Editing McCarthyism (section)

=== Historical study on anti-communism and Soviet espionage ===
McCarthyism also attracts controversy purely as a historical issue. Through declassified documents from Soviet archives and [[Venona project]] decryptions of coded Soviet messages, the Soviet Union was found to have engaged in substantial espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s. The [[Communist Party USA]] also was substantially funded and its policies controlled by the Soviet Union, and accusations existed that CPUSA members were often recruited as spies.<ref>Marshall, Joshua, [http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=exhuming_mccarthy "Exhuming McCarthy"]{{Dead link|date=October 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, ''American Prospect'' 10, no. 43 (1999).</ref><ref name=":22">{{Cite journal |last=Storrs |first=Landon R. Y. |date=2015-07-02 |title=McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare |url=https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-6 |journal=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.6 |isbn=978-0199329175|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[Cold War liberal|Liberal anti-communists]] like [[Edward Shils]] and [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan|Daniel Moynihan]] had a contempt for McCarthyism. Sociologist Edward Shils criticized an excessive policy of secrecy during the Cold War, that led to the misdirection of McCarthyism, which was addressed during the 1994–1997 [[Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy|Moynihan Commission]]. As Moynihan put it, "reaction to McCarthy took the form of a modish [[Anti anti-communism|anti-anti-Communism]] that considered impolite any discussion of the very real threat Communism posed to Western values and security." After revelations of Soviet spy networks from the declassified Venona project, Moynihan wondered: "Might less secrecy have prevented the liberal overreaction to McCarthyism as well as McCarthyism itself?" He described the situation during the McCarthy era as "ignorant armies clashed by night". With McCarthy advocating an extremist view, the discussion of communist subversion was made into a civil rights issue instead of a counterintelligence one.<ref name=":7">{{cite book |last=Moynihan |first=Daniel Patrick |url=https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn |title=Secrecy: The American Experience |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0300080797 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn/page/15 15–16] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In the view of some contemporary commentators, the revelations from Venona and other archives on espionage stand as at least a partial vindication of McCarthyism.<ref>[[David Aaronovitch]] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t7hhf McCarthy: There Were Reds Under the Bed] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150330094927/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t7hhf |date=March 30, 2015 }} ''[[BBC Radio 4]]'' airdate August 9, 2010</ref> Some, such as Goldberg, feel that a genuinely dangerous subversive element was in the United States, and that this danger justified extreme measures.<ref name="Goldberg">{{cite magazine |author=Goldberg, Jonah |date=February 26, 2003 |title=Two Cheers for 'McCarthyism'? |url=http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg022603.asp |magazine=National Review Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210062004/http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg022603.asp <!--Added by H3llBot--> |archive-date=December 10, 2006 |access-date=January 25, 2007}}</ref> The opposing view holds that, recent revelations notwithstanding, by the time McCarthyism began in the late 1940s, the CPUSA was an ineffectual fringe group, and the damage done to U.S. interests by Soviet spies after World War II was minimal.<ref>{{cite book |author=Theoharis, Athan |url=https://archive.org/details/chasingspieshowf00theo |title=Chasing Spies: How the FBI Failed in Counter-Intelligence But Promoted the Politics of McCarthyism in the Cold War Years |publisher=Ivan R. Dee |year=2002 |isbn=1566634202 |author-link=Athan Theoharis}}</ref> Historian Ellen Schrecker states, "''in this country,'' McCarthyism did more damage to the constitution than the American Communist Party ever did."<ref>{{cite web |author=Schrecker, Ellen |date=Winter 2000 |title=Comments on John Earl Haynes' ''The Cold War Debate Continues'' |url=http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/comment15.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170515134722/http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/comment15.htm |archive-date=May 15, 2017 |access-date=February 27, 2009 |work=Journal of Cold War Studies |publisher=Harvard University – Faculty of Arts and Sciences}} Emphasis in original.</ref>

Historian [[John Earl Haynes]], while acknowledging that inexcusable excesses occurred during McCarthyism, argues that some contemporary historians of McCarthyism underplay the un-democratic nature of the CPUSA.<ref>{{cite web  | last = Haynes  | first = John Earl  | author-link = John Earl Haynes  | title = Reflections on Ellen Schrecker and Maurice Isserman's essay, 'The Right's Cold War Revision'  | url = http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page47.html  | access-date = September 9, 2010  | archive-date = March 15, 2015  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150315132843/http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page47.html  | url-status = live  }}</ref> At the same time, Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, argued that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping them.<ref>{{cite web |last=Haynes |first=John Earl |date=February 2000 |title=Exchange with Arthur Herman and Venona book talk |url=http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page58.html |access-date=July 11, 2007}}</ref> Of the 159 people who were identified on lists used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence only substantially proved that nine of them had aided Soviet espionage efforts—while several hundred Soviet spies were actually known based on Venona and other evidence, most were never named by McCarthy.<ref name="johnearlhaynes62">{{cite web |last=Haynes |first=John Earl |year=2006 |title=Senator Joseph McCarthy's Lists and Venona |url=http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html |access-date=August 31, 2006}}</ref>{{sfn|Haynes|Klehr |2000}}