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maybe i'll start here

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the the thing that surprised me the most

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in doing some research oh

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well and i i certainly read the full

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wikipedia

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on mccarthy um and so you probably have

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some

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things to uh your own thoughts about

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how they describe mccarthy and

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mccarthyism coming from

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wikipedia but the thing that i read

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there that was most surprising to me and

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i think would be surprising to most

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people is that the house committee on

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un-american activities

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which you always hear about and that's

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the one with the blacklist of the

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authors and so on that really that

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wasn't mccarthy's

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committee he was in the senate running a

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different committee so

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i guess an opening question for me would

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be why is it that mccarthy

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gets labeled as the leader and the bad

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guy

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of the red scare when you had this house

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committee on

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american activities going on on the

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house side and you don't really hear

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much about those leaders

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because they were a whole lot less

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interesting and less controversial

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and less brilliant at getting media

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attention

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but they were doing things a lot longer

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than mccarthy

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uh they got started with their

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investigations a lot

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before he did and mccarthyism

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predated joe mccarthy explain that

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the house on american activities

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committee all the investigations into

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communist and government

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were there as you point out with their

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blacklist before joe mccarthy ever got

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going

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he just became such a compelling

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narrative in all of this that his was a

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name that got associated with it

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but it could have been richard nixon

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it could have been morris dees the it

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could have been a lot of people

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who were involved with things a lot

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sooner than joe mccarthy got involved in

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these investigations

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and is it right that he was

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and they were addressing a real problem

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it's just that they took it too far yes

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there was no question that there were

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communists in government the question

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was

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not just that mccarthy took it too far

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but as you point out he was

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late to the game and behind by the time

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he got

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involved all the um 24 karat

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communists and government were gone

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where most of them were gone and

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he was late to the game he didn't care

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what the facts were

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and for the serious anti-communist joe

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mccarthy was in many ways the worst

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thing that could have happened to their

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movement

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because it ultimately became too

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divisive and

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took it too far and made a mockery out

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of

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trying to root out this true issue

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uh you've said it well he did all of

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those things he made a mockery out of it

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he was so loose with his facts

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that it made people think there weren't

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real facts backing up the anti-communist

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movement

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and to be clear when we say the

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anti-communist movement we're not

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talking about the ideology of communism

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we're really talking about the soviet

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union aren't we

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we're talking about the soviet union and

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what we're really talking about is

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the question of whether they were

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communists sprinkled through the u.s

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government

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in a way that posed a threat to our

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country and that was what mccarthy was

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telling us

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and there was a threat it was never

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quite the nature of the threat that joe

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mccarthy said it was

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and as i say and as we've said he got

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involved with it late

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and again just to be clear you know

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today we've got bernie sanders being a

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socialist and so on if

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if bernie sanders was not a socialist

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but actually a communist

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we're not talking about rooting out

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bernie sanders because he has this

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ideology

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we're talking about rooting out someone

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because we believe they actually have

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direct

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ties to the soviet union am i right

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um yes that the part of it is the

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question of whether there are direct

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ties to

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um the soviet union and

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part of it is the question of whether

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these people

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were behind every pillar in the state

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department the way joe mccarthy was

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saying

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so and then going back to the to the

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house committee

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was it any better in out how it handled

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trying to root this out than mccarthy

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was

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earlier at a time when

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the problem was clearly more real and it

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was better because

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as much as a lot of the things that the

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house leaders did

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got into the same nature of exaggeration

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and embellishment nobody there was

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nearly as good

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as joe mccarthy in demagoguing the issue

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but it's the house committee that

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focused on

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hollywood is that correct it is it's a

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house committee to put together the

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blacklist and they're focused on

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hollywood

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but it was again

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he was late to that game the blacklist

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was out there

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and the focus had already been there

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thanks to the house committee on

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hollywood

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and so it was um

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when we think of the hollywood blacklist

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we think of huwak the house committee on

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un-american activities

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and not on joe mccarthy even though we

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often get confused about that in

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history oh i mean absolutely and and for

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sure i'm a lay person when it comes to

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mccarthy and in that that era but i

