March 9, 1954: On CBS Reports, Edward R. Murrow, America’s greatest journalist, exposes Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, America’s greatest domestic enemy.
McCarthy was a Marine tail-gunner in World War II, although stories of his heroism appear to have been exaggerated, including by himself. In 1946, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and the 1st 3 years of his term (1947, 1948 and 1949) were unremarkable.
But at a "Lincoln Day" speech in Wheeling, West Virginia early in 1950, he held up a piece of paper he claimed was a list of employees of the U.S. Department of State who were active members of the Communist Party. He would repeat this charge many times, but the number would change: Sometimes, it was 205; others, it would be 57; sometimes, another number.
It made McCarthy a national celebrity, at a time when most U.S. Senators were not well-known outside their respective home States. This was before 24-hour news networks, before C-SPAN, before social media. Conservatives jumped to his support. Liberals said he was wrong, even lying. Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block, who signed his cartoons "Herblock," created the term "McCarthyism," to describe the Senator's reckless smears.
But that was in The Washington Post, a liberal newspaper in those days. Most of the media of the time, dominated by newspapers, was overwhelmingly conservative, pro-business and anti-Communist. McCarthy was exactly what they were looking for. The new "Red Scare," following the earlier one of 1919 and 1920, was on.
The Republicans made big gains in both houses of Congress in 1950, and won control of both houses in 1952, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President in a landslide. But even Eisenhower had to take a back seat during the '52 campaign: He had heard McCarthy make a false charge against General George C. Marshall, and ripped McCarthy for it face-to-face.
But a Republican official told "Ike" not to defend Marshall in his speech in Milwaukee, because it would make McCarthy look bad in his bid for a 2nd term. Ike dropped the mention of Marshall, McCarthy was re-elected, and Wisconsin, not really in doubt for the Republicans that year, was won by Ike.
After his Inauguration, though, Ike was determined to keep an eye on McCarthy. And when McCarthy convinced Karl Mundt of South Dakota, another "Red-baiter" and the Chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations, to hold hearings on Communist influence in the U.S. Army, the Army's greatest living ex-officer, Eisenhower, was furious, and invoked executive privilege when McCarthy demanded documents from the U.S. Department of Defense. But, as it turned out, Ike would not be directly involved in McCarthy's downfall.
Since 1951, CBS had been broadcasting See It Now, a news program hosted by Edward R. Murrow. For the March 9, 1954 installment, Murrow and his producer and director, Fred W. Friendly, decided to expose McCarthy, by broadcasting film footage of him telling bald-faced lies, and then exposing said lies.
For example, they showed McCarthy chairing his Senate Subcommittee, and saying that the U.S. Attorney General -- not specifying whether it was the current holder of the post, Herbert Brownell, or a predecessor -- had declared the American Civil Liberties Union to be "subversive." Murrow delivered the truth:
Twice, he said the American Civil Liberties Union was listed as a subversive front. The Attorney General’s list does not, and has never, listed the ACLU as subversive. Nor does the FBI, or any other federal government agency. And the American Civil Liberties Union holds in its files letters of commendation from President Truman, President Eisenhower and General MacArthur.
Even the most conservative of Republicans, who might not have fully trusted Eisenhower, being that, in 1952, he was the candidate of the more moderate "Eastern establishment" wing of the Party, could not question the opinion of the far more conservative MacArthur.
Murrow closed by quoting McCarthy, quoting William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar:
Earlier, the Senator asked, "Upon what meat does this, our Caesar, feed?" Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare's Caesar, he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that Congressional Committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating. But the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.
His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
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 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."
Good night, and good luck.
That was Murrow's usual signoff. Half a century later, on MSNBC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann would end with Olbermann using the same signoff.
Essentially, Murrow was telling America, "You let this happen. Now, you know better. So, don't let it happen again." It was a warning that America did not remember, because Richard Nixon happened, then Ronald Reagan, then George W. Bush, and then Donald Trump.
In 1994, in a 40th Anniversary interview, for the documentary series CBS Reports, Ed's widow, Janet Murrow, a Mayflower descendant, and herself a former CBS radio broadcaster, recalled that the phone calls, the telegrams, and the mail came in 15-1 in favor of the broadcast: For every 15 saying, "Well done," she said, there was 1 that said, "You're all a bunch of Commie pinks!" Friendly was interviewed for the piece as well. He and Janet Murrow both died in 1998.
