No Sense of Decency

The Army-McCarthy Hearings: A Demagogue Falls and Television Takes Charge of American Politics

Robert Shogan

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?" asked attorney Robert Welch in a climactic moment in the 1954 Senate hearings that pitted Joseph R. McCarthy against the United States Army, President Dwight Eisenhower, and the rest of the political establishment. What made the confrontation unprecedented and magnified its impact was its gavel-to-gavel coverage by television. Thirty-six days of hearings transfixed the nation. With a journalist's eye for revealing detail, Robert Shogan traces the phenomenon and analyzes television's impact on government. Despite McCarthy's fall, Mr. Shogan points out, the hearings left a major item of unfinished business—the issue of McCarthyism, the strategy based on fear, smear, and guilt by association.

Ivan R. Dee

Pages: 336 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-56663-770-1 • Hardback • February 2009 • $27.50 • (£19.99)

Subjects: History / General, History / United States / 20th Century, Social Science / Media Studies

No Sense of Decency

The Army-McCarthy Hearings: A Demagogue Falls and Television Takes Charge of American Politics

Hardback

Summary

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?" asked attorney Robert Welch in a climactic moment in the 1954 Senate hearings that pitted Joseph R. McCarthy against the United States Army, President Dwight Eisenhower, and the rest of the political establishment. What made the confrontation unprecedented and magnified its impact was its gavel-to-gavel coverage by television. Thirty-six days of hearings transfixed the nation. With a journalist's eye for revealing detail, Robert Shogan traces the phenomenon and analyzes television's impact on government. Despite McCarthy's fall, Mr. Shogan points out, the hearings left a major item of unfinished business—the issue of McCarthyism, the strategy based on fear, smear, and guilt by association.

Details

Ivan R. Dee

Pages: 336 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-56663-770-1 • Hardback • February 2009 • $27.50 • (£19.99)

Subjects: History / General, History / United States / 20th Century, Social Science / Media Studies

Author

Robert Shogan, a former prizewinning national political correspondent for Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, has also written Backlash: The Killing of the New Deal; Bad News; Constant Conflict; Hard Bargain; Riddle of Power; The Fate of the Union; and The Battle of Blair Mountain. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1: The Curtain Rises
Chapter 2: A Torch in the Troubled World
Chapter 3: Racket Buster
Chapter 4: The Road to Room 318
Chapter 5: St. Ed and the Dragon
Chapter 6: At War with the Army
Chapter 7: The Soldiering of Private Schine
Chapter 8: Turning the Tide
Chapter 9: The Purloined Letter
Chapter 10: Time Out for Tears
Chapter 11: To the Bitter End
Chapter 12: Unfinished Business
Bibliography