JFK BETWEEN ROCK & A HARD PLACE ON MCCARTHY CENSURE

JFK DOES NOT CAST VOTE ON CENSURE OF JOSEPH MCCARTHY

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) The Senate of the United States voted 65-22 to censure Joseph McCarthy* (R-Wisconsin) 63 years ago, December 2, 1954.

The censure resolution was for 'conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.'  

The road to censure began in February 1950 when McCarthy said he had a list of 205 employees in the State Department who were communists.

By 1954, McCarthy's lack of evidence and use of bullying tactics were observed by millions of Americans on live television in the Army-McCarthy Hearings.

Public opinion quickly turned against the Senator.  

John F. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), recuperating from a back operation, did not cast a vote and was the only senator not to go on record against McCarthy.

Chris Matthews says that Ken O'Donnell, who ran JFK's Boston office, "insisted that Jack's voting against McCarthy would be 'political suicide'."

Ted Sorensen, JFK's speech writer, saw the Senator's position as being between a rock and a hard place.  If he voted for censure, "he would be defying...his home state and family," but if he voted against censure, he would be denounced by party leaders, liberals and intellectuals.

*Joseph McCarthy was born in Grande Chute, Wisconsin.  He earned his law degree at Marquette in 1935 and became the youngest circuit judge in Wisconsin history.  Having served in the Marine Corps in WWII, JM was elected to the US Senate in 1946 and re-elected in 1952.

SOURCE

"Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero", by Chris Matthews, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2011.

Joseph McCarthy 

Library of Congress Photo 

JOHN BROWN HANGED

JOHN BROWN HANGED 155 YEARS AGO TODAY

Charles Town, Virginia (JFK+50) 155 years ago today, December 2, 1859, John Brown, having been found guilty of treason, murder and insurrection in leading a failed raid on Harper's Ferry, was hanged by the State of Virginia.

The execution, witnessed predominantly by soldiers, came at 11:15 a.m.

Brown, who had been active in the anti-slavery movement in Bleeding Kansas, had hoped to spark a slave revolt in Virginia by capturing the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry.  

He and his "provisional army" of less than twenty individuals were either killed or captured by the United States Army under leadership of Colonel Robert E. Lee.

Brown's trial, held in Charles Town resulted in the guilty verdict on November 2, 1859.  On the morning of his execution, John Brown handed a note to his guard.  The note read...

"The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."

"The Last Moments of John Brown"

 by Thomas Hovenden (1880s)

 Metropolitan Museum of Art

SENATE VOTES 65-22 TO CENSURE JOE McCARTHY

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Sixty years ago today, December 2, 1954, the United States Senate voted 65-22 to censure Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin.

The censure vote came for McCarthy's behavior of accusing government agencies as well as President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens of being "soft on communism."

Senator Joseph McCarthy

Wisconsin (R)

*Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts did not cast his vote on the censure.  He did receive some criticism for his failure to vote.  While it is a fact that JFK was recuperating from back surgery at the time of the vote, McCarthy was also a friend of the Kennedy family.