The Redhunter and The View From Alger's Window

Dear Ron,

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I dunno.

I know Buckley and Tony Hiss extremely tangentially. When Buckley told me a couple of years ago that he was writing a novel about McCarthy, I was intrigued. If anyone could turn that oaf into a genuine human being, I figured it was Buckley, who shared many of his political views, but none of his oafishness. On the other hand, when I heard Tony Hiss was writing another book about his dad, my heart sunk. Tony is a nice guy and a skilled writer, but probably the last person on earth who can hope to exonerate his old man--whom virtually everyone who cares about such things has decided to be guilty.

Lo and behold, on aesthetic grounds at least, both authors have proved me wrong. Buckley has written a lumbering, themeless pudding of a novel that forces one's eyelids shut like an invisible vise. Its characters lie dead on the page. Buckley offers up unconvincing excuses for McCarthy's carelessness with numbers--it turns out there were two lists--and he blames many of his excesses on Roy Cohn. But what drove the man? Why did he see a Commies sign on every liberal? Why did he attack such obviously patriotic Americans as George Marshall? Why did he call his Senate colleagues the "unwitting handmaiden" of the Communist Party? In other words, why was he such a nut? Buckley gives us not a clue. I wanted to like this book. I am not immune to Buckley's charms. Little, Brown is my publisher. But The Redhunter feels phoned in from Gstaad--or perhaps dictated from Nassau on ship-to-shore.

Moreover, Buckley does not even touch on the far more significant political question: What was (and is) the source of McCarthy's political appeal? After all, American politics is filled with fanatics, but McCarthy was, for a time, the most important political figure in the country. Eisenhower had to swallow his pride and stand by his side at a political rally in Wisconsin. John Kennedy never had an unkind word to say about him. Much of Hollywood and academia bowed to his drunken tirades. Even after his disgrace, respectable politicians such as Lyndon Johnson, Everett Dirksen, and ... ahem ... Richard Nixon, as well as about a gazillion Catholic priests, flocked to pay him tribute. Even today, he has respectable fans, including Buckley, Pat Buchanan, Elliott Abrams, and Nicholas von Hoffman. What accounts for the soft spot for so transparent a demagogue in what was then (and is today) the world's wealthiest, most powerful nation?

On the other hand, Tony Hiss has done for Alger exactly what Sam Tanenhaus did for Whittaker Chambers in his fine biography. He has given him flesh and blood, made him a credible and somewhat sympathetic figure. I don't agree that the book is an attempt to "seek nothing less than vindication for Alger Hiss from the judgment of History." I think it is an attempt--almost wholly successful--to turn a "case" into a "person."

I am actually agnostic on the question of Alger Hiss' guilt or innocence. I have studied the case in some detail for a book I am writing, and the only conclusion I have come to is that one of these men is perhaps the greatest liar in history. Most of my liberal friends now think Hiss guilty. This is not because of the Venona intercepts--which I have studied but find inconclusive. (We can argue about that, but I imagine it would bore Slate readers to death.) The reason Alger seems guilty to many fair-minded people is that Chambers had a narrative that sounded convincing and Alger never did. Alger acted as if he had never met a Communist his whole life, which is hard to believe, given the circles in which he traveled as a liberal New Dealer during the height of the Popular Front. Thus Chambers, who was an admitted Communist, traitor, perjurer, and closeted homosexual (and therefore easily blackmailable) carried the day.

Well, it may be true, but in restoring Alger's humanity, his son has done history the favor of making his father's story more understandable. Though this hardly exonerates him, it helps. What's more, it's a beautiful book.

Just in case our editors think this high-minded exchange needs a few fireworks, here's one to get us started. I have others, but I approach the limits of the fearful IAS (Internet Attention Span):

Why are the big Commie-hunters all such weirdos, particularly sexually? Chambers and Roy Cohn were both closeted homosexuals. J. Edgar Hoover may or may not have worn dresses to private parties, but he did have a rather strange relationship with Clyde Tolson. And new evidence has recently appeared that suggests that McCarthy enjoyed the occasional rear-entry delivery. Don't get me wrong. I think being gay actually improves McCarthy as a human being. But what is the connection between repressed homosexuality and Communist paranoia?

Curiously yours,
Eric

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Eric Alterman is a columnist for The Nation and the author of Who Speaks for America? (click here to buy the book). Ronald Radosh is senior research associate at the Center for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University and co-author, with Harvey Klehr, of The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism (click here to buy the book). This week they discuss The Redhunter: A Novel Based on the Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy, by William F. Buckley Jr. (click here to buy the book), and The View From Alger's Window: A Son's Memoir, by Tony Hiss (click here to buy the book). Addendum: William Buckley Quotes Himself in Self-Defense

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