18 I CHRONICLESncenters of American society. In a word, the rising liberalnelite had become a liberal establishment.nThe environmentalist premises of liberalism, its socialnengineering methods, and its Utopian or meliorist implicationsnare not fundamentally distinct from those of Communism,nand indeed the two ideologies share common roots innthe pleasant fantasies of the Enlightenment as well as innwhat Whittaker Chambers called “man’s second oldestnfaith,” the promise of which “was whispered in the first daysnof the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Goodnand Evil: ‘Ye shall be as gods.'” Given the commonnpremises and roots shared by members of the new elite andnby Communists, it is not terribly surprising that they couldnwork together in administrations and institutions committednto the premises. Nor is it surprising that liberals oftennfailed to recognize the Communists among them or, whenntheir presence was pointed out, that they often failed to seenthem or the significance of their presence or even to expressnvery much concern about it.nFinally, it is not surprising either that some who began asnliberals found themselves, frustrated by the compromisesnand slow pace of conventional politics and faced with thenemergencies of global war and economic chaos, ineluctablyndrawn toward and into support for the more muscularntactics of Lenin and Stalin. Liberal ideology and thenexpectations it creates in the minds of those who believe itndo not conduce to caution, nor do they discourage thenmental habit of dividing the world into the simple dichotomiesnof the Manichean under the labels of “progessive” andn”reactionary.” “Thus,” wrote Chambers, “men who sincerelynabhorred the word Communism, in the pursuit ofncommon ends found that they were unable to distinguishnCommunists from themselves, except that it was just thenCommunists who were likely to be most forthright and mostndedicated in the common cause.”nThe discovery of Communist infiltration, then, was notnthe principal meaning of McCarthy’s activities, although itncannot be doubted that he did indeed discover and exposenCommunists in sensitive positions and, more, importantlynperhaps, the indifference of the new elite in government tontheir presence. On February 23, 1954, for example, Mrs.nMary Stalcup Markward, who had worked for the FBI as annundercover informant in the Communist Party in Washington,nDC, and had had access to Party membership files,ntestified under oath before McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommitteenon Inveshgations and identified Mrs. Annie LeenMoss, a civilian employee of the Army Signal Corps, asnhaving been to her knowledge a member of the CommunistnParty. Mrs. Moss, testifying under oath also, later deniednthis accusation and, because she appeared to be almostncompletely uneducated, was believed by many to be a mostnunlikely Communist. The Markward testimony was thusnnot widely credited at the time, and the incident appearednto be an embarrassment for Senator McCarthy.nIn the course of her testimony, however, Mrs. Moss hadnmentioned her address at “72 R Street, S.W.,” Washington,nDC. In 1958 the Subversive Activities Control Boardn(SACB), weighing the credibility of Markward as a witness,nobtained access to the membership files of the Washingtonnarea Communist Party that had been seized by the FBI.nThese files, the authenticity of which the Party did notnnnchallenge, contained a record of one Annie Lee Moss livingnat 72 R Street, S.W., in Washington. Although the SACB,nin a ruling of 1959, found that “Markward’s testimonynshould be assayed with caution,” this reassessment by thenBoard had nothing to do with the Moss case. Nor did itninvolve an insinuation of lying on the part of Markward butnrather a conflict of interpretation of how she had beenncompensated by the FBI. Moreover, even while urgingncaution in regard to Markward’s testimony, the SACBnconcluded that a finding that Markward “palpably lied ornthat she testified on this or other proceedings to a deliberatenseries of falsehoods” would not be warranted and that “innthe few instances relied upon, Markward is, with two minornexceptions, corroborated by other credited evidence.”nGiven Markward’s unequivocal identification of Moss as anParty member, the substantiation of the identification by anbipartisan and independent board through the discoverynof Moss’s name and address in Party membership files,nand the absence of any reason to believe that Markwardnhad lied, the conclusion that Moss was a Communist isninescapable.nAnother such case made public by McCarthy is that ofnEdward M. Rothschild, an employee of the GovernmentnPrinting Office, who was described under oath by his fellownworker James B. Phillips on August 17, 1953, as havingnattended meetings in 1938 for the purpose of forming anCommunist Party cell in the GPO. Mrs. Markward alsontestified under oath the same day that she had knownnRothschild’s wife, Esther, as a member of the CommunistnParty. Rothschild himself had earlier acknowledged that henwas in a position at the GPO to obtain access to classifiedninformation that was being printed and assembled there,nbut he had denied actually having done so. The witnessnPhillips related an incident in which he had observednanother employee try to steal classified data. When asked ifnthey were Communists, both Mr. and Mrs. Rothschild tooknthe Fifth Amendment. There was no reason to doubt thentestimony of Phillips and Markward, and because of Mc­nCarthy’s hearing, Rothschild was discharged from his positionnin the GPO.nIn neither the Moss nor the Rothschild case was a majornespionage investigation involved. The point is not that Mossnand Rothschild were equivalent to Alger Hiss or Kim Philbynbut that the information publicized by McCarthy’s hearingsnhad been presented to the appropriate security authoritiesnby the FBI some years before. In the case of Moss, the FBInhad offered a witness against her to the Army and to thenCivil Service Commission in 1951, three years beforenMcCarthy’s hearing, and both had ignored the Bureau andnthe witness. In the Rothschild case, the FBI had madenknown to the GPO as early as 1943—10 years beforenMcCarthy’s hearing—that information on the Rothschilds’nCommunist activities was available. In 1948 the Bureaunoffered a list of 40 witnesses against Rothschild to thenLoyalty Board of the GPO, but not one was called. In 1951nthe FBI had provided more information on Rothschild, butnthe GPO, under new security rules formulated by thenEisenhower Administration, cleared him in 1953. For all ofnthe rhetoric about the “stringent” security rules establishednunder Truman and Eisenhower, those who administerednthese rules were often either too indifferent or toon