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The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Just as important as the Red Scare and McCarthyism was the latter-day reaction against it. The Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 marked the apex of Cold War fears, with "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy self-destructing in the full glare of TV lights. During the next ten years it became increasingly fashionable to attack anyone wielding Red Scare rhetoric as a more serious danger than the Soviets themselves (with the shift expressed in movies like Dr. Strangelove and The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!). By 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War, the reversal was nearly complete, and expressing fear of Communist intentions or belief in an anti-American Communist conspiracy in public was often a short path to being ridiculed as a paranoid simpleton. The dominant narrative of the Red Scare became one of an innocent American left heroically resisting an inquisition by malevolent conservatives.
The release of the Venona transcripts, and material from Eastern Bloc intelligence archives after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, added more material for the discussion of what was going on during those decades. The Soviet records show that Western anti-Communists grossly overestimated the actual capacity of the Soviets to do harm through military and economic means -- long believing, for example, that Soviet nuclear missile technology was superior to that of the U.S., and also grossly overestimating other measures of Soviet strength such as annual GNP. Records (Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, , Basic Books, 1999, hardcover edition, ISBN 0-465-00310-9) show that the Eastern Bloc did some spying on the West in the same manner the West was spying on the Eastern Bloc. On the other hand, many of the specific people persecuted by the McCarthy hearings (such as playwright Arthur Miller) turned out not to have played any part whatever in Soviet activities. Likewise, although Soviet intentions were indeed malignant their actual efforts were often made in ways not visualized by McCarthy and his ilk who often engaged in fantastic witchhunts unrelated to soviet efforts at infiltration, espionage and subversion.
On the other hand, interpretations as to whether Venona and Eastern Bloc archives actually give any weight to some of the major issues under contention between the left and the right in the US over the past few decades is questioned. Archives show that the Eastern Bloc was doing some spying on the West, just as the West was spying on the Eastern Bloc. And this information points to some of those spies. However, the major issues of debate - were the Western communist parties autonomous, were the Western communist parties subversive and spying on the West, were the Rosenbergs guilty of what they were charged of, was Alger Hiss guilty of what he was charged of and were some, or any, high level Democrats actually "communist subversives"...these have been the major debates over the years, and the left doesn't see Venona or the intelligence releases as proving much on any of these issues. In fact, being as Soviet agents had their names transmitted in code names and not clear text, Venona has been pointed to by those in the left following it, as evidence clearing people who were accused of being communist subversives such as Alger Hiss and Ethel Rosenberg.
Also, many of the specific people persecuted by the McCarthy hearings (such as playwright Arthur Miller) turned out not to have played any part whatever in Soviet activities. Likewise, although Soviet intentions were indeed malignant their actual efforts were often made in ways not visualized by McCarthy and his ilk who often engaged in fantastic witchhunts unrelated to soviet efforts at infiltration, espionage and subversion.
As of 2004, the controversy over the meaning of the Red Scare continues to have a polarizing effect, remaining a significant theme in the culture wars between left-liberal and conservative factions in American politics. The guilt, innocence, and good or bad intentions of the icons of the Red Scare (the Rosenbergs, McCarthy, Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, Elia Kazan) are still
kicked around as proxies for the imputed virtues or vices of their successors and sympathizers. See historical revisionism
Further reading
