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).

(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.

(The Communist Party USA in 1947 - Come Brother, let us go underground together!)

Most people have no idea there was a legitimate Communist Party of the USA from 1919 to the early 1950s. They had candidates for various offices, from President to City Council, had conventions and were rather visible. In fact, they were so visible, a lot of people joined up - and that's what got them in trouble from around 1939, when the Dies Committee started investigating Un-American activities until their official banning during the Cold War period in the late 1940s. At their peak they boasted some 200,000 members, which shrank considerably when the Soviet Union signed the non-aggression pact with Germany prior to the Invasion of Poland. The Communist promise, at least Soviet style, left a bad taste in many mouths.

But in 1947 the debate heated up as to whether such an organization could any longer be considered a legitimate political group, with the current state of frozen relations between the U.S. and the Communist bloc countries. The fear was the American Communists would seek to overthrow the government with direct orders from Moscow and reek havoc in the process of doing it. The argument against banning them was, forcing them underground would make them more difficult to locate, as the actual bomb-tossing, agitating fringe were routinely rounded up and arrested on espionage charges when the group was legal anyway.

It's the old human nature argument that when you tell someone they can't do something, it makes them want to do it more. But there was big fear in the country at the time and this episode of Town Meeting Of The Air from April 3, 1947 asked the question "Should The Communist Party Be Banned In The U.S.?" brought a panel that consisted of Joseph McCarthy, newly elected Senator from Wisconsin. Former Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall, Edward Arthur Hayes of the American Legion and Leo Cherne of the Research Institute of America.

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