According to reports in the New York Times the other day, everybody's favorite G-Man, J Edgar Hoover, prepared a plan to round up and "detain" twelve thousand dissidents and suspected subversives for Harry Truman's approval in 1950. The Korean War was on, and Hoover believed that the Nation was crawling with com-symp fifth columnists whose detention in camps was the only way to prevent the overthrow of The American Way Of Life by Our Sworn Enemies and Stalin.
The Times says that there is no indication that Harry S Truman ever approved this plan, nor that any particular dissidents, com-symps and fifth columnists were rounded up because of it. Habeus Corpus survived. That time. The Existential Threat of Korean Hordes paddling ashore at Santa Monica faded.
But McCarthyism and the long reach of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee did the job that Hoover and his G-Men wanted to do, without round ups or detentions. They did their job through innuendo, accusation, and intimidation.
The Times doesn't name any of these 12,000 potential detainees, but isn't it more than likely the Lists were circulated during the early years of Post-WWII Anti-Communist Hysteria?
How many names are on the NoFly Lists and Other Homeland Security Lists circulating today? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? And when will our favorite cadaver, the Honorable Michael Chertoff, find it convenient to commence "dealing" with these suspects?
Just remember: You're next.
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