26
PARTISAN REVIEW
site effect on me than had been suggested by those of my friends
who refuse to be alarmed by McCarthyism. A considerable group
among my oldest acquaintances, all of them veterans in the liberal
camp, talce the position that there is really no such thing as Mc–
Carthyism. There is just the individual, McCarthy, who
is
given
far more importance than he deserves by being raised to the status
of a political movement. They believe-as I do too-that our in–
tense fear of McCarthyism has been nurtured by the Communists
and directly serves the Communist purpose. But they also believe–
which I distinctly do not- that McCarthy, while assailable for his
demagogic motive and excesses, is performing a useful function by
exposing Communists; that is, they believe that whatever helps root
out Stalinism is commendable. Well, last night they had their way
with me in that for the fi rst time I confronted McCarthy as an in–
dividual rather than as a tendency. But paradoxically enough, this
experience enormously increased my fear of McCarthyism as a
phenomenon. All the time McCarthy spoke last night I found my–
self waiting for it to be my name he blared out over the air in that
awful accent of righteous condemnation. I do not mean this in the
megalomaniacal sense that I fan cy myself of sufficient importance to
command McCarthy's attention at this moment in his career. I
mean, simply, that I feel myself as little immune to his assault as
MacLeish or Schlesinger or Wechsler.
If
it were I who were now in
his path as these people are, what possible doubt can I have but
that he would do the same job on me, with as little regard for the
truth? My liberal friends who can persuade themselves that because
they are unequivocally anti-Communist they have nothing to fear
from the Communist-hunters exhibit a naivete which
IS
scarcely
credible. . ..
Why
is
it as difficult as it seems to be to hold two ideas in
one's mind at the same time, to be opposed
both
to McCarthy and
the Communists? Even with McCarthy's speech fresh in my thoughts,
I do not lose sight of the other enemy-the
soi-disant
liberals who
have made McCarthyism possible. I have been reading Irving Kris–
tors excellent review of the Lattimore case in that fine English maga–
zine,
The Twentieth Century.
It is a brief piece but the most telling
statement I have yet seen of the exact nature of Lattimore's offense;
