Nearing the end of the almost endless and infamous Army-McCarthy Hearings, this installment of the drama comes from June 15, 1954. The daily wrapup, with George Herman and Griffing Bancroft of CBS Radio, encapsulates the day-long hearings into a half-hour program which ran at 10:00 pm every evening.

This installment winds down the proceedings and features, among others, cross-examination of McCarthy Aide Francis Carr and McCarthy Chief Council Roy Cohn. Anticipated for the next (and possibly last) day was Joe McCarthy. Everything on this day went smoothly and, with the exception of the Press being distracted by a disturbance elsewhere in the building, was pretty humdrum by comparison with other days.

No fireworks and no wild accusations, but theater nonetheless.

Here is that daily wrapup from CBS Radio for June 15, 1954.

This first week in May of 1954 saw the beginning of the infamous Army-McCarthy Hearings regarding Communist infiltrators within the Military. This broadcast, from May 5th, wraps up the days proceedings from May 4th, which was Day Nine in the seemingly never-ending hearings.

This was one of the first gavel-to-gavel live Senate hearings to be broadcast on radio and television. The first was the legendary Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings, and the audience for those hearings went through the roof.

Likewise with the Army-McCarthy Hearings, some four years later. These hearings were epitomized by the now-famous showdown between Chief Counsel Welsh and Sen. Joe McCarthy several weeks later that ended in the quote "Have you no shame, Senator?".

These days, with C-Span, we take hearings like this for granted. But in 1954 it was a first glimpse for many into the inner-workings of Capitol Hill.

So here is Day 9 as reported by George Herman and Griffing Bancroft of CBS Radio with excerpts from the days proceedings (for those who missed it live).

August 15, 1951 - one those days they point to when dispelling the myth of the Dog Days of Summer. The ongoing Senate Crime Investigation Committee Hearings, focusing on Crime and New York Politics heard from Irving Sherman, an associate of former New York Mayor-turned Ambassador to Mexico William O'Dwyer. The problem was, Sherman didn't want the proceedings filmed or broadcast in any way, citing a distraction and a conflict with his "peace and serenity" (his words). The committee obliged and it created a storm of protest from the Press, including a very vocal denunciation from the Radio Correspondents Association. The proceedings went on anyway and Sherman painted a wildly unflattering portrait of his former pal and O'Dwyer's links to organized crime during his tenure in office.

Down the hall, House Un-American Activities Committee hearings were resuming regarding the Whittaker Chambers affair.

In another part of Capitol Hill. Debate on the new Foreign Aid bill was postponed and it was learned, with some consternation, that Great Britain was going to continue trading with Communist Bloc countries despite how the U.S. felt about it.

President Truman made an address the previous night where he lambasted the voices of the shrill, calling them "scandal mongers with rotten motives" while not naming names. And true to his paranoia, Senator Joe McCarthy swore Harry was talking about him and demanded equal time on TV and radio to answer Truman's charges.

Truce talks were deadlocked in Korea and the war dragged on. Iran rejected a British proposal to split oil profits 50-50 in the midst of Iran's nationalizing it's oil production.

And famed Piano virtuoso Artur Schnabel died in Switzerland at the age of 69 after a long illness.

All in a day and with far-reaching consequences, as reported by Edward R. Murrow And The News with Don Hollenbeck substituting from CBS Radio on August 15, 1951.

Sort of makes you wonder what under-the-radar news item today will come up and bite us in the future.

(Drew Pearson - blowing whistles, making enemies)

The name Drew Pearson is probably not remembered at all these days, but in the 1950's, when the Red Scare and the Joe McCarthy witch hunts were going full speed ahead, Pearson was one of the few commentators (Murrow probably being the most noteworthy in history) to take McCarthy to task for creating mass paranoia. His daily radio broadcast and newspaper column Washington Merry Go Round did much to expose the underlying corruption and hypocrisy on Capitol Hill. His methods were a little questionable and, like many "commentators" today, made things up at times. But the bottom line was, he shed light on areas of political life that were often conveniently ignored by the rest of mainstream media.

Of course it didn't endear him to a lot of people. Even his allies at times were taken aback by his allegations. Eventually, pressure was put on ABC Radio, his network outlet via his advertisers, to drop his daily show. And on March 29, 1953 he aired his last broadcast for a radio network.

Drew Pearson: “When Senator Nixon, now the vice-President, used a private fund for his expenses he apparently started a trend. For Homer Jameson, a Fresno sawmill operator is raising another so-called Nixon Fund for Congressman Allen Hunter of California, also a Republican. Jameson has collected over $2,000 to help pay Hunter’s political expenses. He assured my office that he is not accepting more than ten dollars from any single contributor. However, other Congressmen still think this private fund idea is bad. For a Congressman must represent his entire district, not just the people who put up a private fund for him.”

Although his show went into syndication for a while, he spent more time on his column which was eventually taken over by Jack Anderson, a Pearson protege who took over after Pearson's death in 1969.

But muckraking on the radio was alive and well and kicking in 1953.

(Small town America 1950 - yes, it was different then)

In addition to the vast array of interview shows that hit the airwaves from the 1930s on, there was also the introduction of the "week in review" in the late 1940s, largely because of the invention of the tape recorder and the ease of doing documentaries. Prior to that time, weekend roundups consisted of "dramatic recreations" of events during the week and well . . it was more than a little hokey.

