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And while he was an unabashed self-promoter, exaggerating details of his missions and the number of them he flew, his documents and Marine Corps records suggest that he deserved each of his 11 medals, commendations and ribbons. All of which makes his siding with the Malmedy murderers even more perplexing. With McCarthy, however, nothing was ever simple, and his political ambitions always factored in.
He was himself one-quarter German, and people with Germanic roots made up majorities in 41 of 72 Wisconsin counties. As evidence, they pointed to his casual and frequent use of anti-Jewish slurs, which even his closest friends acknowledged to biographers. Now, the Malmedy hearings suggested a deeper-seated anti-Semitism.
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McCarthy again faced accusations of an anti-Jewish fixation when, in , he went after alleged Communist subversives at the Army base at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Van Susteren, in my view, overstated the case. The incident, after all, put him on the center stage he coveted, and gained him favor with the political right that was becoming his base of support.
It was a game. He would savage an opponent in the afternoon and that evening invite him or her for a drink. He presumed his targets knew the way sport worked. Whatever combination of incentives drew McCarthy to the cause of the Malmedy killers, once he got involved, he convinced himself that what he was saying was not just right, but righteous. The fuel for his attacks came in letters air-mailed or hand-delivered from a parish priest, an ex-Nazi lawyer, and others in the American zone of a divided Germany, along with friends like Milwaukee industrialist Walter Harnischfeger.
They laid out allegations of American abuse and insisted the prisoners get clemency. McCarthy bought the claims, which also were sent to, and generally ignored by, other members of Congress. He championed proposed pardons. And once the Senate investigation got underway in the spring of , he dominated the proceedings that he was supposed to be merely observing. While he preferred to be the one asking questions, he was himself subjected to grilling by military lawyers, investigators and subcommittee senators.
It quickly became clear how ill-prepared the Wisconsin senator was, in contrast to the thoughtful experts he was challenging. His case in tatters, McCarthy turned to what would become his default tactic whenever he was cornered: His adversaries were two-faced, he raged, and a lie detector could prove it. You may be able to fool us.
Get the guys, and put the lie detector on them. His polygraph bluff gave McCarthy an excuse to storm out of the proceedings. The truth is that neither the subcommittee nor anyone else in Congress had pushed him to sit in on the Malmedy proceedings or was fazed that he was quitting. But the always-eager press did care, and so, even before McCarthy addressed his fellow senators, he was ready with a news release blasting his colleagues.
McCarthy, has lost his temper and with it, the sound impartial judgment which should be exercised in this matter. McCarthy was irrepressible. The Armed Services Committee took an unorthodox action of its own, unanimously approving a vote of confidence in Baldwin.
Introduction
Signing the measure were such lions of the chamber as Lyndon Johnson, Harry F. Byrd, William F. Everyone but McCarthy got the point. The subcommittee, meanwhile, pursued its mission to determine whether the Army had been fair in probing the massacre at Malmedy. The three senators interviewed witnesses, from the SS perpetrators and their defense team to investigators, prosecutors, judges, religious leaders and others on all sides. Everyone McCarthy asked the panel to talk to it did, and it extended him the unusual courtesy of letting a non-member cross-examine witnesses.
Prisoners were checked out by Public Health Service doctors and dentists, looking for signs of abuse.
But it was even more plain-spoken in its primary conclusions: There was little if any beating, kicking or other brutalization of prisoners. Their trials were fair. That Senate verdict notwithstanding, the military was already moving to defuse the controversies in West Germany and the United States. Bowing to popular pressure, some of the death sentences of the SS murderers had been commuted, and the rest would be. By the late s all the former SS prisoners would be freed. One of the last to walk out of prison, in December , was Joachim Peiper, commander and namesake of the SS unit that mowed down the surrendering GIs in the fields near Malmedy.
The narrative that America had reason to apologize for its handling of those murderers has persisted for three-quarters of a century not only in history texts but also in online platforms, thanks in part to the legitimacy conferred on it by the most outspoken member of the U. Some McCarthy defenders viewed Malmedy as a precursor to U. But in his recent book, The Malmedy Massacre , which draws on newly declassified documents, and in my correspondence with him, European history scholar Steven Remy sets things straight.
Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich
Virgil P. Lary Jr. But Malmedy was a warm-up act. He embraced conspiracy theories and opted not to vet propaganda when it served his political purposes. He intuited that deploying small-seeming fibs might not only go unchallenged but would tilt a narrative in his favor, for instance by referring to the SS slaughterers as younger than they were and therefore more deserving of sympathy.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this piece mentioned that McCarthy was one senator among In fact, there were only 96 senators at the time. The definitive biography of one of the most dangerous demagogues in American history, based on first-ever review of his personal and professional papers, medical and military records and recently unsealed transcripts of his closed-door Congressional hearings. Continue or Give a Gift.
Privacy Terms of Use Sign up. SmartNews History. History Archaeology. World History. Science Age of Humans. Future of Space Exploration. Here it celebrates the national fascination with the "Ninth Art," as comic-strip art is dubbed by its practitioners and aficionados. Contact Toerisme Knokke-Heist tel. Mid-June to early September. Carillon Concerts , Mechelen. Home to Belgium's Royal Carillon School, Mechelen is one of the world's centers of carillon music, in which a classically trained musician employs a keyboard to play music on clusters of bells hanging in belfries -- in this case, the tower of St.
Rombold's Cathedral. Saturday to Monday evenings, mid-June to August. June 26 to 28, ; similar dates Fri-Sun Brussels Film Festival. A 9-day feast of European films, primarily of first or second features, and by independent directors, screened at the Flagey cultural center. June 27 to July 5, ; similar dates in Entertainment , Grand-Place, Brussels. Concerts, theater, dance, exhibits, and other forms of entertainment "animate" the Grand-Place. Entire month. Ommegang , Brussels. A dramatic annual historical pageant that dates from the 13th century and represents the city guilds, magistrates, and nobles honoring the Virgin Mary.
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Participants wearing period costume from the time of the "joyous entry" of Emperor Charles V into Brussels in , escorted by a mounted cavalcade and waving medieval banners, go in procession from place du Grand Sablon to the Grand-Place. Contact Ommegang-Brussels Events tel. First Tuesday and Thursday in July. Brosella Folk and Jazz Festival , Brussels. Contact Les Amis de Brosella tel. Cactus Festival , Bruges.
A prickly summer rock festival unfolds over 3 days and attracts big names to the city. Contact Cactus Muziekcentrum tel. Belgian National Day , Brussels.