mothers who never watch TV during the
day were glued to watching the army of
McCarthy hearings the television moment
of the army McCarthy hearings that is
lived in memory ever since is the the
famous moment on June 9th 1954 when
McCarthy decides to violate an agreement
that Cohn and weld should come to before
the hearings Roy Cohn although of
perfect draft age had managed to avoid
the Korean War and the draft afterwards
it was kind of astonishing
Jowell said fine I will never bring up
your draft status but we have a problem
of our own we have a young attorney
named Fred Fisher who was a member of a
communist front group while he was at
Harvard Law School and we brought him
down to work on the committee we decided
that because of his past we would send
him home and I would appreciate it if
you would never bring up Fred Fisher
throughout most of that afternoon Roy
Cohn and Joseph well she'd been having
you know your basic nasty lawyerly
argument and cones okay with it mr.
Weller sir with great respect I work for
the committee here they know how we go
about handling situations of communist
infiltration and failure to act on FBI
information about communist infiltration
and may I add my small voice sir and say
whenever you know about a subversive or
a communist or a spy please hurry
when you remember those words McCarthy
gets so angry at belches badgering of
Roy Cohn that he blurts out the name of
Fred Fisher request I think
young man named Fisher has been for a
number of years a member of an
organization which has named all years
and years ago as the legal bulwark of
the Communist Party and I have hesitated
bringing that up but I have been rather
bored with your phony request to mr.
Cohen here little did I dream you could
be so reckless and so cruel as to do an
injury to that land it is true he is
still with Halen door it is true that he
will continue to be with Halen door it
is I regret to say equally true that I
fear he shall always bear a scar
needlessly inflicted by you you look at
Roy Cohn's face and you will see him go
oh my god no please no but McCarthy
won't stop he keeps attacking I want to
say mr. Welch that it has been labeled
long before he became a member as early
as 1944 not a drop this I did you I
think no personal injury mr. Cole
no sir and if I did I beg your partner
let us not assassinate this lad further
senator let's look you look done enough
have you no sense of decency sir at long
last have you left no sense of decency
[Music]
you could see Joe McCarthy gone what did
i do what did i do Joe well she
literally has a tear in his eye this was
seen as spontaneous in fact Welsh we've
been thinking of this for months
Jim st. Clair who was second in command
to Joe Welch said we walked out the side
door the door closed behind us he winked
at me and said how did I do and they
said great you did great the fact that
McCarthy really didn't seem to have any
sense of decency and the fact that he'd
been caught publicly in lies over the
course of these six weeks the public's
capacity to trust him the belief that he
was engaged in this anti-communist
crusade has some sort of earnest attempt
to protect American society as opposed
to a demagogic bullying spree at the end
of it I think with all the illusions the
comfortable illusions that McCarthy had
cultivated by himself had effectively
been dispelled it was as if the entire
country had been waiting for somebody to
finally say this line have you no sense
of decency that to Senator McCarthy
that's the moment where McCarthy
incinerates himself on national TV
there's the moment which the dragon that
is Joseph McCarthy is finally slain
you