In 1948 NBC Radio started their long running series Voices and Events and took the events of the previous week, highlighting the memorable bits and presenting them as a weekend addition to the discussions and interviews that made up most programs on the air at the time.

This particular installment of Voices and Events takes place on April 2, 1950 - sixty years ago this week. The world was, by and large a much different place. But some things have stayed the same - foreign aid, the lack of bi-partisanship in Washington and fear.

In 1950 Sen. Joseph McCarthy was getting warmed up on his anti-communist crusade, promising to rid the government in Washington of communist sympathizers, whom he was convinced inhabited just about every square foot of Capitol Hill. He took aim at the State Department and drew a goodly amount of scorn from former Secretaries of State who were also, as it happened to be, well-respected Republicans.

Henry McGrath, reading a letter from Henry L. Stimson (former Secretary of State): “It seems to me quite clear that the real motive for the accuser in this case is to cast discredit upon the Secretary of State of The United States. This man is not trying to get rid of known Communists in the State Department, he is hoping against hope that he will find some. Fortunately, the Secretary of State needs no defense from me. Signed, Henry L. Stimson, March 24th nineteen hundred and fifty.”

The McCarthy imbroglio would continue for a few years before it ground to a halt. But in 1950, Communism and all things Communist were suspect.

And that was just a sampling of what went on this week, sixty years ago.

(House Un-American Activities Hearings - no, they weren't trials . . much)

As the hysteria over Communist infiltration of everything American reached its fevered pitch, questions started to arise over just what was legal and what was an abuse of our Constitutional rights as people in the midst of all this "fact finding".

The day after this broadcast of American Forum Of The Air aired (August 14, 1955) the House Un-American Activities Committee set up shop in New York to stage an inquiry over Communist activities in the Theatrical profession.

Debating the question were Representative Francis E. Walter (D-Penn) and James A. Wechsler, Editor of the New York Post.

Wechsler was no stranger to allegations of communist sympathies. He was a member of the Young Communist movement from 1934-1937 when he became disenfranchised over the Nazi-Soviet pact and renounced his membership. Still, he was the outspoken editor of The New York Post which was at the time one of the leading Liberal papers in the country (obviously pre-Murdoch).

Walter was a staunch anti-communist and chaired many of the HUAC hearings in the late 1940s to mid-1950s.

James A. Wechsler (Editor, New York Post): “What is the scope . . do you believe that your committee at this moment has the right to call anyone in the United States w ho is alleged to have been in any way, at any time in the past, linked with the Communist movement?”

Rep. Francis E. Walter (D-Penn.): “Yes, I’ll go even farther than that. I am sure that the Congress imposed upon us the obligation to call anybody which. . . who, in our judgment can throw some light on this international conspiracy insofar as it affects the security of the United States.”

It's interesting to see how many times throughout history the question of abuse of our Constitution been made and how each time the fear card is played over and over.

(1954 - not complicated, but no less surprising - even to Robert Mitchum)

(Robert Mitchum with Simone Sylva at the Cannes Film Festival 1954)

With the Korean War truce holding, Joe McCarthy stopped dead in his tracks and a gang of Puerto Rican nationals shooting up the House chamber wounding five Congressmen, 1954 would probably be less complicated than other years during the Eisenhower tenure but no less momentous. There was the fall of Dien Bien Phu and what would eventually become our foray into Southeast Asia, the landmark School Desegregation decision by The Supreme Court, the end of British occupation of Egypt - everything that would have some repercussions for the future, but what seemed at the time like orderly passage.

So today's recap of events from 1954 offers further proof that, no matter how innocent or innocuous something may seem at the time, it invariably winds up playing a major role in a future we hadn't anticipated.

(Martin Dies, 1939 - managed to take the lunatic fringe to the lunatic edge)

A few months ago I ran a piece on Martin Dies, and his infamous Dies Committee for Un-American Activities. An earlier incarnation of Joe McCarthy, Dies also managed to slide off the rails with vicious accusations and wild innuendos about people in and around power. Famously fabricating lists of "known communists", many of whom did not exist.

But just before World War 2, paranoia was rife. We were dangling on the precipice of getting involved. The war had already started by the time this address was given on October 27, 1939 and fear of being overtaken by some evil foreign entity was running rampant in the newspapers on the radio and on Capitol Hill.

So Dies took up the crusade, cloaking himself in Americanism and preaching the gospel of fear, whipping people into a state of frenzy.

Martin Dies: “These enemies within our country are not easily exposed, it is most difficult to expose fearlessly and without partisanship the termites who have ceaselessly gnawed at the pillars of this republic, because there are those who would like for us to be partisan when the question is involved. I said in the beginning of this investigation that I was determined it would be conducted without fear and without favor and that I would not hesitate to expose any man, whether he’s a Democrat or he’s a Republican. Whether he’s a New Dealer or an anti-New Dealer. Whether he works in the government or whether he’s working in industry. Only on that basis can I reconcile my attitude with my conscience. If the time has come when in the interest of political expediency and in behest to demands of party leadership I must qualify my conscience, I’ll surrender my commission and go back to private life. At least with my honor unimpaired.”

Clearly, fear and paranoia haven't gone out of fashion. And the practitioners of that fear will probably never go broke perpetuating it. The times change, the situations change, the enemies change. But the fear hate and mistrust, then as now, are all the same.

Comforting, isn't it?