Ethics and Photography

Just to make my point. This image of McCarthy is obviously intended to make him look bad. I could make Mother Teresa look bad if I wanted. It's not fair or right.

BTW again for the record. From Newsmax:

"...McCarthy actually underestimated the number of American Soviet spies working for the USSR in the FDR administration. It took a while, but in 1994 NSA and CIA released 190,000 formerly classified cablegrams they, and their predecessor agencies, intercepted from 1943 to 1980. The number of American Soviet agents identified from Venona has reached 500, more than double the 205 McCarthy predicted..."

Search for "McCarthy's Legacy Still Misportrayed by Media After Venona Disclosure". I included quotes from a left wing paper before. This one isn't left wing. For once try actually educating yourself instead of falling back on discredited views. You're proving my point about the dangers of yellow journalism when you don't look at the facts.

Here's the photo.

http://uscivillibertie​s.org …eph-mccarthy-19081957.jpg

Jeff_56 wrote in post #18874052
I see NO ONE here even bothered to read the information that might discredit your warped views. No one McCarthy targeted was innocent. Got that? Do the research. They nearly tore this country in half with YELLOW JOURNALISM.

BTW those that responded that being a communist not illegal are absolutely right. But being a spy for the Soviets absolutely was illegal and that is what McCarthy accused people of and that is what they were GUILTY of.

I won't bother further responding in this thread. I've gored a sacred cow here. Too bad I'm the only one that has bothered to keep up with current events. Do a search yourself. This is all common knowledge among people who actually follow the news. It isn't hard to find.

Venona intercepts. Look it up. Add McCarthy to your search and you'll find that even the Washington Post admits McCarthy was right. Willful ignorance is not a virtue.

I read it. It doesn't say what you think it says.

It says that maybe 12 State Department members were operating for the Communist Party, although hundreds had had contact with the Communist Party, and some of them unwittingly. In other words, the Communists were contacting them, and the NSA happened to catch it. Different sources throw terminology around loosely.

"Contact" is not the same thing as either a "sympathizer" or an "agent," and when someone says "agent," they'd better show some dates and times that such a person actually operated under the explicit instruction of foreign interests--because that's what that word means.

Hell, yes, I expect the Communists contacted lots and lots of State Department employees, particularly in Eastern Europe and probably quite often.

McCarthy's net swept up hundreds of people and made no distinction between actual agents (operatives) of which there were very few and people who had had the slightest contact with someone who might have been a Communist sympathizer.

Spencer Photo.... I think you have your answer now. If I need to explain more PM me.

Weee!

RDKirk wrote in post #18874091
I read it. It doesn't say what you think it says.

It says that maybe 12 State Department members were operating for the Communist Party, although hundreds had had contact with the Communist Party, and some of them unwittingly. In other words, the Communists were contacting them, and the NSA happened to catch it. Different sources throw terminology around loosely.

You're reading the WaPo version of the facts. Remember, they were among those responsible for creating the anti-McCarthy hysteria. Newsmax put the number of Soviet agents in the FDR administration at over 500. I've read many accounts of the events. The idea that it was limited like you say is just wrong. The WaPo said that the common assumptions about McCarthy are wrong.

Start with the number of people listed as in the Venona project intercepts. Wikipedia has a list. Actual involvement of individuals would vary naturally. Some were extremely guilty. But to come to the conclusion that McCarthy had no reason to complain is just ludicrous. Here's the page where the list is. Keep in mind that most of the intercepts still have not been deciphered.

https://en.wikipedia.o​rg …cans_in_the_Ven​ona_papers

For further illumination on the part played by individuals consult this list.

http://www.johnearlhay​nes.org/page66.html#_f​tn3

Jeff_56 wrote in post #18874213
You're reading the WaPo version of the facts. Remember, they were among those responsible for creating the anti-McCarthy hysteria. Newsmax put the number of Soviet agents in the FDR administration at over 500. I've read many accounts of the events. The idea that it was limited like you say is just wrong. The WaPo said that the common assumptions about McCarthy are wrong.

Start with the number of people listed as in the Venona project intercepts. Wikipedia has a list. Actual involvement of individuals would vary naturally. Some were extremely guilty. But to come to the conclusion that McCarthy had no reason to complain is just ludicrous. Here's the page where the list is. Keep in mind that most of the intercepts still have not been deciphered.

https://en.wikipedia.o​rg …cans_in_the_Ven​ona_papers

For further illumination on the part played by individuals consult this list.

http://www.johnearlhay​nes.org/page66.html#_f​tn3

I'm going to present this quote from the Wikipedia article, which is meaningful...although apparently not to you:

As the article pointed out, in some cases it wasn't even verified that the names on the list were actual names of contacts--some are just inferences and guesses by similarity. And the extent to which individuals were involved is debatable.

I notice the list also includes Franklin D. Roosevelt--who actually had meetings during WWII directly with Josef Stalin!

And a lot of those contacts were established during WWII while the US was an ally of the USSR by people who had operational reason to be in contact during the war with the USSR.

Jeff_56 wrote in post #18874052
I see NO ONE here even bothered to read the information that might discredit your warped views. No one McCarthy targeted was innocent. Got that? Do the research. They nearly tore this country in half with YELLOW JOURNALISM.

BTW those that responded that being a communist not illegal are absolutely right. But being a spy for the Soviets absolutely was illegal and that is what McCarthy accused people of and that is what they were GUILTY of.

I won't bother further responding in this thread. I've gored a sacred cow here. Too bad I'm the only one that has bothered to keep up with current events. Do a search yourself. This is all common knowledge among people who actually follow the news. It isn't hard to find.

Venona intercepts. Look it up. Add McCarthy to your search and you'll find that even the Washington Post admits McCarthy was right. Willful ignorance is not a virtue.

The WP admits no such thing. It was an opinion piece in which the author, Nicholas Von Hoffman, asked the question (as indicated by the question mark in the title of the article) but didn't actually provide evidence. Your inability to understand that an opinion piece does not constitute evidence and your blind assumption that just because the source of something is an "intelligence" service that it must be correct, makes me sad for the state of education.

The Verona intercepts? The very opinion piece you linked to states that many of the people on the list were unwittingly contacted by the Soviets - They weren't spies at all but just people the Soviets identified as people to contact/target.

Had you done the research you ask others to do you would already know that being on a list, even a Soviet one, doesn't make someone a spy. The Soviets did actively go out to recruit spies in the US and Europe (as we were also doing in the USSR) but they also targetted and funded those who were not spies. They had a multi-level approach (as do western intelligence agencies).
1. Agents/Potential Agents (by far the smallest %)
2. People/organisations who were not willing to spy but were left wing/communists and would knowingly accept funding from Moscow to promote the cause.
3. The bulk of the people on these lists - Groups/individuals who were unknowingly funded through shell organisations because they were promoting left wing/communist ideals (entirely legally).