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Comment by JohnBooty | Hacker News Reader

Generally speaking, I don't believe anybody's name was permanently tarnished by the red scare, because it turned out to be such an utter farce of a witch hunt.

But, at the time, it of course did derail careers and destroy lives.

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Joseph McCarthy's name is thoroughly tarnished.

Completely disgraced is too good for him.

And it remains a stain on Elia Kazan's reputation.

That's a simplistic outlook. Oppenheimer was a celebrated leader of the team that invented the bomb that ended the war... and then, very publicly, had his security clearance revoked and was basically dragged through the mud by the government that benefitted from his work and elevated him over others.

I would more equate it with someone being very publicly arrested for a horrible crime, only for the verdict to result in "not guilty" or the case dropped before going to court. You know, like OJ or MJ.

The red scare ruined countless families' lives. It was an absolute atrocity and continues to undermine the interests of working Americans to this day.

It is the reason union busting is "ok" and get such a bad rap.

Some people caught up in the Red Scare were guilty. The true positive rate was much smaller than it should have been, but it wasn't zero.

Guilty of being socialists?

No, spies for the Soviets.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hall

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Koval

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Gold

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Glasser

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Gregory_Silvermaster

There were many, many people in the US who betrayed their country to the Soviets because they believed in Communism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_espionage_in_the_Unit...

Went through your list. I didn’t get the sense of deep belief in communism nor antiamericanism. There seemed to be other incentives. Is there a good example?

Wikipedia isn't the right source for "the sense of deep belief", it's far too dry and factual for that.

The Rosenbergs were known as believers in Communism.

Not OP, but I would recommend on this subject a podcast I've talked about in a previous comment [1], about the life or Hoover and the red scare in light of declassified knowledge of soviet spies in the US.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36257604

I don't think you studied either Klaus Fuchs or the Rosenbergs in much detail then. Whatever the merits of their actions or the cases against them, they were certainly dedicated Communists who did their best for a cause they believed in fervently.

I should have been clear — those were the 3

Even more they believed that the fascists had to be tamed. First the German fascists, but then the root of it all, the US fascists with their Hitler support and their genocidal anti-socialist world-domination program, bringing fascism to the whole world. I wouldn't call that betrayal, you could rather argue that the US fascists betrayed the oldest democracy.

Even Oppenheimer, who was a stance Anti-Stalinist and the liberal under the fascist security clique, had the very same view and motivation. Just from the far right.

https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Event... names many more.

Afaict none of those spies were caught during the first or second Red Scare

Does the China Initiative count as a Red scare? It was recent. Didn't round up any spies either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative

Also worth noting the impact/risk of leaking nuclear secrets would mean that if you thought there was a 1% chance someone was a spy you can’t ignore that.

I'm glad communists are in the good books now

Marvel and Lucas Films need to justify their acquisition cost.

Yes, but people accused of being Russian spies now are obviously spies. No evidence needed.

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