This Day in TV History (Murrow Assails McCarthy-Bred Fear and ‘Age of Unreason’)

March 9, 1954—In a hard-hitting takedown of unusual daring for television news at the time, CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow (pictured) spotlighted to a nationwide audience the dangers to American civil liberties posed by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the Red Scare engulfing America. 

The year before, Murrow had given over an entire episode of his show See It Now to Milo Radulovich, a 28-year-old lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve, who was discharged as a security risk because of allegedly communistic sympathies of his father and sister. 

But this time on See It Now, Murrow was going directly at the senator who, in just four years, had ridden the fear of Communism gripping the nation to a position where he had intimidated not just ordinary citizens and government bureaucrats, but even his own peers on Capitol Hill. Murrow employed no investigatory work, merely used McCarthy’s own words to demonstrate the grave damage he had done.

Murrow later acknowledged ruefully that he should have confronted McCarthy sooner. Nor was he responsible for bringing him down: that distinction belongs, in varying degrees, to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, so incensed that “Tail Gunner Joe” was going after the institution to which Ike had devoted himself the last four decades—the military—that he employed behind-the-scenes surrogates like Richard Nixon to undercut him; and then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, who carefully marshalled the votes leading to the censure of McCarthy by his colleagues a half-year later.

But Murrow did bring the resources of the still-fledgling medium of television journalism to extremely controversial subject matter, and—for all his initial caution in finally taking on McCarthy—he never walked it back or stilled his voice thereafter, and survived the senator’s subsequent attempt to smear him on camera.

The broadcast aired despite deep concern shading into disapproval by CBS brass, including company head William S. Paley. Only two months before the broadcast, American public opinion still ran half in favor of McCarthy and only 29% against, according to a Gallup poll. Paley feared that he would lose the sponsor of See It Now, Alcoa--and, in fact, that company did not renew their contract with CBS.

Yet in the wake of that show, followed by an ineffectual rebuttal by the Senator and Murrow’s unflinching denial of McCarthy’s attempt to smear him, responses ran 15-1 in favor of Murrow, according to Jim Willis’ 100 Media Moments that Changed America.

That night, Murrow took on what had troubled his journalist colleagues: how to bring the American public face to face with a demagogue of unparalleled recklessness, cupidity and cruelty. That same dilemma has become an overriding concern of today’s journalists as well, as they try to report, news that Donald Trump would rather not hear. 

For a long time, I did not believe that the conditions were right in America for the appearance of another Joe McCarthy. But in the last few years, the conviction has hardened in me that Trump is not only McCarthy’s natural successor, but in certain ways is even worse. 

McCarthy, after all, had to content himself with the not-inconsiderable powers given to Senators to conduct hearings on matters that call for legislation. Trump, though, has the full power of the Presidency behind him. 

Moreover, alcoholism not only hastened McCarthy’s descent from influence and ensured he would not make a comeback, but sped him to an early death, at age 48, from cirrhosis of the liver. On the other hand, Trump—with older brother Fred as a warning example—has avoided substance abuse.

The greatest factor differentiating Trump from McCarthy, however, derives from Trump’s fortune. No other occupant of the Oval Office has ever combined the inherent powers of this position with the financial resources of a billionaire—commercial influence he has continued to wield even after entering the White House.

It is rich indeed that Trump has decried the Mueller investigation as a “Witch hunt” and an example of “McCarthyism” in his daily tweets, for reasons going back the oft-noted fact that his friend and attorney when he was just starting out was Roy Cohn, who in his youth had been McCarthy’s chief counsel. 

Trump hopes that the longtime understanding of “McCarthyism”—i.e., guilt by association—will work wonders with followers who see nothing wrong with hanging out with Russians. But the term  also represents charges sprayed out indiscriminately, without a shred of evidence, even contradictory at points. When proof is requested of the politician, he offers distraction rather than evidence. 

Thus, McCarthy, in the event bringing him to the world stage, saying he had “in my hands a list of 205 names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party,” kept changing the number. Thus Trump, having made a big splash with GOP voters by calling for Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate to prove he was a U.S. citizen, eventually not only admitted that Obama was, but ludicrously suggested that the falsehood had been spread by Hilary Clinton rather than himself. 

In other respects, the press in both cases found it difficult to pierce the veil of lies woven by the Senator and the President:

*Each had a strong right-wing media “amen corner.” The Hearst organization enjoyed a direct link to McCarthy through Cohn and the latter’s close young friend, David Schine; Trump enjoys the near-total support of Fox News.

*GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill started out believing they could use McCarthy and Trump for their own purposes, only to crumble spinelessly when he influenced the party faithful against anyone who spoke out against him. In 1950, "growing numbers of Republicans were convinced that McCarthyism was their ticket to political power," wrote Thomas C. Reeves in his 1982 biography, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy. They were right in that assumption, but wrong in believing that they could simply use him with no danger to themselves. After seeing McCarthy help defeat a critic, conservative Democrat Millard Tydings, Republican senators were terrified of taking him on. Similarly, even Republicans who harshly criticized Trump during the primaries, such as Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, have fallen in line after witnessing the rank-and-file’s support of the President.

*The menace of physical assault hung in the air around journalists covering the demagogue. McCarthy’s assault on muckraker Drew Pearson was so shockingly brutal (a knee to the groin, followed by a slap) that it even met with disapproval by otherwise sympathetic conservative historian Arthur Herman; Trump merely excites crowds against journalists such as Katy Tur, or praises a congressman (Greg Gianforte, R-Mont.) for pummeling a reporter.

In dealing with McCarthy, Murrow had to depart from one of the tenets of journalism—objectivity. His “Report” would not be a “he said, they said,” point-counterpoint presentation of points of view. He was reporting in a way that left no doubt whatsoever how he felt about what he called the Senator’s “methods.” 

Contemporary journalists face a not-dissimilar problem with Trump. His relationship to the truth has been so casual that they have increasingly transitioned how they process his claims. Early in his White House, stories would say that Trump's claims were "without evidence." Now, they are increasingly calling these outright "falsehoods." But as this reporting becomes more aggressive, it leaves the media open to being called by the President "enemies of the people."

They would do well to go back to Murrow's original broadcast.  

Though most of his report used McCarthy’s words against him, the closing was in Murrow's own words. Unlike in much of today's journalism, whether from the right or left, a tone of sobriety infuses the message and raises it to a level of eloquence virtually unimaginable now. The words are as searing to read as to listen to and watch:

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. 

“This is no time for men who oppose Senator [Joseph] McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. 

“We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. 

“And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’"