking to scandals, misreporting on spy cases, trivializing Russian infiltration of our government – repeated often on air and in print.
 Famed attorney Edward Bennett Williams demolished the absurd Senate kangaroo court charges against McCarthy but the silencers prevailed. At least President Trump today has the internet lifeline to the heartland.
 No, the attorney for the Army, Joe Welch, didn't sink McCarthy.
 And yes, the US government was heavily infiltrated by the Soviets. Communist subversion of American officials particularly in the White House and US State Department drained our wealth while giving away Eastern Europe to Stalin and China to Mao. They enabled the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Financed the Russian sweep into Manchuria. Paved the way for the Reds to kill 37,000 young Americans in Korea in a war we weren’t supposed to be seen as winners. You thought Truman was just soft on communism?
  For one, it was Joe Welch who had no decency. (Weeping Welch later went on to Hollywood as his reward.)
Joe McCarthy was responding in kind on June 9, 1954 to Welch who was gay-baiting Roy Cohn for hours. McCarthy spoke: "... may I say that Mr. Welch talks about this being cruel and reckless. He was just baiting -- He has been baiting Mr. Cohn here for hours, requesting that Mr. Cohn, before sundown, get out of any department of the government anyone who is serving the Communist cause...." Welch had earlier been talking about pixies and fairies in clever questions.
 Establishment media conveniently shows the extracted have-you-no-decency sound-bite without the rest of the story. Don't anyone ask about that.
 Joe Welch had already outed his own associate Fred Fisher, “the lad,” in the NY Times April 15, 1954!



                       

            

David Harscheid • 8 days ago 
We have an Ed Murrow - Lawrence O'Donnell!



                       

            

David Harscheid JohnWDietrich • 4 days ago 
...and you are no Ed Murrow, but secretly, I bet you wanna be.



                       

            

JohnWDietrich David Harscheid • 4 days ago 
Dave, What does “...and you are no Ed Murrow, but secretly, I bet you wanna be” mean? You are no Tinkerbell but secretly, I bet you wanna be. Please provide a name for one innocent suicide. I can provide thousands of names of the 100 million killed by the Communists. The media destroyed McCarthy and there was a time when they lionized Joseph Stalin. Progressives are accomplices and apologists for this mass murder.



            


            

David Harscheid Peter B Hrycenko • 4 days ago 
"...harmed no innocent people." ?? Tell that to the several families of the (later proved innocent) men who committed suicide because McCarthy wrongly outed them and ruined their careers! True history! You would do well to READ IMPARTIAL FACTUAL POLITICAL HISTORY - it exists you know.

            Of course you won't, because I'm guessing you'll never change your mind. Too old to change?



                       

            

David Harscheid JohnWDietrich • 3 days ago 
JWDietrich: Have you actually deeply studied the McCarthy era and the FACTS that are easily accessible? I think not. Cherry picking is easy. In-depth study is hard. Please read more U.S. political history (I do - which I also taught). It's easy to see the truth of McCarthy's damage to the democratic process. You are in a minority of radical, right-wing believers. Once again, cherry-picking what you need to defend your opinions is not kosher. Please read writers (George Orwell, Howard Zinn to name a couple) that you have obviously avoided. Afraid? A mistake many make is they think what they have learned is it. No more studying because it might jar their opinions. The truth is right in front of you if you'll only open your eyes, friend. (Note: did you know McCarty was a raging alcoholic?)



                       

            

JohnWDietrich David Harscheid • 3 days ago 
David, I have studied the subject and even published a book about it. Facts are not always easily accessible. Many facts are still classified or wound up in Sandy Berger’s socks. Have you published? You taught or did you pass on your ignorance? Yes, I am in a minority

            You did not answer my question. Provide me just one name. The subject is awash in ignorance like Bill O’Reily saying Senator McCarthy worked on HUAC. This is also in a textbook by some professor. So much for education.



                       

            

JohnWDietrich David Harscheid • 2 days ago 
From The Morgenthau Plan:

            Some of White's defenders have abandoned reality all together. Professor Jeffrey K. Olick of the University of Virginia is teaching his students and the readers of his book, In the House of the Hangman, that, "Harry Dexter White, was accused in 1948 by Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Affairs Committee [HUAC] of being a Soviet agent." 1 This absurd allegation has received wide circulation, having been repeated by a prominent news commentator.2 Fortunately, he was corrected by his guest. She pointed out that Joseph McCarthy was elected to the United States Senate and Senators do not control committees in the House of Representative.



                       

            

David Harscheid Peter B Hrycenko • 29 minutes ago 
the stink of Roy Cohn won't ever wash off, period. A hypocrite of the highest order.



                       

            

David Harscheid JohnWDietrich • 23 minutes ago 
As soon as I hear lines like, "I'm published - are you? I quit. I can't abide a lot of ego in a discussion, so I'm finished here.
(By the way, I know Sandy Berger, and it was "pants," not "socks." At least get history right. And yes, I'm published, as if that matters - but you managed to get it in, didn't you?)
I'm out. (drop mic!)



                       

            

JohnWDietrich David Harscheid • 3 minutes ago 
Dave, I am devastated. I have never received such a put down in my life. I obviously cannot compete with such a mature intellect. Hope you didn’t damage your mike. I was misinformed about Sandy’s apparel. Sorry I gave you an opportunity to pick a nit. You know Sandy? Tell him I said hello. Most of his associates knew him since he is no longer with us. I checked Amazon books for your work but came up empty.