“Kim” Philby was discovered to be a Soviet spy in 1967,nNational Review proclaimed that Joe McCarthy “has beennproved right.” The following year, William F. Buckley Jr.ndeclared that “the continuing blindness” of liberals towardnCommunism was a “deep psychological problem” producingnparalysis. (As recently as March 21, 1986, on the Todaynshow, Buckley linked Philby’s discovery with McCarthy’snactivities. Roy Cohn has used the same tactic to justify thenSenator’s tactics. In fact, McCarthy failed to uncover ansingle subversive.)nWhat George Nash called “a momentous intellectualnrealignment” was underway in the early 1970’s. A distinguishedngroup of thinkers with liberal backgrounds foundnthemselves pushed to the right by chaos at home and warnabroad. National Review began publishing Nathan Glazer,nSidney Hook, Lewis Feuer, and Seymour Martin Lipset.nConservative groups and publications began to flourish,nand President Nixon was friendly. The elechon of RonaldnReagan in 1980 (“It was quite a feeling,” William Rushernsaid later) and his reelection in 1984 convinced many thatnthe future belonged to the right. In late 1985 the Presidentntold a group of cheering conservatives: “I can assure you:nNational Review is to the olEces of the West Wing of thenWhite House what People magazine is to your dentist’snwaiting room.”nAnd yet, for all of its prosperity and promise, manynintellectuals of the right continued to praise McCarthy andnpractice McCarthyism. In the 30th anniversary issue ofnNational Review, the centerpiece, a lengthy article bynJoseph Sobran, defended McCarthyism and contended thatn”liberal anti-Communism” was “something like a contradictionnin terms”:nLiberalism has turned into a component of a largernand looser version of the Popular Front. . . .nLiberal moral outrage against “corrupt andnrepressive” regimes ceases when Soviet objectivesnare achieved. … It is a foolish mistake to supposenthat the liberals are all working for Moscow. Butnonce you grasp that they are working with Moscow,neverything falls into place. The sin of liberalism isnits refusal to acknowledge that the entirenCommunist project is monstrous.nThe American Spectator has published similar declarationsnon a regular basis.nAnother influential journal. Chronicles, praised McCarthynin June 1985 as a man of courage and wit and describednMcCarthyism as “one of those populist outbreaks thatnalways alarm the intellectual classes.” The editor continued,n”It may be an irrelevant fact that the Senator was right,nthat American institutions were riddled with subversion andnrot.”nThe historical record does not corroborate such a claim.nScholars have documented the story in detail and arenvirtually unanimous in their condemnation of McCarthynand his methodology. Not a single major American historyntextbook on the college level takes even a neutral positionnon the Second Red Scare.nIn early 1986, the Reagan Administration openly practicednMcCarthyism for the first time. (Given its heritagenand ideological bent, one is impressed by its restraint.) OnnFebruary 18, Central Intelligence Agency Director WilliamnJ. Casey passed out copies, at a White House briefing fornmembers of Congress, of a classified report contending thatnthe Sandinista government of Nicaragua was engaged in an”disinformation campaign” to influence Congress and thenAmerican news media. The White House announced plansn(later dropped) to make the document public in its strugglento obtain $100 million in aid for the anti-Sandinistancontras.nRepublican Senator David F. Durenberger, chairman ofnthe Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement,n”The Administration clearly intends to use that document,nan alleged plan by the Sandinistas, to lobby Congress, tonportray every Senator and Congressman who votes againstnlethal aid as a stooge of Communism.” Several critics,nnotably liberal New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis,ncontended that the Administration was practicing McCarthyism.n(It was soon learned, however, that the Sandinistasnhad been paying a New York public affairs firm $25,000 anmonth over the past 30 months to get its message across tonthe United States. The controversial CIA document wasnbased in part on this fact.)nWhite House communications director Patrick J. Buchanannthen wrote a piece for the Washington Post contendingnthat the vote on contra aid would determine whether thenDemocratic Party “will reveal whether it stands with RonaldnReagan and the resistance—or Daniel Ortega and thenCommunists.” “Two decades ago,” Buchanan charged,n”the Democratic Party began its withdrawal from the greatnwestern coalition to contain Communist expansion, whichnit once led.”nAmid a storm of protest, the President quickly made itnclear that he backed Buchanan. Moreover, he contendednpublicly that Congress must choose between supporting thenAdministration or the Communists.nIt’s what the choice comes down to, whether it isnknowingly or not. And I’ve had enough experiencenwith Communist subversion back in my formernprofession to know that a great many people arendeceived, and not aware that what they’re doing isninimical to the interests of the United States.nDemocratic Congressman Michael D. Barnes, chairman ofnthe House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Western Hemispherenaffairs, charged that the President and his advisersnwere committing “the moral equivalent of McCarthyism,”nand added: “Frankly, I don’t believe we have heard suchnoffensive nonsense from our political leaders since then1950’s.” Several others in Congress expressed similar views.nPerhaps the right cannot easily abandon its past. Still, itsnleaders need to learn that their recent popularity cannot benattributed in any measurable degree to their embrace or usenof McCarthyism. Smear tactics were never very popular;nindeed, McCarthyism, we now know, was never an effectivenpolitical tool—not even in 1950 or 1952.nIf the right is to appeal to the educated and moderate andnforge a lasting political majority, it would do well tonreevaluate its venerable affection for the Second Red Scare.nThe time has surely come to jettison McCarthy and hisn”ism” and forget about one of the blackest episodes innAmerican history.nnnSEPTEMBEK 19861 15n