Question

After Senator Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that hundreds of government officials were communists, he sent a telegram to President Truman to inform the president of his claims. Click here to read a draft of Truman’s response to McCarthy. Historians believe that this reply was not sent to the senator. How do you think McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade might have been affected if Truman’s letter had been sent and made public? Why do you think the president wrote but did not send the letter?

Answer 1

I found this draft and reply from the online archive of the Truman Library:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/exhibit_documents/index.php?pagenumber=1&titleid=203&tldate=1950-02-11&collectionid=mccarthy&PageID=-1&groupid=3435

Is that what you're talking about? If it is, then McCarthy might have been exposed as a ruthless fanatic prone to using threats and blackmail to get his way, even to the face of the President. It would have painted him in an ugly light and might have sped his downfall.

One reason the President might not have sent it was that it wasn't the kind of thing you want to hear from the Oval Office. The tone of the message was very personal and could have been used to embarrass Truman which is what happened when he replied to a music critic who wrote a negative review of his daughter's performance. In that incident, he told him "Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!"

Answer 2

I disagree. Truman's popularity in early 1950 was low and falling. His Gallup approval was under 40%, and he had just barely won the election of 1948. He was in no position to take down the reputation of anybody -- it was rather he that needed help in that department.

Furthermore, anti-Communism was thick in the air in early 1950, not least of all because of the Berlin Airlift Crisis, which had just ended in 1949, and more broadly the failure of the USSR to allow free elections in Eastern Europe (Churchill had coined the term "Iron Curtain" in a speech in 1946.) Additionally, the Soviets had just exploded their first atomic bomb, in the summer of 1949, to the enormous shock of the United States public. It was suspected -- and would soon be confirmed -- that this had only been made possible by the treason of Americans. The government already knew that Klaus Fuchs, a British citizen and atomic physicists, had spied for the Soviets. Fuchs confessed in January of 1950. On his evidence, and the evidence of the then-secret Venona decrypts, the Rosenbergs would be arrested and indicted later that year for atomic espionage. It's difficult to overestimate how outraged the US public was that the secret of the atomic bomb had been sold to the Soviets by Americans and allies betraying their country. It was very natural to want to find out if there were any more betrayers.

Finally, Truman might have seemed like a hypocrite. He was a staunch anti-Communist himself, and instituted a "loyalty oath" program in the late 1940s. He opened military conflict with the Communist North Koreans later that year. He was also famous for having held sharp hearings on corruption in government when he himself was in the Senate.

McCarthy was flamboyant, but he was only riding the wave of the times. Had Truman made such a personal and ineffective counter-attack (note that Truman cites no specific evidence that McCarthy is wrong), I think it would actually have strengthened McCarthy's hand and weakend Truman's. Very likely, Truman himself, who was no dummy, made the same calculation and this is why he did not send the telegram. Truman was a hot-tempered man, and there are probably a lot of letters and telegrams that he wrote and then didn't actually send.