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think i speak for most layperson

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regarding that that i would link

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hollywood blacklist with

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mccarthy and really you're saying the

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the the two are

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unrelated um and the thing that people

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seem to be so worked

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one of the things they seem to be so

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worked up about still

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70 years later um and maybe it's just

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because hollywood

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is that blacklist yes so that is true

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and the blacklist became the great

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symbol and rallying cry in fact joe

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mccarthy

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put together his own versions of

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blacklists in terms of the people

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that he was naming and the chance of

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those people being

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accurately named in him being able to

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produce the evidence

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was a whole lot slimmer than even the

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blacklist were at the time and staying

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on the blacklist for a second

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what's your assessment of hollywood at

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that

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time and you know again distinguishing

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between the ideology of communism versus

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actual soviet union sympathies slash

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connections

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to what extent was there soviet union

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sympathies and connections in hollywood

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uh so there weren't the distinctions

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that you were just very nicely making

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one was a question of whether people in

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hollywood

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had left this ideology a bernie sanders

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kind of ideology

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and the fact is that lots of people in

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hollywood and lots of people across

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america did

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and a lot of it was understandable but

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the question really was not whether they

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were leftists but whether they were

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soviet sympathizers

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and a potential treason risk to america

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and that was going a step further than

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most of the people on the blacklist ever

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went

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so was there anybody on the blacklist

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that had

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direct ties to the soviet union as far

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as we know so there were a lot of people

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on the blacklist who had sympathy

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for the soviet union and the question is

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did that sympathy was the sympathy for

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the soviet union which was our ally

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during world war ii

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something that was understandable that

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didn't mean that they were disloyal

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to america and a lot of them probably i

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would say most of them

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became disenchanted with the soviet

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union the same time a lot of america did

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when the soviets signed

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the non-aggression pact with hitler and

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when they went from being

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[Music]

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it looked like our ally to

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being um hitler's ally and then again

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they came back as our ally afterwards

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and i think that the

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it was confusing to a lot of people it

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was confusing to them

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to take their sympathies in terms of

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trying

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to have

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an equal distribution of wealth in

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america

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and have that somehow be seen as being

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disloyal to america

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and that to me was one of the tragedies

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of the blacklist but even more of joe

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mccarthy that

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being a leftist being even a liberal

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became somehow a sign of disloyalty

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rather than a sign of a different

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political ideology that was as loyal to

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america

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as anybody being on the right side of

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the political spectrum

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yeah i know in the early part of the um

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1900s you had the progressive

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movement and you've got the bolshevik

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revolution

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in russia and you've got a lot of

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movement toward workers rights and so on

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so there was a

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kind of a worldwide movement toward

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workers at that point right and

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that that went to a great extent in in

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russia but almost took hold here

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um it did take hold among many people

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here

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and i think that today we're still

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seeing 70 years later in the reaction

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to bernie sanders a sense where being

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a leftist being a democratic socialist

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as he calls himself

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is still something tinged with that

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sense of somehow being disloyal it's not

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a question of

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let's argue the economic system and

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whether or not it works

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it's a question of he must therefore be

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a socialist

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and be sympathetic to

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the old soviet union and somehow

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disloyal to america and we can't argue

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it on the merits

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i think in part because of a legacy of

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what joe mccarthy has left

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70 years later

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yeah well i mean but the cold war was

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was real

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so um and i don't know how much i guess

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that's a question for you is what role

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he played in

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possibly creating or stoking the cold

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war but the cold war certainly went far

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beyond

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him and that was the soviet union was

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our enemy i was certainly raised to

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believe that they were

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our enemy so was i

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and i think that when you talk to the

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people that i think of as the most

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um passionate and legitimate

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cold warriors who were raising real

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questions about the soviet union and

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about the

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threat that they might pose to us

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domestically in this country

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they would say that joe mccarthy who saw

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himself as their greatest ally

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was in fact because of some of his

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misinformation

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ended up being their biggest nemesis

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that people

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dismissed legitimate questions that coal

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warriors

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were raising as being

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mccarthy-like and the and that

