Maurice Rosenblatt and the fall of Joseph McCarthy

"Maurice Rosenblatt was one of the principal behind-the-scenes engineers of the 1954 overthrow of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the rabidly anti-Communist chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Most Americans today either remember or have learned about McCarthy ("Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?") and "McCarthyism," the fever of paranoia over Communist subversives that afflicted the nation in the early days of the Cold War. Few remember - or have ever heard - the name of Maurice Rosenblatt." "Veteran journalist Shelby Scates tells the story of the rise of McCarthy's power to destroy careers and livelihoods with his allegations of subversion, together with the story of Rosenblatt's role in effecting his eventual censure by the Senate. Lobbyist Maurice Rosenblatt joined with colleagues to form first the National Committee for an Effective Congress and then, increasingly alarmed, the McCarthy Clearinghouse, dedicated to stopping the demagogue's assault on civil liberties. Operating out of Rosenblatt's suite in the Carroll Arms Hotel near Capitol Hill, Clearinghouse staff lent their support to the Republican senator from Vermont, Ralph Flanders, who introduced the successful resolution to censure McCarthy and remove him from his committee chairmanship." "Drawing on interviews with Rosenblatt and other actors in the drama and on previously unresearched collections and papers, Scates tells a tale of excess and intrigue."--Jacket.