RONALD RADOSH
561
the reality of Communist intrigue as they once recognized the scope of
the fascist fifth column, the Congressional cops will run the show." Lib–
erals had to purge the Communists first, or a "witch-hunt may truly be
upon us." Ironically, years later, it was Wechsler himself who became a
major target of McCarthy, who tried through a brutal interrogation of
the anti-Communist editor to paint him as a secret Communist.
Wechsler's arguments were reinforced the same week in a parallel
article penned by Schlesinger. The historian acknowledged that the right
was using the cry of Communism to silence legitimate critics of the
American political system. Nevertheless, he also stressed that American
Communists were servants of the Soviet expansionist system, and that
the Communist Party was "a unique means of getting, recruiting and
testing potential agents," a point that has been verified most recently by
the Venona revelations.
For that reason, Schlesinger wrote that the government had a right to
discharge potential security risks "in advance of an overt act." The
problem for Schlesinger was the institution of such standards . The State
Department had denied discharged employees the right to a hearing,
and was verging on what he called "the realm of persecution." That
meant the necessity of fair standards . Like Kristol in
I952,
Schlesinger
insisted upon the need to distinguish between liberals and Communists.
"Liberals who complain when Parnell Thomas fails to distinguish
between liberals and Communists," he wrote, "should remember that
too often they have failed to make that distinction themselves."
It
was this distinction that the anti-Communist liberal intellectuals
insisted upon from the start. A former editor of
The Nation
magazine,
who did not go along with that journal's Popular Front position, tried
hard to spell out the necessary distinction. Wishing not to deny "or
belittle the inroads being made by the McCarthys on the constitutional
liberties of Americans," such as state loyalty oaths for teachers, jour–
nalist Robert Bendiner wrote, did not mean "a whole apparatus of
informers, secret police and terrorism had been imposed on the coun–
try." What liberals ignored at their own peril was the actual nature of
the American Communist Party:
After years of ridiculing every serious contention that the Commu–
nist party was. . .a conscious and active political conspiracy; of
minimizing its capacity for mischief and insisting that it was merely
another political party... .These liberal victims of self-delusion find
it hard to face that evidence that in addition
to
Red-baiters there
are also Reds.