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automatically

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tainted them and so the same way i was

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saying that some of the legitimate

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questions that

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leftists like bernie sanders are raising

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today have been tainted by joe mccarthy

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likewise legitimate questions of the

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cold war

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you and i were raised in an era when we

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were taught in school

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to shelter under our desks the threat of

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nuclear war was real

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and the threat from the soviet union was

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real and i don't think joe mccarthy did

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anything

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to encourage that being taken seriously

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i think

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his demagoguery did things to diminish

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the seriousness of that risk and

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looking back now has history been

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fair to him after having written this

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book

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so i think history has been unfair to

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him in two ways

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on the one hand because he told

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so many fibs or did so much embellishing

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we presumed that anything he was saying

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was an embellishment was untrue

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and in fact people disparaged joe

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mccarthy by calling him

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tail gunner joe when he first ran for

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senate

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he had been in the marines during world

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war

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ii and he had said that he had gone out

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as a tail gunner

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and the press in wisconsin and

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his critics around the country basically

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said he was lying about his war record

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and the papers that i had with this book

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the first

354
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access to all of his personal and

355
00:12:43,110 --> 00:12:40,399
professional papers

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when he died his wife organized his

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papers

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and before she died she left all of

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those papers

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boxes and boxes of papers to his alma

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mater which was marquette university in

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milwaukee

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and those papers included among other

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things those papers were left there

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with the provision that they would

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become public when one of two things

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happened

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when their infant daughter either died

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and she is a healthy 62 year old or when

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she said they would become public

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and for 60 years she said they wouldn't

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become public

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and i got for this book access to those

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papers and those papers included

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his wartime diaries and his diaries

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and letters from his marine corps

377
00:13:29,590 --> 00:13:28,079
buddies showed that most of the claims

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that he was making

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while his official assignment during the

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00:13:38,389 --> 00:13:35,519
war was as a ground-based intelligent

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intelligence agent in south pacific

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islands

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he in fact did volunteer to go up as a

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tail gunner

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he went up on missions that put his life

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at risk

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and he did most of the things that he

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said he had done during world war

389
00:13:53,910 --> 00:13:52,959
ii but because of other lies that he

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00:13:55,670 --> 00:13:53,920
told

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people stopped believing anything he

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00:13:59,829 --> 00:13:58,399
said so in part history has judged him

393
00:14:02,310 --> 00:13:59,839
too harshly

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00:14:03,350 --> 00:14:02,320
and in something that was very important

395
00:14:06,310 --> 00:14:03,360
to him

396
00:14:07,590 --> 00:14:06,320
his war record he was considered a liar

397
00:14:09,910 --> 00:14:07,600
when he wasn't

398
00:14:11,269 --> 00:14:09,920
there are other things that he did in

399
00:14:14,389 --> 00:14:11,279
terms of his naming

400
00:14:16,949 --> 00:14:14,399
of alleged communists where he had no

401
00:14:19,110 --> 00:14:16,959
evidence or he had shoddy evidence and

402
00:14:22,230 --> 00:14:19,120
he went further than the evidence

403
00:14:25,350 --> 00:14:22,240
allowed him to go and he was revealed

404
00:14:28,470 --> 00:14:25,360
as an embellisher as a demagogue

405
00:14:30,949 --> 00:14:28,480
as a guy who came in and found an issue

406
00:14:31,910 --> 00:14:30,959
that he could ride to political success

407
00:14:34,310 --> 00:14:31,920
and didn't much

408
00:14:35,590 --> 00:14:34,320
care whether he had to tell the truth

409
00:14:37,269 --> 00:14:35,600
whether he was telling the truth about

410
00:14:40,949 --> 00:14:37,279
what he was saying or not

411
00:14:42,389 --> 00:14:40,959
so it's the danger of getting involved

412
00:14:43,910 --> 00:14:42,399
in embellishing

413
00:14:45,829 --> 00:14:43,920
things that you were saying that were

414
00:14:47,910 --> 00:14:45,839
true were no longer going to be believed

415
00:14:49,670 --> 00:14:47,920
and things that were believed