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Revised THREAD: This is a story about our country, at a different time of crisis. It resonates in current circumstances and, I hope, will give comfort to my fellow resisters. We've been here, or almost here, before. And we'll prevail, as we have before.
In 1954, Sen. Joe McCarthy was in full flood. Hearings were called to determine if the Senator had improperly pressured the Army on behalf of a protege. The Army hired, as its counsel, a Boston lawyer, Joseph N. Welch.
In an episode that has entered national lore, Sen. McCarthy attempted to derail Welch's questioning by suddenly announcing that he had evidence that one of Welch's junior colleagues, Fred Fisher, was or had been a communist.
Welch defended his young colleague with words that most can now quote: "At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency ?" It was, many now say, the beginning of McCarthy's implosion.
Here, in 21 pages, is Fred Fisher's insider's account of those events, never published before outside the law firm in which he and Welch both spent their careers. Fisher wrote it in 1963, three years after Welch's death.
The McCarthy story starts on p. 5. It is a remarkable story. As Fisher tells it, "In many ways there was a government within a government -- and the country was on the verge of a palace revolution.
Read how the most senior people in government could only meet in secret, in safe houses in Georgetown. How they only spoke on public pay phones, for fear of tapping, and how they took taxis rather than official cars for fear of being tracked.
We sometimes feel, I think, that our present crisis is without precedent. It is, certainly, unprecedented in many ways, but the crisis of confidence in our government, and our ability to sustain our democracy, is *not* unprecedented.
An explanation: this paper came into my possession in 1979 when I worked at Hale and Dorr, the Boston law firm where Welch and Fisher spent their careers. It was a treasured piece of that firm's heritage, now carried on by Bob Mueller, Jim Quarles and others at Wilmer Hale.
I publish the paper here with the firm's permission.
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We all draw on the strength of our predecessors in defending our democracy. The events recounted here are part of what I draw on.
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Many will note the reference to Jim St. Clair in Fisher's paper. St. Clair was later Nixon's lawyer in the Watergate crisis.
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