The broadcast was devastating, and it began McCarthy's fall. One week later, on March 16, what became known as "the Army-McCarthy Hearings" convened. Murrow offered McCarthy the chance to respond to the criticism with a full half-hour on See It Now. McCarthy accepted the invitation, and appeared on April 6, 1954, 4 weeks after Murrow's initial foray on the subject.
In his response, McCarthy rejected Murrow's criticism, and accused him of being a Communist sympathizer. McCarthy also accused Murrow of being a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which Murrow denied. McCarthy also made an appeal to the public by attacking his detractors, stating:
Following McCarthy's appearance, Murrow commented that the Senator had "made no reference to any statements of fact that we made." He concluded:
When the record is finally written, as it will be one day, it will answer the question: Who has helped the Communist cause, and who has served his country better, Senator McCarthy or I? I would like to be remembered by the answer to that question.
Starting on April 22, 2 American TV networks began broadcasting gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Army-McCarthy Hearings. One, the DuMont Network, was already in financial trouble. The other, ABC, the American Broadcasting Company, had begun as a radio subsidiary of NBC, and broadcasting these hearings made them a major network for the first time. DuMont was probably doomed anyway, and ABC took their place in the "Big Three" alongside NBC and CBS. The hearings exposed McCarthy to an even bigger audience, and his support crumbled.
There was a casualty. After the McCarthy piece, CBS aired news announcer Don Hollenbeck, saying he wanted "to associate myself with what Ed Murrow has just said, and say I have never been prouder of CBS." Jack O'Brian, nationally-syndicated television critic for the archconservative Hearst newspaper chain, including the flagship New York Journal-American, wrote a column on March 10 that ripped Hollenbeck for his past leftist affiliations. On June 22, Hollenbeck, only 49 years old, turned on the gas in his Manhattan apartment, and allowed it to kill him. O'Brian remained with the Hearst chain, and lived until the year 2000.
Don Hollenbeck
Joseph R. McCarthy and former New York Yankees manager Joseph V. McCarthy, both widely known as "Joe McCarthy," were both Irish, and both drank too much. Other than that, they had nothing in common. The manager was widely respected until his death in 1978, at age 90. The Senator was censured by his Senate colleagues in late 1954. In 1957, while preparing to run for re-election, died of liver failure, only 48. Ironically, Murrow, like McCarthy born in 1908, also died of substance abuse, in his case, cigarettes, in 1965.
In 2005, the film Good Night, and Good Luck dramatized the broadcast and the events leading up to it. David Strathairn played Murrow. George Clooney, who also directed, played Murrow's producer and director, Fred Friendly. Ray Wise played Don Hollenbeck. Janet Murrow was not shown as a character.
After an early screening, some people said the actor playing Senator McCarthy seemed too mean, like too much of a bully. What they didn't know was, Clooney had done exactly what Murrow had done: Use actual footage of the real McCarthy, lying through his teeth and smearing patriotic Americans. They did this to better make the point of how bad McCarthy was -- just as Murrow did.
America needed another Edward R. Murrow in 2015, to take on Donald Trump. Instead, the American media chose money, therefore ratings, therefore favorable coverage of Trump, over country and truth.
UPDATE: In 2025, Clooney played Murrow in a brief Broadway adaptation of the film Good Night, and Good Luck. Glenn Fleschler played Friendly. Clark Gregg played Hollenbeck. Again, the actual footage of McCarthy was used.
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March 9, 1954 was a Tuesday. Irish activist Bobby Sands was born. So was Jimmy Haslam, retail mogul, and owner of 3 American sports teams: The NFL's Cleveland Browns, MLS' Columbus Crew, and a minority stakeholder in the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks.
Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And there were no games scheduled in the NHL. There were 2 games in the NBA. The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 72-65 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.
And the Rochester Royals beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 70-61 -- in a game, for some reason, played not in Rochester, not in Minneapolis, but in Indianapolis, and the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (which is now named the Indiana Farmers Coliseum.)
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